"Star Wars is Real, AND It Really Works" Topic

Looks like this finally puts the nail in the coffin of the naysayers, from back in the day when they said "Star Wars" would never work.

Granted, this is for tactical use in the protection of aircraft, but I imagine it can be scaled up to deal with the protection of cities and whole countries/continents against enemy missiles too.

Looks like the age of the "Sci-Fi" Fighter/Spacefighter isn't far off, and eventually these may get used offensively as well:

link

At the very least, it is going to greatly complicate things for enemy fighters, if/when their AAMs can be disabled or destroyed before they can threaten their opponents' aircraft.

Can't wait to see the 6th Gen. US Fighter designs equipped with both offensive and defensive laser weaponry.

I imagine ground-based lasers will be able to neutralize ICBMs pretty handily in the near future. If they cause enough surface damage to make the ICBM burn up in the atmosphere, the warhead won't explode. You'll still get radioactive materials in the atmosphere, but that's better than actual nuclear explosions.

I guess we have to assume MIRVs, so the earlier they are hit the better.

Yep, works great as BMD, until the opposition figures out ladder-down attacks.

Sorry, please describe a ladder-down attack?

Well, 30 years is an eternity in technogical advancement. If you show someone in the 1980's an iPhone or a self-driving smart car he/she would be incredulously amazed as if seeing "magic."

@28mm Fanatik: Neither would have appeared as magic to us in the 1980s. We had all seen enough Star Trek to be expecting hand computers and robots to be developed. We would just have been surprised that they were few years early.