In other words, BRRRRRRRRRTTT or PEW PEW?

The idea of AI drone swarms is utterly terrifying but also kind of neat.

One needs a $4M generator to fire. The other needs $3000 of ammo per second to fire. The cost effectiveness really depends on how often they have to be used.

Great video. I used to work in this field. Here's some non-classified information and a few updates and some interesting information for your future videos on this subject. 1) The power beaming from space is typically referred to as microwave beaming or UV beaming. The idea has been around since the 1980's, but like the Star Wars initiative the technology to make it happen hasn't existed until recently 2) the technologies being referred to here have to do with: widely available multi-core cpu's, transistors & LED's becoming very powerful, and having very effective heat reduction. This lead to very small, low heat output, highly efficient devices, with quantum effect prediction engineered into them that allows these devices to be produced en masse without signal "Loss" or function loss due to being so tiny (circa 2015) 3) all energy weapons suffer significantly in cloudy, smoky or misty environments. Kinetic weapons and IR target acquisition will still be a staple of the military in the future to prevent this loophole from being exploited, and it is another reason why the research and limitations are still being taken seriously. There does not currently appear to be a way to counter this effect. ⚛️ 4) Devices that use multi-focal projected microwave beaming & scattering were not covered here (i.e. "Havana Syndrome"), and I do expect that military grade devices will be available in the next few years, and most likely used by Russia in the near future against civilian and military populations. You should do a video on that one, they are very powerful anti-infantry & area denial devices, and there does not seem to be a counter to them outside of disabling the energy systems powering them. There does not appear to be any body shielding, vehicle armor or moderate thickness materials, other than a bank vault 🏦 that can stop this effect. (Maybe active EM shielding devices?) 5) Energy beam transfers from site to site is a pretty awesome tech. They can still be channeled into a conduit or receiving stations to turn around corners due to refractive cascades inside of glass, just like a fiber optic cable. The power output right now is too high for the materials we currently have. There are other solutions that are being used in the mean time to resolve this. But it seems like it won't be long until stronger transparent materials are developed that can shunt and refocus these beams, so that's pretty awesome 6) high energy microwave or UV beams from satellites that miss-align on their targets do exactly what your video describes. 😂 🧑‍🚒🔥🔥🚒 There is a reason we still don't use them. But pulsed arrays are coming 🛰️ and they do look to be much more safe. Still too dangerous to be in the middle of a base though; water based receiving stations or deep receiving stations appear to be the way to go. 7) all of these devices discussed here are vulnerable to air-burst nuclear devices & salted EMP blast effects. So it is likely that NONE of these weapons would be useful in a large war with another armed nuclear nation. The use of tactical devices purely for their EMP effect is high on the list of defensive strategies for any super powers, so these devices have other limitations too but they are great for all the conflicts that aren't large scale wars ☢️

The US tried developing a long range laser system mounted aircraft to intercept ballistic missiles but it failed because the laser would get weaker in long distances due to clouds, particles in the air would interfere with the laser

Forgot to mention the laser showstoppers: Humidity, in the form of rain, clouds. ☁🌧 Also: dust, smoke, reflective surfaces. Making the target reflective can reduce the effectiveness of the beam up to 90%.

Things that defeat lasers: rain, fog, snow, sleet, smoke, steam, mirrors. You need the guns too.

This is the most balanced and realistic analysis ive seen on YT. No crazy claims and solid understanding of application. Great video.

Direct Energy Weapons are a promising technology with the potential to change the nature of warfare, they are unlikely to completely replace traditional kinetic weapons. Instead, they may complement existing capabilities and be used in specific scenarios where their advantages, such as precision and speed, are most valuable.

The problem with laser tech is the fact that styropyro isn’t immediately being hired by the DOD as the primary director of laser armaments. The “it’s too expensive” and “it’s not effective” are blown away with what that guy does in his garage. The fact that you could make a UV cancer ray or invisible infrared laser in a garage has so many military applications. Each one of his videos is essentially a futuristic weapon.

Worth noting that, while they may be called "lasers" they are invisible in actual combat, the training footage cgi adds light for visualization. It's a misconception similar to everyone assuming that radioactive = glowing green.

