South Korea to deploy ‘StarWars’ lasers against North’s drones
Published on July 13, 2024
SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea will begin deploying drone-melting laser weapons designed to shoot down North Korean UAVs this year, the country’s arms procurement agency told AFP yesterday.
The new laser weapons – dubbed the StarWars Project by the South – are invisible and noise-free, require no additional ammunition, operate solely on electricity and cost only about KRW2,000 (USD1.45) per shot, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA).
The “Block-I” system, developed by Hanwha Aerospace, will be “put into operational deployment in the military this year”, a DAPA official Lee Sang-yoon told AFP.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.