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2 Overview
Pages 3-17

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From page 3...
... WORKSHOP SCOPE For this workshop, "directed energy" refers to both coherent light beams produced by lasers and directed beams of microwave radiation. Although the workshop title and the TOR refer to directed energy broadly, the focus throughout the workshop, with the Air Force topic champion's consent, was on directed energy for weapons applications, not lower-power applications for directed energy such as laser designators or lasers used primarily as sensor components (for example, laser direction and range-finding, or LADAR, applications)
From page 4...
... The general guidance for Session 1 and Session 2, as well as the presenter-specific guidance for Session 3, are included in Chapter 3. RECURRING THEMES FROM THE THREE WORKSHOP SESSIONS A number of themes emerged from individuals' comments and the discussions during the first session and were iterated, with varying amounts of refinement, extension, or revision, by additional individual comments during the second and third sessions.
From page 5...
... Several others agreed. • Instead of DEW concepts being touted as a one-for-one replacement for conventional options, one participant suggested, look for other advantages directed energy brings and how to use it in new ways.
From page 6...
... Air Force Applications," presentation to the workshop on February 27, 2013. • A view expressed at the end of Day 1, Session 1, is that the operational community needs to better understand the trade space for DEW versus kinetic solutions (i.e., bullets, bombs, or explosive-delivering missiles)
From page 7...
... . A technology maturity issue that arose early in the first session, which continued to be brought up during Sessions 2 and 3, concerns the SWaP requirements for HEL systems of sufficient power or energy to add paradigm-changing weapons capability to Air Force aircraft.
From page 8...
... Particularly during Session 1, several participants said or implied that a lack of understanding of DEW by Air Force warfighters was an important factor in why DEW technology has not yet achieved operational capability. But several other participants said or implied that the DEW R&D community lacked credibility because of overpromising in the past, either with respect to ultimate technology capability or (more often)
From page 9...
... One line of argument suggested by a participant was that, since other countries are fielding HEL weapon systems and moving out on DEW systems (for example, the Russians have an airborne laser that they say will go operational) , should not the Air Force be moving forward with DEW capabilities for its missions?
From page 10...
... Digging deeper into the issue of current priority-setting processes and how well they work, some comments implied that the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process was an impediment to transitioning good DEW concepts, and some other 10
From page 11...
... By the beginning of Session 2, however, the chair stated clearly that ground-based defense of U.S bases or other overseas military assets was a legally mandated Army mission, not an Air Force mission. Many participants accepted this statutory reality, but the Air Force's interest in and potential responsibility for defense of overseas air bases recurred several times as a topic of extended discussion during both Sessions 2 and 3.
From page 12...
... Still other participants thought the Air Force may need to do development and system transition of its own, if the Army's base defense systems were not demonstrably successful against threats such as cruise missiles, longer-range ballistic missiles, aircraft, and potential threats such as swarms of armed RPAs. In the view of one participant, the Air Force should be as focused on air base defense for self preservation as the Navy is on protecting aircraft carriers.
From page 13...
... Another participant suggested that the OSD High Energy Council, which is supposed to provide oversight of the HEL-JTO, could exercise authority over the services and DARPA to strengthen this crossagency and cross-service role. During the Session 3 discussions, the HEL-JTO was mentioned in conjunction with moving DEW technology beyond demonstrations and into prototypes.
From page 14...
... " Over the three sessions, many participants said that CHAMP was technically mature, had a clear although limited mission role for which there were not existing alternatives, and had a potential acquisition path in place that was both technically and fiscally feasible. To many of the participants, potential HEL weapons for airborne DEW seemed likely to be further out in time than the HPM capability represented by CHAMP (see Figure 2-1)
From page 15...
... As noted under Theme 1.2, multiple participants saw the SWaP constraints of existing DEW technologies, when packaged into a system, as a continuing challenge for weapons systems to be installed in a general-purpose aircraft such as a strike fighter or bomber. By contrast, the current SWaP parameters for HPM and high-power HEL systems were viewed as already being within the range of feasibility for land-based or ship-based weapons with sufficient power to defeat a range of threats.
From page 16...
... , but the S&T issue for the Air Force is where the Air Force should try to lead and where it should follow and "watch closely." Theme 3.4 Are there particular topics or issues related to Air Force DEW applications that would benefit from a further exploration through a targeted workshop or study? After several of the Session 3 presentations, one participant in all three sessions suggested that the Air Force should undertake or sponsor an in-depth study on a few promising DEW alternatives, such as CHAMP.
From page 17...
... perspective, pulsed power was interesting for a counter EO/IR missile role. Another participant added that pulsed lasers may be the only effective HEL countermeasure to the more advanced class of adversary surface-toair missiles ("double-digit SAMs")


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