Lasers aren't effective. Most of the drone is just an empty frame. The control board is pretty tiny, as is the ordnance. Targeting those or the propulsion systems is quite difficult. Sure, you can punch holes in the chassis but it takes a lot of guesswork to hit something vital. It's the wrong weapon. Something with an area of effect, like a shotgun or a net is much better suited to stopping drones.
Are you sure about that? AFAIK effective laser drone defenses are not yet widely deployed proven technology, but I don't think small beam size is a limiting factor. Getting enough power onto the target to disable it is a big challenge, but part of that is fighting the natural tendency of the beam to spread out & be attenuated by the atmosphere - not that the beam affects too small of a spot on the drone.
Having a laser that spreads out to e.g. 30cm radius at 500m is not hard to do if you need an area of effect weapon & can push enough power (ie. your laser is powerful enough, but not so intense that it ionizes the air & blocks itself). Reflections seem like a bigger problem: If the most effective defense includes guys with shotguns &/or there are a lot of unprotected personnel in the area, how do you make sure stray reflections don't end up blinding them?
The point is that a focused laser will put a hole through the drone, much like an armor piercing round, but that is often insufficient to disable the drone. A larger ballistic projectile (think a solid shell or a rock) is much more effective. Alternative energy weapons based on microwaves and SPL also work well.
Already tested. Success rate is too low. A great deal of aenergy gets wasted.
Remember, this is about asymmetric warfare. If the number of rounds or amount of energy required costs more than the drone it shoots down, then it's not an effective deterrent. Militaries are looking for single-shot weapons to take down drones. Fire once and move on. It's the only way to deal with a swarm. Think about it for a bit and it will become very obvious.
Israel published last week that it (trialed) deployed laser system to shoot down drones year ago at North. It had 40 intercepts or so. Full operational deployment scheduled for the end of this year
You mean the demo done recently? The article might be misleading. The IDF tested 20 different systems produced by their military OEMs. It wasn't just lasers, and lasers are far from being the clear winner. Here's the official post, it contains a demonstration video:
Did you read your own article? It was developed last year and one of the weapons tested in February of this year as per the IDF post. The rest is Rafael marketing speak.
>In a historic breakthrough, the IDF on Wednesday announced that an unnamed laser defense system similar to the much celebrated Iron Beam laser system has shot down dozens of aerial threats during the war.
>Already in fall 2024, The Jerusalem Post had learned that the IDF had used laser defense systems in operational situations but was barred from reporting on that at the time.
It was all over Israeli news together with videos of operational intercepts.
it has nothing to do with "february cookoff" of different systems and orders for iron beam were placed in january with deployment by the end of the year
>And do you believe the IDF would conduct a demonsttation after it has already committed to a system?
what demonstration are you talking about ? if you are talking about whatever was published in february, it's mostly for more tactical/mobile use i believe.
there is an issue that north of israel is very hilly, so it's possible to fly drones from lebanon below radar visibility range and then just to get them pop-up 50km away from border. it was major problem last year and the publicized trials a believe concentrated on sourcing systems to solve this issue.
