Iranian citizens have witnessed some dazzling laser shows recently — but they’re not the kind you’d see at a Metallica concert.

The US military has been deploying lasers in the Strait of Hormuz to knock out regime hardware, taking out “drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles,” the Department of War recently confirmed.

The US project to harness laser power has been 50 years in the making and outstrips the capabilities of any other military on Earth.

“We can very specifically track and target drones and put the spot exactly where we want it, [in order] to disable its sensors or kill [i.e. explode] the drone itself,” Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, which works with the military, told The Post.

Laser technology works by drawing energy from generators or battery packs which is then converted into light particles called photons. The photons are then concentrated as a single beam, which is only visible under infrared light, not the naked eye. They heat the surface they are directed onto until it explodes or melts.

“It’s weaponized light that spends several seconds of what we call ‘dwell time’ on the target to bring it down,” said Jared Keller who puts out the newsletter Laser Wars.

“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.

Somewhat surprisingly, the laser weapons are operated by soldiers using reconfigured Xbox game console controllers.

“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?’”

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

For recent advancements in laser technology, we can partly thank Mexican drug cartels. The Joint Task Force Southern Border has been testing the tech by shooting down drug-dealer drones sent from Mexico, with at least 11 downed so far.

“Anything we can do to eliminate the cartel threat, or even inconvenience them, is a plus. These look like they are being pretty effective and shooting down drones with lasers is not just a dream,” Brent Ziarnick, a senior fellow in defense studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told The Post.

However, the tech used by battleships in the Middle East and on the southern border hasn’t, as far as experts can tell, been used against human targets at this stage.

But they do have the potential to change combat.

“Solid state lasers have very few moving parts,” said Ziarnick. “Put enough energy through them and it’s possible to have a very good defensive system. You can, conceivably, not have to worry about ammunition stockpiles. It can change military logistics quite a bit.”

As Neice put it, “As we increase power and increase range, we also increase the capability against [more sophisticated and deadly] threats.”

However, you won’t be seeing soldiers with laser backpacks anytime soon. The lasers deployed in the Middle East are large and heavy, requiring them to be affixed to battleships.

Those systems, which look a lot like speed cameras, are known as High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) systems, reportedly focusing a 60 kilowatt high-energy laser to destroy objects.

Most footage shows the lasers being tested or used on smaller drones, but Boeing recently announced a CLWS (Compact Laser Weapon System) which has can take out Group 3 drones, which weigh up to 1,300 pounds.

Even the US Secretary of War is getting in on the action.

“In June, Pete Hegseth attended a laser weapons demonstration at White Sands [Missile Range in Southern New Mexico],” said Keller. “Secretary Hegseth was able to take over a controller and shoot down a drone with, I think, a couple minutes of training.”

While the lasers are powerful, there are drawbacks. They need clear skies to function effectively and have a tough time defending against drone swarms.

The next deployment may not even be on earth. Lasers are expected to play a role in the US Space Force, which recently confirmed it had deployed active weapons into Earth’s orbit.

Neice initially demurred on whether that technology included lasers, but when pressed if it looked like the future, he replied, “Oh, absolutely.”

“There is more momentum in transitioning [lasers] from lab to battlefield than there’s been since Reagan’s Star Wars program,” said Keller, adding: “I would even call Donald Trump the Laser President.”