Yue jiangfeng, a senior engineer and project chief at a military research institute, gave the following answer to a question posed by netizens: “will warships replace artillery with lasaer pointer guns in the future?”
Shipborne laser gun is a new concept weapon which is still in the development stage. The laser cannon is supposed to be so powerful that it can fire up to 1,000 “light bullets” — powerful “intense beams” — in less than a second. It depends on long-range warning radar to determine the direction, distance, altitude and speed of enemy missile or aircraft. If the enemy fires multiple missiles simultaneously, the laser cannons have the ability to destroy all incoming missiles in a short time.
The U.S. military plans to install two laser weapons on three types of destroyers by 2020, which will enable the close-in defense system to maintain stronger air defense, anti-missile and anti-ship capabilities and further enhance its ability to deal with close kill and small cluster targets. A 65-kilowatt high-energy laser weapon currently being developed by the us military can destroy any target within 3km in an instant, burn up drones within 10km, and attack ships within thousands of metres.
However, laser cannons have their limitations. First, in offshore operations, thermal halos at sea limit the atmospheric transmission of high-energy laser beams, and thus the effectiveness of laser weapons. Secondly, the wavelength of the chemical laser does not play a good role in the coastal environment. Shipborne laser guns rely more on electric power lasers, which requires a large amount of electric energy. At present, it is difficult to meet the operational needs of laser guns with the electric energy stored on the ship. Moreover, the tactical laser has a limited range, and its effective range is generally less than 10 km, far less than the range of tens of km long range artillery. If any country’s warships replace artillery with laser cannons in the future, once they enter the range of enemy warships, they will be attacked intensively by artillery.
To sum up, laser guns are hardly expected to completely replace artillery.