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Ігор Вишневський Weapon
23 February 2025, 13:17
2025-02-23
"This year, Ukraine may become the first country to test and receive a truly working model in combat conditions." Expert on how laser weapons work and what their prospects are in war
Aviation expert, former officer of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now deputy director of the Miltech company Anatoliy Khrapchinsky analyzed the extent to which Ukraine is capable of producing laser weapons, what are their advantages, and whether they will prove themselves in the war against Russia.
Aviation expert, former officer of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and now deputy director of the Miltech company Anatoliy Khrapchinsky analyzed the extent to which Ukraine is capable of producing laser weapons, what are their advantages, and whether they will prove themselves in the war against Russia.
«Despite everything, the use of a laser as a means of defeating an air defense system is still quite „raw“. What can be seen in the tests of the USA, Great Britain and Israel still needs significant refinement. The thing is that there are a number of difficulties that may arise when using beam weapons,» he explained in a comment to NV.ua.
First of all, as Khrapchinsky says, such complexes require a large amount of energy to operate effectively.
«In addition, it is not known for certain how long it will be possible to use, relatively speaking, lenses or mirrors to form a powerful laser beam. There is still no exact understanding of how many laser shots can be fired from such a system,» he listed other problematic issues.
In addition to all of the above, the expert pointed out the importance of focusing the laser beam at one point so that it does not scatter, and at the same time has stable power at a given range of damage.
According to Khrapchinsky, if we are talking about an unmanned aerial vehicle flying towards the emitted laser beam, this should not cause any difficulties, but if we are talking about a cruise missile or an aircraft moving away from the beam, then difficulties may arise.
According to the expert, when it comes to defeating an enemy ballistic missile, a kinetic interception method is used, which involves a direct collision with an air target.
«Therefore, it should be understood that laser weapons use kinetic, precise destruction of an enemy target. And for this, an extremely high-quality and accurate ballistic calculator is needed, which would calculate at what stage and at what point it is necessary to intercept an air target. But here too, questions arise: Where will we hit this beam — the wing, fuel tank or somewhere else? And how much significant damage will we cause to an enemy air object? Thus, in order to master the effective operation of a combat laser, it is necessary to carefully practice the methods of using beam weapons on various targets,» says Khrapchinsky.
Therefore, according to his forecasts, the Defense Forces will first develop effective methods for UAVs, and later move on to developing approaches for destroying other aerial targets — cruise missiles and aircraft.
Despite all these technical nuances, Khrapchinsky believes that the laser is a cheap and very powerful weapon.
«We can say with confidence that this is a super cool and cheap weapon with a future. And probably, 2025 may well be the year when Ukraine, together with its Western allies, will enter the laser era and become the first country to test, test and receive a truly working sample of this new weapon in combat conditions,» he concluded.
Recall that the commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces, Vadym Sukharevsky, reported that Ukraine already has a laser weapon called «Trident», which can shoot down enemy aircraft and is being actively improved.
«It really works, it really exists.» The Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces reported that Ukraine already has a laser weapon called the Trident, which can shoot down enemy aircraft and is being actively improved.
