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I’m not an “armchair” weapons expert. I’m actually trained in weapons design (guidance systems mostly). This is a moronic waste of money and “engineers and scie
by ein0p 2y ago
I’m not an “armchair” weapons expert. I’m actually trained in weapons design (guidance systems mostly). This is a moronic waste of money and “engineers and scientists” who worked on it have no illusions whatsoever about that, I can assure you. It might be able to defeat something “Hamas grade” or a Mavic with an RPG taped to it, but it’s absolutely useless against any even remotely serious adversary or even something as pedestrian as a modern (where by “modern” I mean made in the 80s or later) wire guided ATGM, which both itself rotates and flies along a pseudorandom spiral trajectory. Try engaging that with your high energy barrel of MIC pork.
- ptero 2y ago> It might be able to defeat something “Hamas grade” or a Mavic with an RPG taped to it That alone would be a major capability for a layered defense system. Cleaning up decoys would be another one (not necessarily getting those down, IDing them due to reflectivity is almost as good).
- ein0p 2y agoTwo counterpoints: 1. Russia had its own DEW system since at least 2018, and doesn’t currently use it on or off the battlefield 2. Israel has Iron Beam, reportedly a 100KW DEW system, and also doesn’t use it Perhaps it’s not as cool as it says on the tin?
- ptero 2y agoI suspect at least in part due to the difficulties with reliable tracking and ID, not the negation component. Plus due to the fact that RF is (so far) still very effective at least against cheaper stuff. But once that changes the game will be very different.
- jandrewrogers 2y agoWhat does any of this have to do with US weapon systems? They are way ahead of anyone else in this area of tech. They have invested a lot in these capabilities over many decades, and the public capabilities are state-of-the-art. Laser tech is an extremely difficult engineering discipline, you can’t enter it casually. The US has made large focused investments on mastering this tech in a way no one else has over many decades.
- ein0p 2y ago>> They are way ahead A common misconception