Laser weapons – an analysis of selected applications

Development of laser weapons has been going on since the sixties, but for a long time it was a solution always ten years into the future. The ambitions were high, but the technology was impractical, and the results not satisfactory. However, in the last decade there has been a clear shift towards more practical technology in the form of electrically driven lasers, and less ambitious applications. In this report, we will analyze two such applications: Defense against drone swarms and defense against cruise missiles. The first has quite clearly a low ambition level, while the second one seems to be in the high end of the scale of realistic performance. We are using a simple modelling environment, where only the most important phenomena influencing the effectiveness of the laser system, are taken into account. In spite of this, we believe that the analysis gives a first impression of the effectiveness that can be expected from a laser system, and which requirements that are placed on the system in terms of laser power and ability to deliver energy density on the target. We study both small drones, which fly slowly and are vulnerable, and bigger drones flying faster and being less vulnerable. Regarding the small drones, the conclusion is that in self-defense it is possible to take out tens of drones without any difficult demands placed on the laser system, but the range will be limited to some very few kilometers. It seems that laser weapons can be very well suited in defense against swarms of small drones. Against larger drones, however, laser weapons are not as efficient. Conventional weapons might be just as relevant, since the threat systems are significantly larger. When applying laser weapons in cruise missile defense, the challenge is much greater. You would need a much more powerful laser system, and the effect is very uncertain, especially in self-defense where you have to attack the missile head-on, where the missile must be assumed to be very robust. However, it seems simpler to defend others by taking out missiles passing by. From the side the missile is probably less robust, and due to the geometry, the engagement time can be longer. Using a laser system with a few hundred kW of laser power, it is not unlikely that a few laser carrying platforms can protect an area of a few kilometers in size.