Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, trained near Fort Hancock, Texas, on 2 November with the Army's Multi-Purpose High Energy Laser on an Infantry Squad Vehicle, according to Department of War photos posted the next day, DroneXL reports. The captions say the 20-kilowatt laser, the Army's version of AeroVironment's LOCUST, is now in use for counter-drone operations.
In September, Joint Task Force-Southern Border put the number of drones it had defeated on the US-Mexico border so far this year at more than 300, 11 of them by the laser. DroneXL notes that only two targets have been identified in public since February: a set of party balloons over El Paso and a Customs and Border Protection drone that a military laser destroyed near Fort Hancock on 26 February.
