3 ms·

Isn't it almost always easier to mirror the outer surface of a missile than to deliver enough additional photons to burn through a mirrored surface?

HcommaZK 10y ago
The advantage of laser weapons isn't that they're the best response to expensive, high-end threats (say, a big supersonic missile) - the advantage is that they're cheap and suitable for low-end threats, since you pay pennies per "shot". A few days ago there was an article about a US ally shooting down a ~$200 drone with a ~$3M Patriot missile, which is a great trade for the attacker in that scenario (like a pawn for a rook). Even assuming that there's some kind of coating that makes a missile laser resistant by dramatically reducing absorptivity in the spectra of concern, it's bound to have tradeoffs- likely in the form of expense, weight, or increased vulnerability to sensors.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  A pawn for a rook? That's like a pawn for 1000 queens.
rosser 10y ago
In the short term, while the technology is still pretty new, perhaps. But that would assume an agility on the part of the people building the targeted missiles that I'm pretty sure only players like Russia and China can offer, and we don't want to get into a shooting war with them, anyway. For most of the other states (or non-state actors) that we might be exchanging fire with, that's out of their reach, making this a potentially very cheap (relatively) and effective countermeasure. Moreover, if battlefield lasers follow the growth-curve of most other technologies, they will quickly reach a point where, not only is adding power to the lasers easier than adding armor to the missiles, the amount of additional mass required becomes infeasible.
neuronexmachina 10y ago
On the flip side, it seems that mirroring the surface of a missile or UAV would make it easier to detect, and therefore easier to target with "legacy" systems. I imagine both legacy and laser-based systems would be used in conjunction with each other.

HcommaZK 10y ago

The advantage of laser weapons isn't that they're the best response to expensive, high-end threats (say, a big supersonic missile) - the advantage is that they're cheap and suitable for low-end threats, since you pay pennies per "shot". A few days ago there was an article about a US ally shooting down a ~$200 drone with a ~$3M Patriot missile, which is a great trade for the attacker in that scenario (like a pawn for a rook). Even assuming that there's some kind of coating that makes a missile laser resistant by dramatically reducing absorptivity in the spectra of concern, it's bound to have tradeoffs- likely in the form of expense, weight, or increased vulnerability to sensors.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
A pawn for a rook? That's like a pawn for 1000 queens.

rosser 10y ago

In the short term, while the technology is still pretty new, perhaps. But that would assume an agility on the part of the people building the targeted missiles that I'm pretty sure only players like Russia and China can offer, and we don't want to get into a shooting war with them, anyway. For most of the other states (or non-state actors) that we might be exchanging fire with, that's out of their reach, making this a potentially very cheap (relatively) and effective countermeasure. Moreover, if battlefield lasers follow the growth-curve of most other technologies, they will quickly reach a point where, not only is adding power to the lasers easier than adding armor to the missiles, the amount of additional mass required becomes infeasible.

neuronexmachina 10y ago

On the flip side, it seems that mirroring the surface of a missile or UAV would make it easier to detect, and therefore easier to target with "legacy" systems. I imagine both legacy and laser-based systems would be used in conjunction with each other.