Pew, pew! Israel to produce Iron Beam laser defense systems

Israel's Ministry of Defense signed a landmark deal yesterday (Sunday) to expand serial production of the Iron Beam laser-based defense system, meant to shoot down projectiles and drones. The cost will be 2 million NIS.

Israel has been working on laser-based defense systems for over a decade but until now, they were not effective enough to actually be deployed operationally. Israel has instead meantime relied on interceptor-missile based systems, which although effective, are costly.

In theory, a laser based system would do the job just as well at a fraction of the cost for each interception, but it was only in the beginning of the current war that Iron Beam made its first successful operational interception.

Operational and deployable Iron Beams are expected to be available for Israeli defense within a year.