In recent years, the US Navy has conducted development work on three major types of lasers for potential use on US Navy surface ships, including fiber solid state lasers (SSLs) , slab SSLs, and free electron lasers (FELs). The structure, development and testing of some kinds of shipborne laser weapons are introduced. These laser weapon systems include Laser Weapon System (LaWS), Tactical Laser System (TLS), Maritime Laser Demonstration (MLD) and the Free Electron Laser System (FELS), all of which are based upon those three types of lasers mentioned above. Some critical technological challenges in the development are analyzed.