5 ms·

All hard countered by a laser like the Iron Beam, no? Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter?

by energy123 1y ago

worldsayshi 1y ago
The obvious counter to a laser could be 'more drones'? And maybe just have the drones sneak up close to the ground.
- lolc 1y ago
  I always hear this sneak up thing and think about how birds can be caught with netting. And all the barbed wire in old battlefields. I don't think drones will be able to meaningfully sneak up to a laser. Of course more drones works. But more drones here is less drones there. It means lasers are an effective deterrent against opportunistic attacks.
  - orthoxerox 1y ago
    Both Russia and Ukraine are putting up netting around the roads near the frontlines. Wire-guided drones are able to fly close enough to the ground to avoid it.
  - worldsayshi 1y ago
    Sure but i would expect a laser to be at least 10x more expensive than a drone. Would you need 10 sneaky drones to overwhelm a laser?
    - lolc 1y ago
      My theory is that there will be pernicious netting around lasers, and any sneaking drones will tangle themselves up far from the laser. So only straight mass attacks will work. If you have but 10 drones you'll be unlikely to take out a laser I'd say.
lazide 1y ago
a laser needs a line of sight and dwell time. drones flying 3 ft off the ground, in between bushes and trees, at 100+ mph? not an easy situation. ramp up power levels so dwell time might only be 1/2 second? maybe. but then there is a race for rapid target discrimination. and then ablative armor on the drones (cheap and easy to 3d print), and backup cameras, etc.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  And ultimately there's the cost factor. Drones can be mass produced for cheap, laser systems are specialized and expensive. Something I haven't seen yet (but is likely in development) is drone swarms, one operator directing a squad of a hundred drones like it's an RTS game. Only one grenade or kamikaze drone needs to detonate close enough to a laser system to take it out of action. Mind you, the system has a range of up to 10 kilometers, so if the drones are detected from that far out there's enough time to take them all out.
  - robotresearcher 1y ago
    Here’s a DARPA project from a few years back that is exactly having a small number of operators for a large number of drones. Very real. https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactics https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/offensive-swarm-enab...
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    > Something I haven't seen yet (but is likely in development) is drone swarms Various entities related to the US military have been simulating and physically testing various approaches to that for years. There are blurbs in the press here and there. In some cases source code even got published (not clear if that was intentional though).
  - throwaway2037 1y ago
    It seems like the power source required for a portable laser system makes it very cumbersome. Why not just use a fleet of very low cost anti-drone drones? They can be "AI-powered" to seek out enemy drones and try to damage them or throw a net on them. I do think we will see more and more laser systems installed on large naval vessels as an alternative to close-in weapon system (CIWS), which, in practice, has not been very effective against missile attacks.
Cthulhu_ 1y ago
Yeah, an artillery strike, a smoke screen, or fog. I'm also reading the target needs to be stationary or its movements predictable; unpredictable evasive maneuvers should be easy enough to implement (at the cost of speed/range). Plus there's the cost of the device itself, while it says it costs $3 per shot, it's still an (up to) 100 kw device + sensors + power supply setup. It doesn't say how much the system itself costs or its maintenance.
- wongarsu 1y ago
  Or attack while it rains. Sure, a laser is great for defending Southern California or a place in the Middle East, but not so great for defending Great Britain
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Rain probably adds a fair degree of difficulty for the drones themselves, though?
    - ben_w 1y ago
      Would it? I'd expect gusty wind to be a bigger issue than rain.
arrowsmith 1y ago
The problem is the asymmetry. Drones are cheap, can be produced in huge numbers, and can be deployed anywhere by anyone. You can't put laser defences on every target, and the best laser defence could still be overwhelmed by a sufficient number of drones. I am fucking terrified of drones.
- asdff 1y ago
  Drones still have the limiting factor that is that they need to be produced at all as a piece of technology. Artillery shell on the other hand has all the explosive bits needed to make that drone blow up half your house, only it is a dummy round being fired from technology that has been globally solved and replicated for what over 100 years now, with huge stocks of surplus available along with popular rudimentary designs used by various guerillas around the world. Increasingly we are also seeing a world where the technology to shape a cultures mind share can be deployed with a few dozen lines of code and a malware bot net rather than a sophisticated and well funded mass media operation a la the 1960s western cultural revolution supported in part by the CIA. You don't even need to blow up the enemies country, you can convince them it is in their best interest to be subjugated and they will remove their own naysayer internally and roll out the carpet for you when you arrive and proclaim your regional Obergruppenführer to meet production quotas.
pjc50 1y ago
Combined arms is the probable solution for a Ukraine type war. As soon as your expensive laser lights up, it's got a couple of minutes to move before artillery shells arrive. Of course deeper into Russia that's safe .. but instead you have the problem of a huge area to cover. You can protect a few high value targets but not everywhere. Consider something like the early stages of the Iraq war: target every single civilian electrical substation and petrol station with a drone bombing.
- Lu2025 1y ago
  47 second is the best artillery response I've seen in Russia Ukraine war.
- fulafel 1y ago
  Carry the laser output to multiple muzzles on drones via fiber?
ben_w 1y ago
> Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter? Two opposing Iron Beam lasers pointed at the allied one? But also, low-flying drones using ground cover to get close, and in the final approach attack from multiple angles at the same time so it physically cannot rotate fast enough to reach all targets before impact — if it has a maximum 180° rotation time of 0.2 seconds, and the attacking drone has a terminal speed of 100m/s (~224 mph), the last 20 meters has to be clear of all cover, including the soldiers who are operating the Iron Beam and might find their bodies being kept between the drones and the laser itself until the last moment.

