I can't say that I've seen any proper physics analysis of this, but my small understanding would be that incoming lasers will not be effective against ships*.

I can't say that I've seen any proper physics analysis of this, but my small understanding would be that incoming lasers will not be effective against ships*. The lasers currently fielded for Navy tests require tracking a target for multiple continuous seconds - my understanding is that if the target rapidly changed heading and you lost tracking for a couple seconds, the air flow will cool the target and you'll basically have to start from scratch when the target is reacquired. This would obviously change for something hypersonic that has a plasma barrier around it :) For a ship, the hull itself is all metal to conduct the heat (relatively) evenly, and it's sitting in the ocean which is a huge heat sink. Obviously it's possible that laser research comes a long way, but my understanding is that you would have to hit the ship with a huge amount of energy, which requires even more energy generated for the laser due to laser divergence over distance etc. This is comparing apples to oranges, but seeing how the Navy recently stopped their Rail Gun research, I don't think it's a given that were just going to pour money into research and end up with mW lasers. * Dazzling sensors etc is another matter. I'm mostly referring to punching a hole in the side of a ship, which is what I interpreted your question as.