The newly created Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces are testing a domestic laser weapon, the «Trident,» said the commander of the Forces, Vadym Sukharevsky. What kind of weapon is this and how can it help the Defense Forces?
The newly created Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces are testing a domestic laser weapon, the «Trident,» said the commander of the Forces, Vadym Sukharevsky. What kind of weapon is this and how can it help the Defense Forces?
«We can state that today Ukraine is, if I’m not mistaken, the fifth country that can say that it has a laser. Today, we can already shoot down planes with this laser at an altitude of over 2 km,»Interfax-Ukraine quotes Sukharevskiy’s speech at the We Build Ukraine conference.
Sukharevskiy noted that the Ukrainian «Tryzub» is currently on the path to scaling and strengthening the laser. «It really works, it really exists,» he emphasized.
Defense Express notes that a combat laser with such characteristics is indeed not a very common thing, and compares the weapon with well-known laser analogues.
In particular, for the American combat laser AN/SEQ-3 (LaWS), the effective range was announced at 1.6 km, with a power of up to 50 kW. At the same time, Rheinmetall in the early 2010s, with a similar power in demonstration firings, worked on UAVs at a range of up to 2 km. The British DragonFire, which they wanted to send to Ukraine for testing, also has a similar power, 55 kW.
That is, when it comes to achieving a range efficiency of exactly 2 km, then it is possible to focus on a power of 50 kW. If the power of the combat laser is half that, about 20 kW, then the range of destruction drops to 1 km and already depends quite strongly on the type of target and the time for its irradiation.
«The clarification that the Ukrainian laser „Trident“ can hit an aircraft at a distance of 2 km also quite directly says that the issue with positioning has been resolved. Even if we are talking about the possibility of hitting an aircraft moving at a speed of up to 200 km/h,» writes Defense Express.
According to InformNapalm, laser weapon systems have been developed and tested by the following countries:
Thus, Ukraine has likely joined the list of countries possessing advanced technologies in the field of laser weapons.
