Why Laser Weapons are About to Change Everything

Laser weapons are about to change war forever and I want to show you how. The French government is investing approximately 5 billion dollars into acquiring the technology as part of their modernization efforts. The US military is investing 1 billion dollars a year into directed energy weapons development to slap onto their new XM30 infantry fighting vehicle and 6th generation NGAD fighter. There are 3 reasons the world is in a laser weapons arms race right now. First to combat the immediate problem of the rise of small inexpensive drone warfare. Second, to destroy incoming cruise and hypersonic missiles. And third to blind the enemy’s satellites that control their navigation and command abilities.

Written by: Chris Cappy and Patrick Griffin
Edited by: Michael Michaelides

Nowhere is the first example of drone warfare better characterized than by Ukranian fight against Russia. Early in the war when Kyiv was under attack. A crowd-funded group of 30 Ukranian IT warriors used motorcycles, commercial off-the-shelf drones, and hand grenades to halt Russian infamous “40-mile convoy.” (link to story here). Since then, hundreds of videos on Twitter and Telegram brought the devastation of these small drones to the forefront of conversation among those tracking the conflict over social media. Footage posted on Twitter in July shows a $4 million Russian T-90 tank destroyed by a Ukrainian FPV drone that retails for under $2,000. And one of the most shocking parts of all this is there really was no good countermeasure to cheap drones.

But in response the Kremlin announced the deployment of special laser weapons in May 2023 over state run television. The secretive “Zadira” project was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov who boasted that the laser “was capable of destroying drones in five seconds at a distance of five kilometers [or three miles]” by burning them. It’s called the Peresvet which is a ground-based anti-satellite laser. While not much is known about the Zadira laser, there are six known Peresvet lasers in Russia’s inventory. First showcased in 2018, the Peresvet is designed to interrupt or destroy reconnaissance satellites from the ground with an alleged range of 1,500 km (932 miles). It accomplishes this by “dazzling” the sensitive lenses and electronic equipment with a high-powered beam. This is different from the thermal-combustion method that anti-drone and missile lasers use, requiring a less energy-dense beam and thus allowing for a much longer effective range. To put this into context the first laser pointer I ever got was for a birthday gift from my parents when I was in highschool. Those laser pointers have a power of less than 5 milliwatts. Then I was issued a military grade laser in Iraq that we used to warn vehicles to stop before checkpoints that was about 125 milliWatts. These 50 kilowatt anti-drone lasers are about 50 million times more powerful.

So if Russia is telling the truth about their capabilities, which is a big if, it would put the range of satellites in low-earth orbit within the kill-zone of the Peresvet. This includes Starlink, a constellation of satellites essential for Ukrainian command and control that operate at an altitude of only 550 km according to their website. Ukrainian and U.S. officials are skeptical of Russia’s announcements that the Zadira and Peresvet deployed to Ukraine. U.S. officials say they have seen “no evidence” that these weapons have been deployed to Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed these mysterious weapons as “wonder weapons”.

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#WAR #UKRAINE #LASER

[bernardli]

What a time to be alive when Raytheon is supporting YT channels like Task and Purpose. I'm looking forward to General Dynamics putting gamers in the AbramsX.

[mitchellmeyer]

What a great sponsor spot. Really hits the target audience. I'll definitely be purchasing probably the 15 kW laser for placement on my roof.

[TStark-vjwo]

My father worked on the Stars Wars/SDI ground based laser system - specifically adaptive optics to account for atmospheric aberrations so that the laser would stay effective at long distances (your comment at 2:58 - "...beam integrity..."). I remember him showing me, at an MIT-Lincoln Labs open house, a (simple) benchtop version of the 'adjustable' mirror surface system that would change the laser beam for atmospheric 'clutter'. When talking to him a few months ago, before his death, he wondered, figured, that his team's designs/technology probably made it into ground based space-telescope systems.