All hard countered by a laser like the Iron Beam, no? Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter?

worldsayshi 1y ago

The obvious counter to a laser could be 'more drones'? And maybe just have the drones sneak up close to the ground.

lolc 1y ago
I always hear this sneak up thing and think about how birds can be caught with netting. And all the barbed wire in old battlefields. I don't think drones will be able to meaningfully sneak up to a laser. Of course more drones works. But more drones here is less drones there. It means lasers are an effective deterrent against opportunistic attacks.
- orthoxerox 1y ago
  Both Russia and Ukraine are putting up netting around the roads near the frontlines. Wire-guided drones are able to fly close enough to the ground to avoid it.
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  Sure but i would expect a laser to be at least 10x more expensive than a drone. Would you need 10 sneaky drones to overwhelm a laser?
  - lolc 1y ago
    My theory is that there will be pernicious netting around lasers, and any sneaking drones will tangle themselves up far from the laser. So only straight mass attacks will work. If you have but 10 drones you'll be unlikely to take out a laser I'd say.

lazide 1y ago

a laser needs a line of sight and dwell time. drones flying 3 ft off the ground, in between bushes and trees, at 100+ mph? not an easy situation. ramp up power levels so dwell time might only be 1/2 second? maybe. but then there is a race for rapid target discrimination. and then ablative armor on the drones (cheap and easy to 3d print), and backup cameras, etc.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago
And ultimately there's the cost factor. Drones can be mass produced for cheap, laser systems are specialized and expensive. Something I haven't seen yet (but is likely in development) is drone swarms, one operator directing a squad of a hundred drones like it's an RTS game. Only one grenade or kamikaze drone needs to detonate close enough to a laser system to take it out of action. Mind you, the system has a range of up to 10 kilometers, so if the drones are detected from that far out there's enough time to take them all out.
- robotresearcher 1y ago
  Here’s a DARPA project from a few years back that is exactly having a small number of operators for a large number of drones. Very real. https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/offensive-swarm-enabled-tactics https://www.darpa.mil/research/programs/offensive-swarm-enab...
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  > Something I haven't seen yet (but is likely in development) is drone swarms Various entities related to the US military have been simulating and physically testing various approaches to that for years. There are blurbs in the press here and there. In some cases source code even got published (not clear if that was intentional though).
- throwaway2037 1y ago
  It seems like the power source required for a portable laser system makes it very cumbersome. Why not just use a fleet of very low cost anti-drone drones? They can be "AI-powered" to seek out enemy drones and try to damage them or throw a net on them. I do think we will see more and more laser systems installed on large naval vessels as an alternative to close-in weapon system (CIWS), which, in practice, has not been very effective against missile attacks.

Cthulhu_ 1y ago

Yeah, an artillery strike, a smoke screen, or fog. I'm also reading the target needs to be stationary or its movements predictable; unpredictable evasive maneuvers should be easy enough to implement (at the cost of speed/range). Plus there's the cost of the device itself, while it says it costs $3 per shot, it's still an (up to) 100 kw device + sensors + power supply setup. It doesn't say how much the system itself costs or its maintenance.

wongarsu 1y ago
Or attack while it rains. Sure, a laser is great for defending Southern California or a place in the Middle East, but not so great for defending Great Britain
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Rain probably adds a fair degree of difficulty for the drones themselves, though?
  - ben_w 1y ago
    Would it? I'd expect gusty wind to be a bigger issue than rain.

arrowsmith 1y ago

The problem is the asymmetry. Drones are cheap, can be produced in huge numbers, and can be deployed anywhere by anyone. You can't put laser defences on every target, and the best laser defence could still be overwhelmed by a sufficient number of drones. I am fucking terrified of drones.

asdff 1y ago
Drones still have the limiting factor that is that they need to be produced at all as a piece of technology. Artillery shell on the other hand has all the explosive bits needed to make that drone blow up half your house, only it is a dummy round being fired from technology that has been globally solved and replicated for what over 100 years now, with huge stocks of surplus available along with popular rudimentary designs used by various guerillas around the world. Increasingly we are also seeing a world where the technology to shape a cultures mind share can be deployed with a few dozen lines of code and a malware bot net rather than a sophisticated and well funded mass media operation a la the 1960s western cultural revolution supported in part by the CIA. You don't even need to blow up the enemies country, you can convince them it is in their best interest to be subjugated and they will remove their own naysayer internally and roll out the carpet for you when you arrive and proclaim your regional Obergruppenführer to meet production quotas.

pjc50 1y ago

Combined arms is the probable solution for a Ukraine type war. As soon as your expensive laser lights up, it's got a couple of minutes to move before artillery shells arrive. Of course deeper into Russia that's safe .. but instead you have the problem of a huge area to cover. You can protect a few high value targets but not everywhere. Consider something like the early stages of the Iraq war: target every single civilian electrical substation and petrol station with a drone bombing.

Lu2025 1y ago
47 second is the best artillery response I've seen in Russia Ukraine war.
fulafel 1y ago
Carry the laser output to multiple muzzles on drones via fiber?

ben_w 1y ago

> Unless there's a hard counter to the hard counter? Two opposing Iron Beam lasers pointed at the allied one? But also, low-flying drones using ground cover to get close, and in the final approach attack from multiple angles at the same time so it physically cannot rotate fast enough to reach all targets before impact — if it has a maximum 180° rotation time of 0.2 seconds, and the attacking drone has a terminal speed of 100m/s (~224 mph), the last 20 meters has to be clear of all cover, including the soldiers who are operating the Iron Beam and might find their bodies being kept between the drones and the laser itself until the last moment.