The unfortunate part of HELs on ships is that they draw a
hellish lot of power, off the top of my head, the only ships
currently capable of mounting a laser is the nuclear powered
Zumwalt, and that’s only going to be commissioned in 3 years.
And Milo, I mentioned weaker laser power in atmosphere, the
power needed to cut through armour is fearsomely high, right now, a
single Harpoon missile deals magnitudes more damage than any laser
produced. Look at the small boat in your article, they only managed
to set the outboard motor on fire. A Harpoon missile on that boat
and you’d have trouble even finding the pieces.
The most fearsome weapon against a CVBG is
still the anti-ship missile. Which is why I’m still a proponent of
a Singaporeanized version of the SC21
program.
Missiles
1) Don’t lose damage over range
2) Can hit targets “over the horizon”
3) Can manuver around obstacles to hit the target
4) Can be launched in an “Alpha Strike” (i.e Fired everything at
once) and at many targets
5) Have a blast radius, so does not require a direct hit.
Lasers
1) Can’t be intercepted
2) Do not need ammo
3) Do not need to reload
But unfortunately lasers still have too many weaknesses to be
used as weapons by themselves.
3)
