Podded laser weapon took center stage In latest US Air Force virtual wargame

The wargame suggests the Air Force could increasingly turn to virtual environments to rapidly develop and assess future weapons concepts.

The U.S. Air Force recently held a wargame that saw pilots flying simulated missions that involved the combined use of podded airborne laser weapons and two undisclosed “future kinetic concepts” in a virtual reality battlefield environment.

The wargame highlights the service’s efforts to develop virtual testing environments for use in weapon systems development and its increasing interest in using these digital spaces for use in training.

According to an Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) press release, the wargame was conducted at Kirtland Air Force Base between January 24 and 28 in conjunction with AFRL’s Munitions Directorate. It was held as part of the joint Directed Energy and Kinetic Energy Directed Energy Utility Concept Experiment, or DEKE DEUCE, which is designed to explore “synergies between directed energy and kinetic concepts in the future battlespace.”

This most recent experiment saw pilots, weapon systems officers, and air battle managers teaming together to operate in a series of what AFRL calls “virtual vignettes” that explored the combined use of “an airborne high energy laser pod and two future kinetic concepts.”

While AFRL states one of the technologies tested in this virtual experiment was a high-energy laser pod, it’s unknown what the other two “future kinetic concepts” could be. We have reached out to Kirtland Air Force Base for more information about DEKE DEUCE and the notional weapon systems tested in this wargame.