I am Heavy Weapons Guy, and this... is my weapon. It weighs 2500 kilos and fires custom attenuated high wattage pulse lasers at centrimetric precision. It costs 25 cents to fire this weapon for _twelve seconds_

What do u call a gun that shoots salt? Assalt rifle! 😂

About power beaming, I am quite a bit sceptical : if you take into account the losses due to efficiency of solar cells (70% loss) , and solid state lasers, the process might stay great for a niche but not reasonably expandable, not to mention the extreme costs of lasers emitters due to the necessary optical accuracy requiring extremely precise machining

Note that power-beaming isn’t particularly efficient, even if it’s more efficient than gathering sunlight. The main issue is, we aren’t using the sunlight so any input is pure electricity gains, but using lasers results in losses and fickle connections able to be sabotaged by fog. I think we got the gist of 13:10 as well though. Definitely has its uses, but in no way will it replace cables and power infrastructure in the near future.

Sounds like the best approach to combating this lazer system is swarming + high velocity projectiles. Alternatively, a large, thin, spinning outer tungsten alloy shell which would prevent the rocket from being disarmed. (Spinning the projectile prevents heating of one area.)

"You never have to reload". That's not entirely true. These lasers take a LOT of energy to fire. This means one of two solutions; generation or storage. Generators are expensive, heavy and aren't very good at coping with large fluctuations in demand. Storage would only require some cheap and comparatively light-weight (though bulkier) super-capacitors that can dump hours worth of generation almost instantly. However, once they discharge below a certain point, they will need time to charge back up again. In the long term, these systems will require replacement electron guns, lasing materials and lenses; which I suppose is more like replacing a firing pin, reloading brass and swapping a barrel on a traditional gun.

If lasers proliferate, misssiles will just be equipped with heat reflectors or ablative shields. Hypersonics can already deal with heat, and offer short dwell time, so lasers won't be very useful for things like that. They'll be useful for small drones though

Imagine a post apocalytic scenario where humans have to hide like rats on a daily circle where lazers from above roast everything on their way

I love when you cover War stuff it really fits the channel and current times!!

I love how regularly you post! much appreciated.

EDIT SO PEOPLE SEE: this is NOT about the usage of lasers as weapons, this is about the usage of lasers as energy transfer around a base or from space. I would be concerned about the eye safety of these long range laser energy systems. given that 1 watt lasers can blind you before you can blink, pumping kilowatts of power though the air seems like a mistake could easily cause burns on skin or permanently blind anyone who got in its way.

I mean come on, laser weapons, beaming energy from space? We're finally turning into a sci-fi movie and I'm so for it.

I hope Railguns, Lasers & High-power Microwaves will become the future of warfare in place of cold-war era weapons systems primarily intended for delivery of nuclear weapons due to being scalable, cost-efficient & future-proof as well.

250kW High Energy Laser cost how much to buy? How big is the laser? How big is the power supply? Maintenance of lasers? What is the total cost?

i want all lazers to make the "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM" of a microwave

who ever came up with the acronym HEL(high energy lasers) needs a raise

Powerbeaming is a pipedream. We need more than 100 years for that. Laser modules have very low efficiency, and photovolatic modules that are very specific might have 40% efficiency. At the end of the day you might need 1kw to transmit 100 watts. And they are extremely visible. Imagine shining kilowatts of lasers into the sky. Plus atmospheric scattering comes into play after a couple hundred meters. But overall its a cool idea like all the research topics mentioned here.

So with the last technology listed, using lasers as a method of power transfer, we could theoretically have electric planes that never land.

Power-beaming sounds like something out of TRON. Fascinating!

The Future of Warfare is a Sabaton song about the first tank, which was released on September 15, 1916. This video was posted on September 15.

The net capture drone at 2:32 is called DroneHunter and is made by Fortem Technologies in Utah. It has a miniature phased array radar onboard to seek the target.

When they say it's way ahead of its timeline, it just means keep at it not throw it away. Cause this stuff should of been made long ago and there ain't any excuses other than fear for what would others do next. But still, good video.

As a correction, the CWIS (Navy) doesn't use tracer or explosive rounds. The C-RAM (Army/ground based) uses self destructing tracers.

You know what's wild? Halo (yes the game/books) already addressed this. They talked about how with the increase in laser and plasma technology they (the aliens) had to increase their defenses against them. And developed and developed and they got battle systems that were top of the line against energy weapons. But when they went to fight the humans we had primitive "kinetic weapons" that bypassed all of their technological advances. As an example that relates to the real world. Technology is getting so advanced that its becoming a liability. War has become economic. Its now "who can do the most damage for the least money" a $200 RPG destroys a $1,000,000 armored personell carrier. You put a $2,000 drone in the air that costs $100k to shoot down. Sometimes, the best answer to "how do I stop the $100,000,000 jet from being shot down, is to just not build it.

