Expert explains why US military is using Xbox controllers to operate new laser weapons

The US military has been deploying lasers in the Strait of Hormuz, and apparently, using Xbox gaming controllers to navigate their attacks.

The reveal comes from the Department of War, which confirmed, per The Post that they were using the lasers to take out ‘drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles.’

However, according to Jared Keller who puts out the newsletter Laser Wars, there’s a reason why they are using them in such an odd way.

While you might think Microsoft’s Xbox controllers were only for things like playing Wardogs when hooked up to your PC or getting in a cheeky game of FIFA via your console, it can also works with the military equipment.

The High-Energy laser system (US Army)

The US Army’s half a billion dollar contract to build war-ready laser systems using gaming controllers are - per The Post's report on the weapons - designed so soldiers can deploy without needing to use specialized military controls that would take time to learn how to navigate.

The report went on to note that it didn’t require much training for troops to learn the roles of the Xbox controllers, which could be because of how commonplace it is for people to have played an Xbox before.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth demonstrated the controller at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in June, showcasing how easy it is to use.

Keller told The Post of the laser capabilities: “It’s weaponized light that spends several seconds of what we call ‘dwell time’ on the target to bring it down.”

“It now makes sense to actually take them outside of a laboratory and into real-world environments. The most significant [development] is the Army awarding a half-billion-dollar contract for building war-ready lasers [which] focus photons on a target to deliver catastrophic, destructive effects,” he added.

He explained: “The video games industry figured out what the best controller was and now the US military is saying, ‘Well, why reinvent the wheel with a specialized control system where you can just use an Xbox controller or something really similar to do the job?'”

Lasers are being used to blind drones (US Navy)

“If you’ve shot a Spartan laser in ‘Halo’, you can probably fire [one of the actual weapons] in real life,” Keller claimed.

As for what they can do and how they do it, as reported by CNBC, the laser weapons draw power from generators or battery packs and then convert that into photons, which are then concentrated into a single beam and directed at a target for some time until it melts it away.

The type of systems that are deployed in West Asia are apparently known as High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance, or HELIOS, which use a 60-kilowatt beam mounted on battleships out at sea.

These apparently deliver quite the punch.