Comment by Animats
20 hours ago
> The power delivery was doable even 15 years ago.
Not really. It took a long time for solid state lasers to make it to 100KW. That's the power level military people have wanted for two decades.
Megawatt chemical lasers are possible, and have been built. But the ground based one was three semitrailers, and the airborne one needed a 747. Plus you ran out of chemicals fairly fast.
I took 'power delivery' to mean the systems that facilitate driving the energy into the weapon, not the beam itself -- although now under consideration of the technology I think we should probably avoid the use of the phrase 'power delivery', without a projectile being involved that's essentially the entire concept.
Good point on nomenclature.
A 100KW generator is no big deal. It's a truck Diesel engine coupled to a generator. Trailer-mounted, it can be towed with a pickup truck. It's a standard rental item for larger construction projects.
A 100KW laser is a big deal.
The big problem with this as an anti-drone weapon is that, unlike artillery shells or unguided missiles, drones can operate close to the ground, and the laser needs line of sight.