Despite advancements, such as the U.S. Navy’s HELIOS system and the Army’s IFPC-HEL, today's lasers can't yet reliably stop hypersonic threats.

https://archive.is/2024.08.05-032033/https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-military-freaked-lasers-are-no-secret-weapon-against-hypersonic-missiles-207436

  • knightly [none/use any]
    ·
    3 months ago

    Yep! Line of sight alone would limit laser countermeasures to the horizon, to say nothing of the air scattering the beam's energy for the whole distance.

    But interceptors (anti-missile missiles) have no such limitation and would remain the only effective countermeasure for hypersonics.