HELIOS deployment

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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From a fb post. It is factually true.

The U.S. just deployed a weapon that was supposed to stay classified for another decade. And it changes EVERYTHING about this war.

:police_car_light: THE U.S. NAVY JUST USED A LASER WEAPON IN COMBAT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY. :police_car_light:

CENTCOM released footage of the HELIOS system mounted on a destroyer off Iran’s coast. It’s shooting down drones with LIGHT.

Here’s why this is the most important military development since the atomic bomb:

THE PROBLEM:
→ Iran’s $20,000 Shahed drones were bankrupting the U.S. defense budget
→ Every Patriot interceptor costs $3-4 MILLION
→ Every THAAD interceptor costs $10 MILLION
→ The UAE alone intercepted 755 drones + 172 ballistic missiles — BILLIONS spent in ONE WEEK
→ Iran was WINNING the math. Spend $30K, force the enemy to spend $4M. Repeat.
→ That cost ratio was Iran’s most powerful weapon

THE SOLUTION:
→ HELIOS runs on ELECTRICITY
→ The cost of firing it: less than your monthly electric bill
→ No missiles to reload. No magazine to deplete. No resupply ship needed.
→ Unlimited shots. As fast as light. Against a $20,000 drone.
→ Iran spends $30,000 per drone. HELIOS spends PENNIES to destroy it.

THE MATH JUST FLIPPED:

:warning: Before HELIOS: Iran spends $30K → U.S. spends $4M to stop it. Iran wins.
:warning: After HELIOS: Iran spends $30K → U.S. spends $0.50 to stop it. Iran LOSES.

→ Iran spent YEARS developing Shahed drone doctrine
→ The entire strategy was: “flood cheap drones, bankrupt the defense”
→ HELIOS makes that strategy OBSOLETE overnight
→ A weapon designed to bleed the U.S. dry just became target practice for a laser that costs nothing to fire

This is the first real combat test of directed energy weapons in history.

If it works at scale — and early reports say it DOES — then:

:skull: Iran’s drone advantage = GONE
:skull: The 200-to-1 cost ratio = REVERSED
:skull: Every drone Iran launches = destroyed for pennies
:skull: Drone warfare as a strategy = DEAD before it even peaked
:skull: Every military on Earth that invested in drones = back to the drawing board

Iran just found out that the weapon it spent a decade perfecting can be defeated by a LASER running on a ship’s generator.

The future of warfare isn’t drones. It isn’t missiles. It’s directed energy.

And the U.S. just tested it in a live war zone.

Prepare accordingly. :police_car_light::police_car_light::police_car_light:

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Well, hooray! sort of. My surfer buddy friend who helped launch the field fifty years ago, will not be surprised.

I am actually pleased except for the fact that the guy who command use of it is…..

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Cloud cover will significantly impair the LASER’s performance.

Also, I suspect this Helios weapon is more effective against low flying targets. High altitude drones would be an effective countermeasure. Air has mass. The more mass the LASER has to shoot through, the less energy reaches the target.

Its a cool weapon, and certainly has some uses. But, as they say, “for every measure, there is a countermeasure”. And then countermeasures to the countermeasures…

_ Pete

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The HELIOS is currently deployable on ONE ship.

Cool technology, but not as cool as a time machine taking us back to early November 2024 with the knowledge we all have now…

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I watched a uTube video about it and it sounded fishy. It was artificially made. Why would it be classified if Israel has talked about it?

Israel’s Iron Beam

The Captain

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We probably would have hated President US Grant about as much. Not just for his drinking, but also for his lack of ability to govern.

We have heard Trump is awful for 10 days now; unfortunately, we have not discussed Iran in the meantime.

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Captain,

The press has little to no information on the system. It seems to have been deployed about six days ago.

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“At least three ships were hit on Wednesday in and around the vital oil route of the Strait of Hormuz, according to a British maritime monitoring group, as the Middle East war chokes off one of the key conduits for the global oil trade.”

