chinese laser weapon development

I love the context of how they talk about shooting down ICBMs only. How about shooting down enemy fighters in air-to-air combat? That would be a game-changing capability in itself and yet they don't even mention it. It's a whole lot easier than shooting down an ICBM from a thousand miles away.

AssassinsMace said:

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I love the context of how they talk about shooting down ICBMs only. How about shooting down enemy fighters in air-to-air combat? That would be a game-changing capability in itself and yet they don't even mention it. It's a whole lot easier than shooting down an ICBM from a thousand miles away.

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Main issue is generally laser systems are not light. It's not something that is currently able to be carried by a fighter jet while still having usable range. It needs to be better than an AA missile for it to make sense to procure, even PL-12 have a range of 75+ km. You probably won't get that range without high kilowatt/low megawatt range laser. Only reasonable AA use I could foresee is maybe carried on a bomber as point defense and even that is a bit of a stretch.