The Army's Laser Stryker Is in Trouble
The service's Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) laser weapon system is "not mature enough" for duty yet, according to a new GAO report.
The US Army has not only delayed production of its Stryker-mounted high-energy laser weapon system by two years, but is considering ditching the infantry fighting vehicle entirely as its preferred ground-based mobile laser platform, according to a new report from the US government’s top watchdog.
The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), which manages the service’s directed energy efforts, has delayed the 50 kilowatt Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD) system’s formal transition to a program office by two years “after results from the prototype system demonstration and experimentation events determined that the system was not mature enough to support the transition,” according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published on June 17.
“Consequently, the effort will not begin production in fiscal year 2025 as previously planned, production is now expected to begin in fiscal year 2027,” the report says, with Army officials stating that the service is now “considering a new configuration” for the system “that does not include the Stryker platform on which it is currently mounted.”
The GAO report does not provide additional details about the logic of this decision. The RCCTO did not immediately respond to a request for information from Laser Wars.
The DE M-SHORAD system, informally dubbed “Guardian” by Army officials, is designed to provide an efficient, cost-effective short-range air defense against rocket, artillery, and mortar fire and hostile drones like those of which have increasingly menaced US troops across the Middle East in recent years.
A descendent of the 5 kw Mobile Experimental High Energy Laser (MEHEL) and 50 kw Multi-Mission High Energy Laser (MMHEL) systems that have been in development since at least before 2017, the DE M-SHORAD consists of a Raytheon laser weapon system integrated (with assistance from Kord Technologies) into the tried-and-true General Dynamics Land Systems Stryker vehicle. (Separately, Leonardo DRS and a group of defense industry partners have also been pitching the Army on their own counter-drone variant of the Stryker outfitted with a 26 kw BlueHalo LOCUST Laser Weapon System).
“The unique design of the DE M-SHORAD leverages the Stryker's gas-powered engine to energize its batteries, cooling system, and laser,” according to a 2021 Army release on the effort. “The self-contained system has enough electricity to address multiple threats at a time before needing a period to recharge.”
According to federal contacting data analyzed by defense market intelligence group Obviant, the Army has spent $391.3 million on the DE M-SHORAD effort since fiscal year 2023, with plans on shelling out an an additional $688.8 million through fiscal year 2029.
The GAO’s assessment of the DE M-SHORAD isn’t completely surprising. After taking delivery of four of the systems in late 2023, the Army deployed the platoon to Iraq for “real-world testing” the following March. While the specific results of that testing remains unclear, the feedback from soldiers tasked with actually operating the new systems was less than positive, according to Army acquisition boss Doug Bush,
“What we’re finding is where the challenges are with directed energy at different power levels,” Bush told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2024, per Breaking Defense. “That [50 kw] power level is proving challenging to incorporate into a vehicle that has to move around constantly — the heat dissipation, the amount of electronics, kind of the wear and tear of a vehicle in a tactical environment versus a fixed site.”
The Army currently has a slew of additional laser weapons at various stages of development, including the 20 kw Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL) which, based on BlueHalo’s LOCUST LWS, is actively watching over US troops deployed overseas; the Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) that’s currently undergoing testing; and the Army Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) that recently showed up mounted on an Infantry Squad Vehicle at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in early April. A RCCTO spokesperson previously told Laser Wars that the service would also receive a pair of laser-equipped Joint Light Tactical Vehicles sometime in fiscal year 2025.
Ironically, the DE M-SHORAD system hit a major milestone just days before the GAO report dropped. On June 12, the system was formally inducted into the Museum at the Air Defense Artillery Training Support Facility at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, a major training and education installation for air defenders. The Army claimed the induction “recognizes not only a groundbreaking technological achievement, but also the historic significance of the system and the innovative tactics developed to employ it.”
The DE M-SHORAD “represents a critical step forward in how the Army counters aerial threats," said Brig. Gen. Glenn Henke, Commandant of the US Army Air Defense Artillery School, during the induction ceremony. "Its induction into the Fort Sill Museum not only honors a major milestone in directed energy development but also reinforces the Army's commitment to integrating cutting edge technologies that enhance force protection and battlefield dominance.”
If the Army ends up walking away from the Stryker as its laser workhorse, it will mark a major pivot in the service’s directed energy roadmap and underscore the persistent technological hurdles that come with deploying high-energy lasers in maneuver units. The same challenges that have hampered airborne and naval laser weapons — power generation, heat management, and mobility — are proving just as difficult on land.
But even as the DE M-SHORAD effort stalls, the Army’s endgame appears unchanged: building a directed energy kill chain that can cheaply and precisely counter the kinds of low-cost drones that continue to threaten US troops overseas. Whether that future includes the Stryker, or something entirely new, remains to be seen.