South Korea is beginning the mass production of a low-cost laser weapon that has successfully shot down small drones during testing, the country’s key arms agency said Thursday.
The laser weapon, called Block-I, “can precisely strike small unmanned aerial vehicles and multicopters at close range,” a news release from South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said.
The release did not give a cost for the weapon, but said each shot fired would only cost about $1.50.
Imagery supplied by the agency appears to show a weapon around the size of a shipping container with a laser mounted on top and what appears to be a radar or tracking device mounted on one side of the platform.
The mount would wear out, that’s true. As would the cooling pump, although I don’t see why you wouldn’t just use a cheap one off the shelf. The rest doesn’t theoretically need to wear if you make sure you have enough thermal allowances.
yeah pretty much, optics would likely be pretty temperamental at those power levels, but maybe they aren’t using any? Idk.
If a bug lands on one while it fires would basically melt the optics instantly. I would imagine.
Oh yeah, there’s that. Ideally you’d want semi-disposable covers of some kind.
How powerful is this thing, anyway? I’m assuming it’s more of an “overheat” than “vapourise” situation.
if it’s powerful enough to yeet drones out of the sky, and hasn’t been built before, we’re talking KW range power rating, enough to presumably vaporize parts of the drone instantly, or near instantaneously. So presumably dirty optics would be a big problem. We already have problems with optics on flashlights getting “dirty” from similar issues.