Adm. Daryl Caudle, chief of naval operations, said equipping Trump-class battleships with lasers will drive the Navy to install directed energy weapons on other vessels, Breaking Defense reported Wednesday.
At the WEST 2026 conference in California, the Navy’s top officer shared that investments in directed energy weapons will be a “prominent element of the battleship going forward.”
“This is the time for this. This is a vision I have,” he told reporters. “I want to get behind this. I want this to work. I see it solving problems not for just shipboard use. I see it solving problems for base protection as well.”
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This is not the first time that Caudle has spoken about the need to add directed energy weapons to battleships. In 2025, the official, who at the time was serving as commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, commented that the Navy should be embarrassed that it had not already equipped lasers onto its vessels.
In January, he added that there should be different lasers on Trump-class battleships to make the weapons more effective.
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What Are the Navy’s Current Directed Energy Weapons Initiatives?
Caudle’s recently released the Fighting Instructions guidance calls for a comprehensive directed energy strategy to define priorities, capability thresholds and timelines aligned with the Future Years Defense Program.
The Navy has already fielded early laser systems. The destroyer USS Preble is equipped with the High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-Dazzler and Surveillance, or HELIOS, system designed to counter unmanned aerial systems.
What Weapons Will the Trump-Class Battleships Have?
President Trump said in December that, aside from lasers, the upcoming Trump-class battleships will be equipped with other high-tech weapons, including hypersonics, electromagnetic railguns and nuclear-armed cruise missiles.
The president added that artificial intelligence will also play a major role in the ships, adding that “they’ll be very AI-controlled,” DefenseScoop reported.
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