Japanese company Kawasaki unveiled for the first time the naval version concept of their high energy laser system at DSEI 2025 taking place in the Chiba prefecture.
Even though the company stresses the naval version is still a concept, a glimpse of the design was displayed on their booth showing the possible capabilities of such system for Japanese naval platforms.
Still at early stage of development, Kawasaki told Naval News some years will be needed to get a mature product and they are still expecting the Japanese Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) to officially launch the program with hopes to be involved.
For the record, in 2024, the MoD asked for 19.1 billion yen ($132 million) for FY2025 budget to conduct research on a ship-based high-power laser system capable of dealing with the new threat of large numbers of small unmanned aircraft. For now and as already reported by Naval News, the only scheduled ships that should be fitted with high-power laser system will be the Aegis Equipped System Vessels (ASEV) destroyers after 2032.
Japan is now officially part of a small group of nations Naval News is aware of that develop their own direct energy weapon system. The group includes the US with several programs ongoing, the UK with the Dragonfire, Germany with the LWD co-developed between Rheinmetall and MBDA, France and its HELMA-P, and probably China which tested what appeared like an energy weapon on a Type 071 amphibious transport dock.
Kawasaki has already a backstory with direct energy weapon as it has been working on two different versions of laser systems for a few years now: one of 100KW that would be mounted on large vehicles and another much less powerful but very precise of 2 KW and capable to neutralize a UAV at several hundred meters. Tests for the two land-based systems started from 2023 with ATLA – Japanese defence research and procurement agency.
Keeping its trajectory to develop a system to counter UAVs at much lower costs, Kawasaki relies on its feedback from the land laser systems they have developed to pursue with the development of a naval version one. If Kawasaki’s representatives remained very discreet about the technical features the system could possess, it is seen mainly as a counter unmanned aerial system and possibly in the future a way to intercept missiles.
Issues often drawn out by the navies is not the precision capability but the rate of firing and also the lack of power to neutralize large targets. Indeed, direct energy weapons can take some time to power up again, which could be quite inefficient in front of a swarm of drones, and are for now quite limited in terms of power as they lack of a large source of energy aboard the ship. To counter a bit these effects, KHI works on very agile tower and an optic with a large diameter to obtain a larger beam and capable to deliver a large power.
For now, figures including ranges, power and other technical details have not been detailed and are yet to be figured out by Kawasaki. Time will tell.
