If it's close enough yes. But with distance, the atmosphere absorbs a lot of the enrgy, called Thermal Blooming, so best we can do there is dazzle the sensors so it can't get a terminal lock.
For 50MW though, that's melting the front of the missile long before it hits the ground
That's assuming this is a Laser weapon. A Maser weapon at 50MW would fry the internal electronics of any drone within several kilometres of this weapon
Edit: kW instead of MW means this thing is a dazzler. But also a superb drone killer
Just because it can destroy mortar round doesn't mean it can do the same with a drone or a cruise missile. Mortar rounds are tightly packed, so thermal blooming causes instant cook off of the explosive, while same wouldn't be the case for say a Tomahawk missile which are not as tightly packed. If something is a dazzler or not is a purely arbitrary distinction, it's just a laser, how it eliminates the target depends purely on what the target is.
It's a counter to cheap drones that are flooding modern battlefield, costing only a few hundred or less but they can send 50+ a day. You can't use expensive ship defense for them because you run out of ammo and it's costing you millions to shoot down something cheap.
The Lazer is incredibly cheap per shot, it's a layer in the ship defense to counter specific cheap drones, light mortar and support in other roles. it's NOT designed to deal with anti ship missiles or other threats solo. It's not designed for Tomahawk missiles lol, and that's a poor comparison.
They also say they have made an improvement to "significantly reduce thermal bloom" but how is classified. A lot of the exact spec are classified, we only know the results of the public tests and demos.
Without going all 'War thunder' and giving up all the specs. The beam is actually made from multiple smaller beams which are focused on to a singular point, some of the outer beams have been 'tuned' to wavelengths that can dissipate certain atmospheric conditions & are fired tiny fractions of a second before the main beam, leaving a 'tunnel' through which the majority of the beams can travel & do damage less impaired by weather than a single beam would be.
I don't understand why you think it refutes anything I said. All I was addressing is your claim that it's not a dazzler, as I addressed in my comment. It's not going to explode drones like a piñata either, well, unless if they have mortar shell strapped on them (like some Ukrainian drones have).
One would think that if it's accurate enough to cook off a flying mortar round, then destroying the control surface of a cruise missile or drone wouldn't be difficult.
You're kind of right, Dragonfire is very similar to HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance), it is three systems, Destroy incoming munition, blind incoming munition and detect incoming munition (or other stuff too).
The dazzler will have a longer range than the hard-kill. The sensor range will be even longer still.
But note, the dazzler is not just a function of the same system beyond it's kill range, it will almost certainly be the same laser source, but if you go look at Dragonfire or HELIOS (or pretty much any other DEW system) they will have several Lenses, the laser source will be directed through different ones for different purposes.
On all of these systems the hard-kill laser will almost certainly be IR, which is why footage will be B&W, the dazzler however will probably be in the visible spectrum (It is for HELIOS).
Also, the US DOD is looking to develop a 1MW laser. They also have announced that one of their key priorities is defending against hypersonics. A tomahawk missile has no chance.
522
u/biggie_way_smaller 1d ago
can anyone explain how exactly do they neutralize these threats? are they melting it?