[Tony-zdmg]

Wow it’s amazing watching this channel grow from a man doing short videos doing what he loves to being popular enough that he gets bought out by raytheon and the military industrial complex 🙌🏽

[petesheppard]

Actually, 'Star Wars' was a derisive term coined by members of the media that wound up catching on. President Reagan was mocked as 'Ronnie Ray Gun'.
While a lot of the tech was impractical for its time, the project was instrumental in breaking the Soviet Union as they struggled to compete with SDI.

[HeisenbergFam]

We really live in peculiar timeline where we will have lasers, traditional weapons like AKs and bows in use (in some parts of the world)

[Kazrel]

There's some feeling I get from hearing "sponsored by Raytheon" that I can't even begin to describe.

[danielcarson]

I read an article many years ago about long-range, atmospheric lasers. A team experimented and determined that three or more weaker laser beams around the main beam would ionize the air and thereby extend the range and effective power of the main beam.

[dougmoore]

My wife is a Phalynx design engineer at Raytheon. Her reaction to the phrase, “Spray and pray” was visceral, and quite entertaining. LOL! 🤣😂🤣😂

[milkbowl]

Not a military person, but
I've been watching your channel for awhile now . Love your dedication man

[jscoutoa]

Being on the first team of soldiers to test the DE-MSHORAD laser system was a wild time. Seeing the damage these systems can do and a whole new way to destroy airborne and potentially ground targets is unparalleled. The biggest thing is that the “ammo” for most of these weapon systems is JP8.

[diggingdoge]

laser weapon technology has always been a interest of mine since my father told me about his time in the army.
he was drafted in 69' and got to play soccer for the army the first 2 years but then he had to move on. since he was part of a engineer battalion him and a group of others got "volunteered" for a secret program. he had to sign a 20 year non disclosure act but when he told me about this in the 90's it was not all that secret anymore anyways. so they got shipped off to Texas where they had a job of being the "targets" who where to run around in the desert in trucks with target attached to the back. planes would fly by testing a laser weapon, what he told me was it was not set to maximum so it would leave burn marks but could not destroy metal. i dont know if he is saying the truth but he has a burn mark on his face that he said was when he got hit once. he drank alot and joked he liked to tell this story and make fun of the guys in his camp, being a old time vermont yankee it was a experience meeting all kinds of americans. just my 2 cents on this.

[johnned]

The multi-layered air defense systems are employing the “Swiss cheese” model. First used to talk about automobile safety, and later during the Covid pandemic, each layer of protection was like a slice of Swiss cheese- it could stop threats but not all of them. But adding multiple layers of protection would dramatically increase the effectiveness of protection.

[rattlehead]

Totally made pew pew laser and explosion sounds in my head when watching this.

[spacehornet]

Dazzling lasers are effective not so much because they're so powerful, but because their targets are so sensitive. A starlink satellite doesn't have a camera to dazzle so it wouldn't be affected. A spy satellite has a very sensitive camera and powerful lens, so any laser light hitting the lens gets amplified and focused onto the image sensor.

[pierredelecto]

Will be interesting to start seeing mirror surfaced drones!

[deezynar]

I knew a guy who had been an engineer on the original star wars laser project. He said that the program was laughed at publicly, but without mentioning any specifics, he said they had made breakthroughs in both the engineering and in the SCIENCE. He specifically stated that they had physicists on the team who could not explain how the engineers were getting some of the results they had gotten. The physicists had to recognize that a new understanding of light had been discovered.
The system was not ready for prime time back then, but he said what they had achieved would allow for practical laser weapons to be developed in the near future.
The Russians are sharp all on their own, but if they made any advancements on the laser weapons we came up with, it was because they built on what the U.S. had developed. It's most likely that the Russians paid spies to steal our research information.

[YvonneBowe]

Wow. No satellites then no shipping, no aviation, no communications. How many consumer devices and applications are satellite enabled? Great video Cappie.

[wernerheenop]

Yesterday a sponsored youtube video convinced me to sign up for Skillshare. Today's sponsored video just convinced me to purchase a 10kW Palletised Raytheon laser for my pick up truck.

[MZ-blwg]

This was a GREAT video!!!! I’ve noticed in comments that the general public doesn’t believe these Lasers exist, great to show they do, the deployed laser on 3 US Navy ships show its moving and AI will change this massively!