by elcritch
11 subcomments
- Personally I think that defensive technology like this is fantastic. It means that innocent citizens will be protected from constant bombardment or thread of bombardment by cheap mass produced rockets or drones. Israeli civilians have faced bombardment by tens of thousands of rockets from Gaza for the last 20 years [1].
Outside the Middle East there's many areas threatened by combatants with similar cheap missiles. Perhaps Ukraine is an obvious one. We're seeing rises in conflicts across parts of Africa, Cambodia/Thailand, Pakistan/India. Many governments are looking into buying these to protect their countries.
This technology hopefully can protect populations from destabilizing forces funded on the cheap by foreign powers. Machine guns changed warfare [2] and drones have been a similar massive change in warfare making it cheaper and easier to attack and destabalize regions. Though of course there's downsides as well [3].
1: https://www.mideastjournal.org/post/how-many-rockets-fired-a...
2: https://online.norwich.edu/online/about/resource-library/how...
3: https://claritywithmichaeloren.substack.com/p/iron-dome-part...
- A lot of comments decrying new weapons tech, but I think drone defense tech is particularly critical right now and going to save a lot of lives. Put another way, I don't think we would be against new clothing that made bullets less effective, even if it remains terrible that such clothing is needed.
Especially as AI becomes better and cheaper and suicide drones become more nimble and autonomous. If you have seen any of the horrifying footage out of Ukraine you will understand how badly we need more effective and cheaper drone defense as soon as possible.
- Israel saw over 16,000 rocket attacks last year from fundamentalist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Yemen. The Iron Dome intercepted ~90% of them, resulting in thousands of lives saved.
Iron Beam is the newer incarnation of this technology that uses lasers to intercept incoming rockets and drones with precision and much lower cost. Wonderful technology.
by mcpar-land
4 subcomments
- Don't Get Distracted
https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted
- The real advantage of laser weapons in this role is a very low consumables cost per shot. A few cents of electricity as opposed to an interceptor missile that could be $50k-$1M. Even shooting down missiles with bullets as in
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS
can cost about $10k a shot because that thing shoots $30 bullets. That kind of laser can even shoot down artillery shells!
The disadvantage is that the beam is disrupted by poor atmospheric conditions such as clouds and turbulence. If the enemy knows you are using it they will attack when conditions are unfavorable for it. It ought to be backed up by something like "Iron Dome".
An airborne laser can fly above the clouds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1
that one was not so practical because it was powered by mixing two kinds of bleach, which is bad enough when you do it on the ground, worse in the air. The targeting system worked great and I think the assumption was that it would come back when fiber lasers got good enough that it could be electrically powered.
by condensedcrab
7 subcomments
- From Rafael’s site: https://www.rafael.co.il/system/iron-beam/
100kW laser is nothing to joke about, but seems a good application for anti drone tasks. Fiber lasers are pretty snazzy.
- The thing that worries me isn't the drone/anti-drone escalation. It is the fact that these weapons aren't actually limited to anti-drone use. Recently we have seen clear examples of countries, including Israel, that will use automatic id technology to mass tag a population. If you then have tools that can automatically track and mass kill, which this type of weapon represents, then we have reached a type of warfare that is new in the world and deeply scary. It isn't hard to imagine a scenario where person x is killed since they are marked as a 'bag guy' and as part of being marked every person they were next to for the last few days was also marked as likely enough to be bad guys to kill as well. All that has to be done is push a button. It is a scary, and unfortunately all to possible, future if not now.
- Someone should give people in Gaza or the West Bank or Lebanon the same tech.
- This technology will only yield escalations and human violence. Israel continues to build more of these technologies bringing only more violence more than what we saw in Gaza for 2 years straight. Everywhere where these technologies are being developed are contributing to this human disaster.
by CrzyLngPwd
5 subcomments
- Drone tech will adapt, as it has been in the russia/ukraine conflict.
A small, fast, autonomous drone flying between trees and buildings, avoiding obstacles and not flying in a straight line could destroy such an expensive system with very little explosive.
Or a cloud of such drones.
Or launch your attack on a foggy/rainy day.
- So will we get drones coated in mirrors and temperature sensors that automatically move them away from these weapons quickly? Or is the laser just too powerful?
by loloquwowndueo
5 subcomments
- Iron Dome, Iron Beam… what next, Iron Curtain?
by greekrich92
0 subcomment
- All of the most reasonable and logical threads here have been nuked from orbit
- Just in time for Iran 2.0
by mrbluecoat
4 subcomments
- Probably a dumb question, but could a ploy drone fitted with a directional mirror redirect the beam back to the source to damage or destroy it?
by MarkusWandel
2 subcomments
- What I don't get about these laser defense systems: Doesn't the attacker just have to attack on a foggy day?
by bethekidyouwant
0 subcomment
- Not much here discussing the actual laser.. it seems to be vaporware? and only the 10 kW one is actually available.
- The Chinese are most likely steaming ahead with the drone armies.
by petermcneeley
0 subcomment
- There isnt much information here. What is the total power per m^2 and what is the frequency (range). As we know the sun alone is 1kW/m^2 over quite a range.
- Or, stop starting wars
- I wish they would make a demonstration
by bethekidyouwant
1 subcomments
- Flying disco balls when?
- Hopefully the world's population of human beings can crowdfund this system to protect the survivors of Israel's Bloodthirsty Holocaust of Gaza.
- It is so sad the Humanity needs to develop weapons...
- I think systems like this will turn drones (or at least, drone swarms) into nothingburgers. We're just one layer deeper into rock paper scissors now
by 29athrowaway
0 subcomment
- I guess they could use railguns too.
- downvotes are exclusivly against any pro palistinian voices, and the eternal zionovictim anti muslim chant goes on and on
and on, as the stage is set for the full resumption of the most violent public genocide in all of history.
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by throw2020
2 subcomments
- Paid for by American taxpayers who don’t have universal healthcare.
https://quincyinst.org/research/u-s-military-aid-and-arms-tr...
by LightBug1
3 subcomments
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by michaelmrose
5 subcomments
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by penger774
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by dontlaugh
1 subcomments
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- Someone will find a reflexive material to put on the drone. Then you have a multi kw laser that hits randomly anywhere when intercepting drones.
Also I wonder why it is not common to run interception drones that automatically fly towards incoming drones and captures them mid air. Like a wasp is capturing other insects.
So pretty much like the iron dome but not with single use rockets but reusable drones instead.
by coppsilgold
2 subcomments
- Laser weapons appear to be advancing rapidly. Once we get to the single digit MW power range, MAD will deteriorate as the ICBM becomes a non-viable nuclear delivery mechanism.
What effect would that have? Will nukes start getting used in wars? Will we see deployment of multi ton NEFP[1] warheads that can strike targets with nuclear-propelled kinetics?
[1] <https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/05/nuclear-efp-and-heat.ht...>