3 ms·

What happened to Iron Beam / lasers and those vaunted "space lasers" dubbed "star wars"?

• hedora 7mo ago
  Apparently, Iron Beam still exists (or at least was demoed in 2024). Originally, the lasers were going to be mobile, but now they have to be stationary, so it will work like the game Missile Command, except you have unlimited ammo, but no concurrent shots, and the missiles can't be rotating (like a rifled bullet would). That's much more feasible-sounding that I'd assumed (coming from low expectations). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Beam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Beam
  • EGreg 7mo ago
    I seriously can't wait for this technology. It can be purely defensive, and shoot down all aerial attacks - drones, etc. over your country's airspace. So... no wild weasel, no successful air raids, etc. We're back to ground invasions, and frankly, a country can defend against those a lot easier. And it also means countries not lobbing missiles at each other, and at oil fields and igniting them, or destroying shipping etc.
• jandrewrogers 7mo ago
  The US has deployed operational anti-drone lasers for a few years now, though not widely. They are still quite new but they have several kills. This is probably operational field testing for fine-tuning the design prior to producing them at scale though.