WEST 2026 — The Navy’s top officer is on board with advancing laser weapons — and believes the new Trump-class battleships will drive the service to equip other Navy ships with the weapons too.
While Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said that he believed the Navy hasn’t “put the demand signal out there to go all in on solving some of the technological challenges on shipboard laser utilization,” he expects that to change under his watch.
“This is the time for this. This is a vision I have,” Caudle told reporters on Monday. “I want to get behind this. I want this to work. I see it solving problems not for just shipboard use. I see it solving problems for base protection as well.”
Caudle, who told reporters last year when he was commander of US Fleet Forces Command that the Navy should be “embarrassed” it hadn’t already installed laser weapons onto its vessels more widely, said that investing in directed energy weapons like lasers would be a “prominent element of the battleship going forward.”
“I can see that being a place where I really want to use that as the forcing function to solve this for other Navy ships,” Caudle said.
President Donald Trump unveiled plans in December for the Navy to acquire battleships, which he said would be outfitted with hypersonic weapons, electronic rail guns, and high-powered laser-based weaponry.
On Monday, Caudle unveiled his new “Fighting Instructions” guidance that details how the Navy plans to organize, train, equip, and fight. The framework claims the service will establish a “comprehensive” directed energy strategy that will establish priorities, capability thresholds, and timelines to align investments with platforms and the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP).
“Such a strategy will enable deliberate, sustained investment in the power, thermal, and integration upgrades necessary to transition DE [directed energy, a technical term for lasers] from experimentation to Fleet capability,” the guidance said. “A coherent DE strategy will also accelerate industrial base maturation, reduce fielding risk, and establish common standards for sensors, command and control, targeting, and supply chains.”
So far, the destroyer Preble is equipped with the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system designed to counter drones, and destroyers like the Dewey and Stockdale are outfitted with the lower powered Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) laser that aims to handicap enemy sensors.
The Navy’s top surface warfare officer, Vice Adm. Brendan McLane said in January at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference that the Preble conducted successful testing of the weapon system in 2025.
“Last fall, successful at-sea testing paved the way for future laser weapons systems,” McLane said, according to The War Zone. “We need to continue on this path. I am committed to advancing laser technology to the fleet. The dream of a laser on every ship can become a real one.”
