Admiral Daryl Caudle, the U.S. Navy's top officer, is championing an ambitious vision to equip every combatant ship with high-energy laser weapons, arguing that directed energy can fundamentally alter naval warfare by shifting defensive firepower from finite missile magazines to a ship's electrical generation capacity.
In a wide-ranging interview, Caudle, the 34th Chief of Naval Operations and a longtime advocate of directed energy, outlined a two-track strategy: rapidly deploying containerized laser systems on existing ships while designing future vessels with the electrical generation, storage, cooling, and optical architecture needed for much higher-power weapons.
«Our approach is to move on two tracks simultaneously,» Caudle said. «First, we need to get useful directed-energy capability into the hands of sailors now. Containerized systems give us a way to accelerate that effort on existing ships, shorten integration timelines, experiment operationally, and build the tactics, training, maintenance practices, and human expertise we will need as these weapons mature.»
At the same time, he stressed that future ships must be built from the keel up to support directed energy. «We have to design future ships with directed energy in mind from the beginning—with the electrical generation, energy storage, cooling, combat-system integration, and optical architecture required to support much higher-power systems,» he said. «I have been clear that the Navy needs to be moving from the hundreds-of-kilowatts range toward megawatt-class capability as the technology and engineering support it.»
Caudle framed the push not as a replacement for kinetic weapons but as a critical addition to layered defense. «I don't view directed energy as a replacement for kinetic weapons. I view it as an essential part of a layered defense that can fundamentally change our magazine-depth problem,» he said. «Today, every VLS cell allocated to a defensive interceptor is a cell that cannot carry an offensive weapon. Directed energy gives us the opportunity to shift an increasing portion of the defensive fight from a finite magazine to the ship's ability to generate and manage electrical power.»
That shift, he argued, changes both the economics and endurance of naval combat, preserving the most capable kinetic weapons for threats that demand them. «That's why I continue to push this so hard,» he added.
The admiral's advocacy dates back decades. His 1992 Naval Postgraduate School master's thesis focused on megawatt-class laser weapons, and he has consistently called for the Navy to make a transformational bet similar to past big commitments like nuclear propulsion under Admiral Hyman Rickover or the Aegis combat system under Admiral Wayne Meyer.
On the technical path to higher power, Caudle declined to pick between coherent beam combining and spectral beam combining, two leading approaches. «I don't want the Navy prematurely choosing an engineering architecture when industry and our technical community are still advancing multiple approaches,» he said. «Both coherent and spectral beam combining offer potential pathways to higher power, and both present engineering challenges as we scale. What matters to me is the operational result: sufficient power on target, excellent beam quality, efficiency, reliability, maintainability, and the ability to operate in a demanding maritime environment.»
He emphasized that encouraging diverse technological avenues fosters competition and ultimately delivers better performance. «I am much less interested in prescribing the technical solution than I am in getting a scalable, reliable weapon into the hands of sailors,» he said.
Power generation remains a key hurdle. In 2019, then-Rear Admiral Ron Boxall famously declared the fleet «out of Schlitz with regard to power» because Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyers were stretched thin powering the new AN/SPY-6 radar. Caudle acknowledged the challenge but distinguished between the existing fleet and future designs.
«For existing ships, containerization and modularity can allow us to introduce directed-energy capability without waiting for major ship alterations,» he said. «Where practical, that can include modular power, energy storage, and thermal-management solutions that reduce demands on legacy ship systems.»
For future combatants, he said the Navy must stop treating electrical power as merely a ship-service requirement. «Power is increasingly a war-fighting resource,» Caudle said. «Future ships need sufficient generation, distribution, storage, and cooling margins to dynamically support sensors, electronic warfare, directed energy, propulsion, and other high-demand mission systems. If we want megawatt-class weapons tomorrow, we have to design the electrical and thermal architecture for them today.»
The Chief of Naval Operations also highlighted the need for a holistic effort involving industry, the fleet, and acquisition leaders. «We need the Foundry solving the engineering and industrial challenges, the Fleet developing the operators, tactics and CONOPS, and ultimately a capability that gives our sailors greater endurance and lethality in the Fight,» he said.
As laser technology matures, Caudle's vision could reshape how the Navy fights, moving from a missile-centric force to one that leverages the speed of light and the ship's own power plant to defeat evolving threats.