3 ms·

ABL wanted to shoot down missiles like 300km+ away. Lasers in atmosphere drop off faster than inverse square (because absorption and scattering are significant)

ABL wanted to shoot down missiles like 300km+ away. Lasers in atmosphere drop off faster than inverse square (because absorption and scattering are significant), so long range lasers need huge amounts of power. Conservatively assuming inverse cube, going from 300km to 10km engagement gives you like 27,000x increase in flux.

Robotbeat 4y ago
ABL had a much larger aperture, so no, it doesn’t require 27,000x increase in flux.
- superkuh 4y ago
  Bigger aperture is always better until you're going through a scattering medium and now the different parts of the beam get different scattering.