According to a picture released on the Twitter account of the U.S. Navy, the USS Stockdale (DDG-106), an Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA guided missile destroyer of the U.S. Navy is now armed with the directed energy weapon, named ODIN.
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U.S. Navy USS Stockdale (DDG-106), an Arleigh Burke-class Flight IIA guided missile destroyer is now armed with ODIN laser weapon. (Picture source U.S. Navy)
Citing an U.S. congress report, the U.S. Navy in recent years has leveraged both significant advancements in industrial SSLs (Solid State Lasers) and decades of research and development work on military lasers done by other parts of U.S. DoD (Department of Defense) to make substantial progress toward deploying high-energy lasers (HELs) on U.S. Navy surface ships.
Optical Dazzler Interdictor Navy (ODIN) development provides near-term, directed energy, shipboard Counter-Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C-ISR) capabilities to dazzle Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) and other platforms that address urgent operational needs of the Fleet. FY 2018 was the first year of funding that supports the design, development, procurement and installation of ODIN standalone units over the FYDP (Future Years Defense Plan), for deployment on DDG 51 Flight IIA surface combatants.
The program supports the non-recurring engineering, development, procurement of long-lead material, assembly and checkout, system certification, platform integration/installation and sustainment for these ODIN standalone units.
The newest weapon ODIN in the U.S. Navy’s arsenal is a laser dazzler that can stymie enemy drone threatening surface ships. And now it’s installed aboard an active destroyer. According to a release, the ODIN system was approved in early 2017 based on an urgent need requirement from US Pacific Command. It was developed by Naval Surface Warfare Dahlgren, Virginia, and installed after two and half years.
In November 2019, a picture was released on Internet, showing a mysterious laser turret mounted on the USS Dewey, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in service with the United States Navy. According to open-source information, it was speculated that the new turret was an ODIN laser weapon.
In February 2020, it was announced that the U.S. Navy has installed its first Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) on the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey.
ODIN is already installed on three U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers and will be installed on two more this year and three more in the coming years, for a total of eight DDGs that will help test out the system during the course of their training and operations.
