Not long ago, the domestic "Silent Hunter" launched the first actual combat of a laser interceptor in Saudi Arabia and achieved the news of shooting down a drone. It is estimated that many people already know that the sci-fi era in the movie has really come into reality. What is even more surprising is that, according to the Russian Satellite News Agency, it shot down not one drone, but 13.
At present, it is not known whether the "Silent Hunter" shot down 13 UAVs at one time, or shot down multiple times. If multiple UAVs are shot down in a single interception, it indicates the most critical problem that restricted the laser interceptor before. has been resolved. Previously, the biggest bottleneck of the laser interceptor, in addition to power, was to shoot multiple times in a short period of time, because the energy and heat dissipation issues involved, as well as the sensitivity and accuracy of the tracking equipment, were difficult to handle. And only when the problem of multiple shots in a short time is solved, the laser has real combat value.
At the same time, the wreckage of the drone shot down by Saudi Arabia's "Silent Hunter" laser interceptor was also exposed on the Internet. The entire drone was almost burned to half, and it really turned into scum. From the damage effect, it should be able to pose a threat to larger "predator", "death" and other drones, but unfortunately, the Houthis are not equipped with such long-range drones. Otherwise, the performance of the "Silent Hunter" laser interceptor will reach new heights.
At present, the media has not mentioned the power of the "Silent Hunter" laser interceptor, but judging from the LW-30 laser interceptor that has been publicly exhibited in China, it may be 30 kilowatts. But the problem is that compared to the wreckage of the UAV intercepted by the US Navy's 60-kilowatt-class HELIOS system, the 30-kilowatt-class "Silent Hunter" seems to be more damaging. Why is this?
In fact, power is only one of the indicators to measure the combat effectiveness of laser interceptors. The principle of action of laser interceptors on targets is ablation, and the key to ablation is temperature. The same 60 kilowatt lasers, chemical lasers such as oxygen-iodine chemical lasers, solid-state lasers such as semiconductor-pumped solid-state lasers, semiconductor-pumped gas lasers, fiber lasers, and liquid lasers such as distributed gain liquid lasers, the wavelength of the beam that finally reaches the target surface and temperature are different.
In addition, at this year's Saudi Defense Exhibition, a new light high-mobility laser weapon system was unveiled. It was installed on a military high-mobility chassis like the "Hummer", compared to the "Silent Hunter" on a van truck chassis. , the volume is further reduced, which indicates that its energy density has been further improved.
As early as 2013, the U.S. military put into use the "Hummer" vehicle-mounted "Zeus" laser weapon system in Afghanistan, but it is equipped with a 10-kilowatt diode-excited solid-state laser. It can be fired 3,000 times, close to the level where the Chinese LW-30 fires multiple times every 6 minutes. At the Zhuhai Air Show in 2018, China launched a "laser clearance system" based on the "Mengshi" chassis, which mainly fights against small drones. This time, the light high-mobility laser weapon system exhibited at the Saudi Defense Exhibition, The power has exceeded 10 kilowatts, and the performance has been further improved.
