Ukraine deploys secret anti-drone laser in combat breakthrough

Laser weapons have ignited great hopes for decades due to their advantages. Instead of requiring ammunition that needs to be delivered, stored, and loaded, they only require access to energy. The laser beam travels faster than any projectile, striking its target at the speed of light.

Recognizing these benefits, engineers have been striving for decades to develop a laser that could be used as a weapon. However, this is challenging because supplying the appropriate amount of energy in a short timeframe is a significant hurdle.

That's why only a few countries are capable of building laser weapons. Even fewer have managed to use them outside experimental or controlled laboratory conditions, directly on the battlefield. Ukraine recently reported such success, and a few years earlier, the United States did so as well, though without disclosing specifics.

However, lasers are common in the military, and their use as weapons is just one aspect. The Soviet Union pioneered the development and attempted use of laser weapons, as Tomasz Szulc describes in his article "Military Applications of Lasers in the USSR," published in "New Military Technology" magazine. Russia continues to explore these applications.

Lasers are widely used in targeting systems. This includes not only the characteristic laser pointer, often attached to firearms as a "red dot," but primarily laser rangefinders, which enable precise distance measurements to a target.

Such devices measure the time it takes for a pulse to be sent and return after reflecting off the target, calculating the light distance traveled with high accuracy based on that time.

Among others, tank rangefinders operate on this principle, allowing the tank the chance to hit the target with the first shot after accounting for factors such as weather conditions, without the time-consuming process of "zeroing in." Soviet T-64 tanks were the first in the world to be equipped with such rangefinders in 1965.

Another application of lasers is "laser guidance" for various types of missiles. However, the term is imprecise, as it can refer to two different methods of guiding a weapon to a target.

The first method involves guidance to reflected light originating from a target indicator, which may be located separately from where the missile is fired. For instance, a drone can designate targets for artillery (laser-guided missiles 2K25 Krasnopol), and a reconnaissance group can "illuminate" an object for a bomb dropped from an airplane to hit it, such as the KAB-500L.

This method uses guidance via light reflected from the target. The missile's seeker registers this light, guiding the weapon towards the target by following the reflection source.

The second method involves guiding the projectile within the original (not reflected) laser beam, typical of some anti-tank missiles, like the 9M133 Kornet or 9K121 Vikhr. The target is illuminated with a laser, and the launched projectile has sensors at the rear to ensure it stays within the bounds of the guiding light beam during flight. This beam is significantly stronger, less dispersed, and thus less susceptible to interference than light reflected from the target.

The disadvantage of both solutions is the potential for detecting that the target has been illuminated by a laser indicator. This allows the opponent to counteract, for instance, by using a soft-kill active protection system that automatically deploys smoke grenades.

Using a laser as a weapon is a significantly more complex issue. Research has been ongoing for over half a century, or even a century if we consider the Nazi "death star"—a precursor of laser weapons—designed by Hermann Oberth. This project envisioned an orbital station capable of destroying large swathes of the planet with a concentrated light beam, using a mirror of 3.5 square miles in size.

Perhaps the simplest combat application of a laser is using it as a blinding weapon—directly affecting soldiers' eyes when placed in front of various lens systems used in sights or observation devices.

For such applications, the USSR developed systems like the 1K17 Szhatie (Compression), often described as "a laser tank." Mounted on a 2S19 Msta-S howitzer chassis, this system had a turret with 15 lens sets: three for targeting and twelve for simultaneous laser attacks on up to 12 detected optical systems in enemy vehicles or equipment.

Both detecting and attacking optics were intended to occur automatically. The attack's result was not just the probable destruction of the optical system but also the permanent blinding of its user. Tests confirmed the weapon's proper functioning; however, its high production cost and the limited conditions under which it could be effectively used resulted in only one prototype being produced.

A portable variant of this weapon was also developed—the PAPV emitter operated by two soldiers, automatically scanning the vicinity for optical systems and attacking them with concentrated light. The disadvantage of this weapon was its susceptibility to interference and tendency to target random pieces of glass or smooth metal.

Intense work was also conducted on airborne lasers, exemplified by the A-60 aircraft built in the 1970s. Interestingly, these lasers were initially intended for shooting down stratospheric balloons, which were difficult to shoot down with cannons or various types of rockets.

Russian forces also tested anti-satellite and anti-aircraft laser weapons. However, despite certain successes (such as "illuminating" the Challenger shuttle during one flyby), the weapon did not achieve the level of development necessary for combat use.