http://www.janes.com/defence/land_forces/news/jdw/jdw041101_1_n.shtml Northrop unveils laser to counter mortar attacks By Michael Sirak JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC
Northrop Grumman has offered the US Army a directed-energy laser weapon - which it says could be available within 18 months of a contract - to counter the mortar threat to US and coalition forces currently operating in Iraq.
The concept, dubbed the High Energy Laser for Rocket, Artillery and Mortar (HELRAM) defence system, has grown out of the company's continuing work on a deuterium-fluoride chemical laser system under the joint US Army-Israeli Ministry of Defence Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) programme.
Patrick Caruana, Northrop Grumman vice president for Missile and Space Defense, said the HELRAM concept stems from the company's desire to offer a nearer-term means of shooting down mortar rounds in flight as well as rockets and artillery shells before MTHEL is available: an MTHEL prototype is expected by the end of the decade for testing.
"We have already demonstrated at our test site the shootdown capability against medium and heavy mortar [rounds]," he told JDW on 26 October, referring to tests on 24 August during which
the THEL testbed shot down seven mortar rounds, including three during a salvo attack. "That gave us a good deal of confidence that what we had was the ability to engage these threats and kill them."