3 ms·

Probably a dumb question, but could a ploy drone fitted with a directional mirror redirect the beam back to the source to damage or destroy it?

SirIsaacGluten 10mo ago
No, but an AI drone like the one Turkey has can probably detect the source of the beam by hiding behind some sacrificial/decoy drones and watching them blow up then shooting a missile at the laser source. It's not like the laser is coming out of thin air.
- cwillu 10mo ago
  Shooting down missiles is what this is for.
  - tguvot 10mo ago
    actually it's for shooting anything that is close enough and can be intercepted. during the war with hezbollah (drones were issue due to topography) lower power version of iron beam was deployed on trial bases and scored around 40 intercepts
  - SirIsaacGluten 10mo ago
    [dead]
uf00lme 10mo ago
Mirrors are not effective enough. Shielding drones from energy weapons seems like a similar problem to entering Earth’s atmosphere, you want to shield it in a way that will blast away safely and ideally diffuse the laser, so the energy is spread over a larger space. I suspect larger lasers will likely aways win, since there is only so much shielding can do. At which point we could end up with transformers like drones that are built to be broken apart mid flight and yet still deliver damage. I feel like defending drones could become possible with energy weapons but only under ideal weather conditions.
cwillu 10mo ago
I'm not certain, but I think the returned beam would likely be significantly out-of-focus.
andwur 10mo ago
Likely cheaper to just coat the real drones in an aerogel or similar light weight, high thermal resistance material. It's an arms race still, but one with a reasonable amount of asymmetry in favour of an attacker.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > coat the real drones in an aerogel You’d still have to deal with an asymmetric ablative jet.

SirIsaacGluten 10mo ago

No, but an AI drone like the one Turkey has can probably detect the source of the beam by hiding behind some sacrificial/decoy drones and watching them blow up then shooting a missile at the laser source. It's not like the laser is coming out of thin air.

cwillu 10mo ago
Shooting down missiles is what this is for.
- tguvot 10mo ago
  actually it's for shooting anything that is close enough and can be intercepted. during the war with hezbollah (drones were issue due to topography) lower power version of iron beam was deployed on trial bases and scored around 40 intercepts
- SirIsaacGluten 10mo ago
  [dead]

uf00lme 10mo ago

Mirrors are not effective enough. Shielding drones from energy weapons seems like a similar problem to entering Earth’s atmosphere, you want to shield it in a way that will blast away safely and ideally diffuse the laser, so the energy is spread over a larger space. I suspect larger lasers will likely aways win, since there is only so much shielding can do. At which point we could end up with transformers like drones that are built to be broken apart mid flight and yet still deliver damage. I feel like defending drones could become possible with energy weapons but only under ideal weather conditions.

cwillu 10mo ago

I'm not certain, but I think the returned beam would likely be significantly out-of-focus.

andwur 10mo ago

Likely cheaper to just coat the real drones in an aerogel or similar light weight, high thermal resistance material. It's an arms race still, but one with a reasonable amount of asymmetry in favour of an attacker.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> coat the real drones in an aerogel You’d still have to deal with an asymmetric ablative jet.