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The U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force are investigating laser range-gated shortwave IR (LRG-SWIR) imaging systems for use in target identification. When coupled to an electron-bombarded CCD, the imaging system can obtain high-resolution images at long ranges. Speckle, an image artifact inherent in laser-illuminated imaging systems, results from interference patterns caused by the coherent illumination. Laser speckle degrades target identification performance but can be reduced by averaging successive LRG-SWIR images. This research is a first attempt at quantifying target identification performance degradation associated with laser speckle. The research begins with a laboratory experiment to verify a speckle model that includes power spectral density and intensity probability density functions. An LRG-SWIR sensor simulation is developed that includes coherent illumination resulting in speckle target …