- Overview: The Indian Navy has fundamentally altered the rules of naval warfare. Today, a 100-kilowatt Directed Energy Weapon (DEW), codenamed ‘DURGA-II’, was successfully mounted and tested on the stealth destroyer INS Kolkata.
- Key Points:
- Speed of Light Defense: DURGA-II fires a concentrated beam of invisible laser energy. It can melt the wings off an incoming hostile drone or blind a cruise missile at the exact speed of light.
- The Infinite Magazine: Traditional warships carry a limited number of interceptor missiles. A laser weapon, however, never runs out of ammunition as long as the ship’s engine is generating electricity.
- Swarm Drone Killer: This technology is the ultimate counter to cheap, mass-produced “kamikaze” drone swarms that adversaries are currently using to overwhelm traditional missile defenses.
- Indigenous Triumph: Developed by the DRDO’s Laser Science and Technology Centre (LASTEC), this deployment places India in an elite tier of navies possessing operational directed-energy weapons
- Q1. In modern defense technology, what is the primary operational advantage of a Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) over a traditional kinetic missile?
- DEWs can operate completely submerged underwater.
- DEWs possess an “infinite magazine” and boast an incredibly low cost per shot, requiring only electrical power to fire.
- DEWs bypass the Earth’s curvature to strike targets on the other side of the globe.
- DEWs leave behind a cloud of radioactive fallout to deter infantry.
