rickair7777

It could certainly make tactical surface assets more resistant to tacair.

But for deep infrastructure strike (ie shock n' awe) it wouldn't change too much.

Today we use stealth/standoff assets take down key IADS nodes, then the worker bees start flowing in en-masse to service everything else.

With DE IADS, you'd use stealth or maybe hypersonic standoff weapons to take down the key DE nodes. Like anything else, DE needs to be able to see and track the target.

Natural evolution of warfare.

JamesNoBrakes

I don't know, that assumes stealth is effective and not defeated by ever evolving surveillance technology. Not only that, but DE has the potential to neutralize the weapons delivered. Yeah, maybe hypersonic has a chance, but this all decreases the need/use of manned aircraft assets IMO.

Excargodog

The technology that gives us pulse doppler radars that can see wind shear can also detect stealth. Just because the limited air to air radars we have can’t do it does not mean an integrated air defense network couldn’t detect it. And radar absorbent material is smoked really quickly by directed energy weapons.

AgentSmith

Chemical lasers have heavy, caustic chemicals and exhaust.

Sold State Lasers are the way to go.

rickair7777

Stealth cannot be defeated by a single new innovation, it can only be degraded incrementally by advances in radar or possibly other sensors. Range rings get bigger, ingress and egress get more challenging.

In order to ablate RAM with DE, you still have to target the aircraft with something first.

But again, same business model applies: SOMETHING kicks in the door (be it stealth, tree-skimming hypersonics, or something else... conventional prompt global strike?). Once the IADS are degraded then the more vulnerable worker bees roll in.

In recent history (post 'Nam) we have brought down IADS in a matter of hours, quickly achieved air supremacy, and then carried out sustained strike ops for years. For high-end/peer-ish opponents the fight is likely to look quite different anyway, you'd have to use your imagination on that.

rickair7777

Both generate heat, the chem laser has the advantage that you can discard much of the heat along with the chemicals. Solid-state has to be cooled... if you can do that somehow, it is a much cleaner system than chem.

JamesNoBrakes

Actually, 'Nam is probably the closest example in recent history to any kind of semi-organized air defense system that the US has faced. Maybe a little in Bosnia too (where they brought down a "Stealth"). Otherwise, I don't think the bar has been very high here. It'll never be hard to gain superiority over an enemy that's generally disorganized, except for the MANPADS hazard, which would be more spotty and due to the limited range probably more a matter of having ground superiority.

I just think that DE is going to revolutionize ground weapons and make them so much more effective, no longer are you going to be "wasting" an entire missile, which in of itself requires maintenance and upkeep, on a target, hoping that it's guidance system work and there are no malfunctions. Optical and other sensors can see things at pretty distant ranges and with fusion of systems and input, I just see a lot of air assets being neutralized with DE. It's always going to be harder to design an aircraft that has to deal with far more finite resources, in terms of weight, energy, time, etc., and send it in to defeat something that effectively has none of those limitations. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

rickair7777

Actually Iraq had pretty good IADS and military in general, same systems and doctrine that our peer competitors used at the time, although presumably not as competent in the employment. The PRC revolution in military affairs was actually a direct result of Gulf War I: They eagerly watched in anticipation of learning how to better employ their own soviet gear and doctrine against the US and western allies. They were hoping for an Iraqi victory or at least a brutally hard-fought contest... instead they got the biggest wake-up call of their lives. That's all history of course, they have certainly learned and applied many lessons since.

DE will be a change but stealth/LO + night will still = problem for the defense.

Also... there's a reason ABL was airborne: it was designed to fire from ABOVE the tropopause at a target ABOVE the tropopause. Insert weather, moisture, or dust into the problem and it gets a lot harder to track and deliver energy... and more energy just aggravates the distortion problem, affecting beam focus, accuracy, and energy loss.

I think DE will be great for surface assets to defend themselves from close-in targets (TACAIR doing CAS, cruise missiles, small boats etc). But a maneuverable, distant airborne target is harder. Especially a surface skimming hypersonic.

aeroengineer

And catch it in the more vulnerable boost phase before you're dealing with potentially multiple warheads. Also letting the debris fall closer to the launch territory.

rickair7777

That's true too.