AAWSAP DIRD, State of the Art and Evolution of High-Energy Lasers, March 2010

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Figure 13. Army Mobile Tactical Unit
Figure 14. Air Force Airborne Laser Laboratory
In 1973, a new chemical laser technology, based on deuterium fluoride (DF), was
determined to be scalable to high power at mid-infrared wavelengths which propagate
far better in the atmosphere than CO2 laser beams. The Navy and ARPA jointly built a
multi-hundred-kW class laser and mated it with a 70 cm beam director. In March 1978,
this integrated system succeeded destroying operational TOW anti-tank missiles in
flight.
The Navy then used this technology to produce the nation's first MW-class HEL weapon
test bed. The Mid-lnfraRed Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL, Figure 15) and the
Sealite Beam Director (SLBD, Figure 11) were installed and integrated at White Sands
Missile Range in the mid-1980s and used for experiments by the Department of
Defense. Subsonic drones and multi-mach missiles as well as strapped down ICBM
boosters were among the many targets successfully engaged.
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