I think they may need more HELIOS units.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03/11/world/iran-war-news-trump-oil-israel#ships-attack-strait-hormuz

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Google AI source

Laser Wars/ Jared Keller

Why HELIOS Systems May Not Have Stopped the Attackers
While the HELIOS (High-Energy Laser with Optical-dazzler and Surveillance) system was deployed on US destroyers in the region, reports indicate several reasons why it might not have prevented the attacks:

  • Operational Constraints: HELIOS is designed to destroy drones and small boats, but it requires specific power, weight, and cooling capacity, which may not have been available to protect all commercial vessels in such a large, active area.
  • Limits on Deployment: While HELIOS has shown success, it is not omnipresent, and not all commercial ships in the region are equipped with or covered by this specific, experimental system.
  • Focus on Other Threats: The US was using a combination of methods, including Patriot and THAAD missiles, but some reports indicated that defending against the sheer volume of drone and missile attacks in the region was difficult.

[image]Laser Wars | Jared Keller +4

The issue, with counter attacks on Iranian supply and assembly lines will the volume of drones and missile decrease?

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I’m really looking forward to the excess desalinization capacity generated by HELIOS. We can call it AQUIOS.

It will be like air drops, but for water.

(Helios generates excessive heat and requires cooling. That cooling water is likely “ocean water” when ship mounted. Boiling ocean water to distill is one method of desalinization. Free water for everyone. You supply power - target hits not required)

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I can picture this system being deployed on large drones (large in order to carry a lot of batteries). The large killer drone circles overhead looking for small drones to zap.

DB2

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The current Helios system weighs 8.5 tons not including the generating equipment required to power it (which has substantial needs). The largest drone in production has a maximum payload capacity of 5 tons, so…

..it’s a bit short.

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Sorry, this is a giant load of codswallop.

First thing you need to deploy the one HELIOS in existence is a $2.2 billion dollar Arleigh Burke destroyer, which does not operate alone. It gets deployed along with about 16 other ships in the carrier task force. And we have two such task forces deployed in this operation. The hardware costs alone are astronomical and the operational costs run in the tens of millions per day, per task force. Your claim that it costs us pennies is completely absurd.

And if Iran’s strategy has been rendered obsolete as you claim, why is the POTUS alternating between threatening our former allies and grovelling before them begging for help?

I’ll give you a hint: Iran has this thing locked up and the POTUS’s only option is to grovel. HELIOS can’t change that.

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…so this system (or the next generation) needs to be deployed on a cargo plane, something like the C-27J Spartan which can life some 16,000 tons…

Hmm, so you’ve already got the whole thing gamed out already. Certainty is always comforting.

DB2

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It also needs a crap ton of electrical power on demand. I can’t find the usage requirements (classified?) but the ship it’s on has an electrical generating capacity of 7MW to 12MW, which would power from 5,000 to 10,000 homes. And, obviously, the power must be “always there”, no waiting 30 seconds to “power up”. So I don’t know that “an aircraft” would be sufficient unless specially equipped.

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I think the biggest reason the Strait is not fully covered by this is the range. We do not have a destroyer every five miles. Even if we did, flying around the destroyers, it might not be that problematic.

My bigger thing, the HELIOS system takes time between shots? I do not know but that much power is not streaming all day long. Probably would overheat.

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You give me far too much credit. Numerous sources (WSJ, WaPo, CNN, Haaretz, Daily Beast, etc.) reported that US military analysts predicted this exact scenario before the war. These warnings were reportedly rejected by POTUS who believed Iran would capitulate quickly.

Plan A didn’t work. There is no Plan B.

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Bibi in his late 20s discussing the PLO

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Assuming China and India won’t demand of Iran that the Strait be opened would be naive.

If China and India can get their oil needs met through the strait, globally we can make up the difference.

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Iran is already allowing ships bound for China and India through the strait. Additionally, the US said we won’t block Iranian ships over fears of high oil prices.

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