The U.S. Military Is Freaked: Lasers are No Secret Weapon Against Hypersonic Missiles
The U.S. Military Is Freaked: Lasers are No Secret Weapon Against Hypersonic Missiles
Despite advancements, such as the U.S. Navy’s HELIOS system and the Army’s IFPC-HEL, today's lasers can't yet reliably stop hypersonic threats.
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yea turns out lasers aren't magical lightsaber blades that immediately cut through anything, and actually need time to heat the surface of their target while having issues with penetrating thick or dense materials.
Just increase the power. Use a nuke to pump the laser or something
still less penetration less quick than if u used the nuke to propel a solid projectile real fast. photons have like negligible/arguably nonexistent mass, the real fun with lasers (as weapons) is using them to target enemy optics (mechanical or biological). one relatively weak but rapidly spinning laser array could permanently blind an entire unit or crowd of people nearly instantly if they don't have specialized protective equipment like high-quality mirror goggles (implausible) or camera/sensor helmets with replaceable/redundant sensors (likely doable in the future but impractical currently).
photons have like negligible/arguably nonexistent mass
funny enough they actually do have zero mass, but non-zero momentum.
Isn't that a war crime?
like many other war crimes, it only counts if you do it to a 'uniformed combatant' of a country recognized by NATO
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Hey at least something did came out of it: The most used weapon in the sci-fi Honorverse series.
Ah, so we just need to make lightsabers, got it, that'll be $400B.