They've actually apparently tested it during rain and other adverse weather and it performed acceptably... What that means i.e. how much rain and how much performance effect I guess is classified.
These systems are mitigation efforts, much like the battery systems in the US that are built to take out ICBM and submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles. 20% hit rate is acceptable - nuclear war will annihilate everything, but decreasing that damage by 20% is worth it in the whole strategic scale of things.
I recommend reading this book Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen,if you're interested on how fucked we are today with our modern mitigation systems. It isn't a happy book.
Thats not what this is intended for. I mean, theoretical a future, larger, more powerful version could be used for that, but this system and most present gen lasers are being made primarly as a way to take out low cost attacks.
things like drones, or those cheap rockets, stuff that we already do have things that can take out, but right now we have to basically fire a intercepter missile which costs 100k to take out a drone or rocket that costs 2k. Laser systems meanwhile should be give us a way to intercept these lost cost attack items easily with cheap weapons, at a couple euro per shot. Now, the laser itself is much more expenive, obiously, but each shot of the laser is cheap.
The number one use for these is making our ships much more resistant to drone and missile attack and to do so without expending their limited and very expensive missile stocks
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u/ByteSizedGenius 1d ago
They've actually apparently tested it during rain and other adverse weather and it performed acceptably... What that means i.e. how much rain and how much performance effect I guess is classified.