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by azernik 2602 days ago
Missiles are an offensive weapon; these are defensive weapons (for shooting down missiles).

The lasers will probably remain, and missiles will get better and better penetration aids (stealth, reflective/ablative/insulating coatings, etc) to get past the lasers.

At even higher powers, lasers may outclass missiles as anti-aircraft weapons, but we're not nearly there yet. In the surface-to-surface realm missiles are more likely to be obsoleted by railguns than lasers.
2 comments
SEJeff 2602 days ago
Not necessarily. One of the more dangerous missions of the USAF is SEAD[1]. During Vietnam, the "Wild Weasels"[2] flew these daring missions where the gist was to get all enemy air defense to fire at them, so they could find them, and destroy them. Airborne based anti-missile lasers, such as this, would be utterly devastating for this. It would improve survivability of aircraft flying SEAD missions. SEAD is generally the first step (in US military doctrine) before total domination of the skys. I'd consider that a pretty offensive use of this technology.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppression_of_Enemy_Air_Defen...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Weasel

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azernik 2602 days ago
Sure, in the sense that power is generally fungible, these can be offensive. But they don't obsolete the weapons actually used to destroy the targets exposed during that SEADS mission.
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smdyc1 2602 days ago
I find this topic fascinating. As a defensive measure these could have immense value. I'm sceptical of any present long range value however.

The ballistic nature of artillery, missiles, and other projectiles allows hitting targets beyond the horizon. Lasers are uni-directional so whilst they would be great against targets in line of sight, I doubt you'll see laser weapon systems employed as long range weapons for a very long time.

Of course, you could deploy them from a platform like a satellite, or aircraft, but the power requirements are immense and any current day aircraft would probably be so large as to be a sitting duck. I recall they've carried out testing of this nature using a 747 as a test platform. Until they can make planes of that size more survivable, I guess we're stuck with defensive applications.

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