This new Israeli defensive laser is good if it can be fielded:
Laser system like this have been in development elsewhere for a long time but so far no one has been able to develop a laser with the range and destructive power to perform like the new Israeli system. This new weapon is already being called “Laser Dome” because it would complement the existing Iron Dome system that uses missiles and an innovative radar/software system that ignores ballistic, rockets or mortar shell whose trajectory would mean hitting unoccupied land where there will be no injuries or serious damage. Most objects fired at Israel end up landing in unoccupied areas and the few objects that are dangerous are intercepted by missiles. This has proved very effective.
Hezbollah and Gaza-based jihadis bombard Israel with unguided rockets.
Israel adds Iron Dome that only shoots at the rockets that will hit something of value.
The terrorists add a lot more rockets and add longer-range and some precision rockets to stretch and overwhelm the defenses.
And now Israel will add lasers that solve the ammunition limit problem as long as the electricity flows.
The next terrorist response might be to arm the rockets that will fall "harmlessly"--and so aren't targeted by Israeli defenses--with mobile warheads that will then crawl to the target, as I imagined in this entry for an Army contest:
Within seconds the first circular eRobot-made M-980 Mobile Variable Yield Smart Mines—“Boomba” was a Slug nickname that had stuck—would be fired by a distant Legion MBT and infest that Karmėlava street. They had the advantage of being able to follow the POE and avoid harming Civilians. They freaked out the enemy for some reason as they scurried about, all predator-like.
The race will continue. Until somebody decides to run a different race to break the constraints of the current race. Hezbollah may think they won that particular race in 2006, but maybe Israel disagrees.
And that first article discusses American efforts in the defensive laser effort.