The story about Archimedes using mirrors and sunlight to burn ships is almost certainly a myth. Also, a LASER is completely different from concentrated sunlight.

Did anyone else notice that one of the companies in this video is called “Faro”? Take a wild guess what the name of the company that created all the robots in Horizon Zero Dawn was.

The problem is clouds & other atmospheric disturbances. Also, beam coherence over long distances. If you can figure out how to effectively mitigate those two issues, you'll be more than financially set for life, you'll be in legacy-money territory.

About Lidar scanning, it used to be fixed on either a tripod or a car, but some portable scanners are starting to come out (Navvis), and while you have to walk gently with it so it doesn't screw up it's positioning, it's only a matter of time before drones with lidar scanners start to come out. Also, to correct the narrator, it doesn't take 1000000 photos per second, but 1000000 Y, X, Z coordinate points, along with a panoramic picture to add color to the 3D model.

It’s costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire the weapon, for twelve seconds

Great video. I would suggest the equation for cost shouldn't be the price of the defence weapon vs the price of the aggressor's weapon; ie $3m to take down a $2k drone. I'd suggest the better parameter would be asking the price of what you're defending. If it's a multi-billion dollar installation or asset then the price is worth it! Depending on the value of what you're defending both in terms of price and capability (what it offers) easily offsets the cost to defend it in most cases.

talked with the people who worked at the Sandia national lab that developed the LASER for the 707 testing. There is a reason why this isn't going to proliferate like you state...the distance is proportional to the energy required to do damage. the energy required for the Jet based laser was enormous, yet it was only good at relatively short distances....

Lasers get defeated by composites that cost $1 per kilogram with minimal thickness and weight added. It's going to lead to composite hardened wild weasel munitions tailored for taking down DEW's.

As a sci-fi nerd, One thing I can tell you is that the fact is Laser weapons cannot stop hypersonic weapons, what's more, is that they're not going replace Gatling guns, because their many ways to counter laser weapons Like mirrors, and sloped surfaces, ultra white paint, etc even if it could make the missile survive milliseconds or maybe seconds longer which might not sound like much but still has a massive effect on life and death you could do that even more by using small effective passive cooling or ablative cooling methods etc. Not to mention lasers are going have problems like being fragile and affected by the atmosphere but those problems are currently being solved yet Gatling guns for point defense won't go away.

can i use drones to attack ships now? no, the anti air is a deadly lazer.

I guess this becomes interesting when these systems get small and cheap enough that Ukrainian or Russians soldiers in their trenches start using them to take down enemy drones, without the power supply unit requiring too much fuel or it being so big that it gets spotted and taken out by the enemy.

“To be fair, we are VERY good at throwing rocks” -HFY

I was reading in a magazine probably 5 years ago how autonomous warfare could look like, kinda fascinating we are already here

They have been around for decades - and in use - a game changer - therefore kept very much in the black - and always announced as a future weapon as a type of camouflage misinformation.

0:22 I love how the drone touches the water and just flops and does flips

Man, every year that we move further away from Terminator 2's release, we get a year closer to Skynet...

I just discovered this channel and these types of videos and the artillery one is perfect edutainment content. Subbing

It's going to be trivial to make those cheap attack weapons more reflective or more tolerant to heat, and still overcome the more expensive laser setups. Doesn't matter if it costs 50 cents to fire it, you still paid millions to build it & it'll get destroyed anyway

Another question is the efficiency - how much energy does it take to generate the laser of certain power and how much of that can be caught and converted back to electricity for example.

USA: "In my next magic trick, I'll make this 25 cent per shot laser into a 50,000 taxpayer dollars per shot"

Laser and drone warfare will become the weapon of modern militaries in the very near future. Drones used in warfare have already proven their worth in terms of - "Gold". With the use of drones pilots are not put into harms way as it has been. Another excellent video. You continue to make great videos well worth watching. Shalom

what happens if your power supply gets hit is this still a reason for cram/cwiz

You make wargames seem so fun!

The day lasers become a weapon is the day we'll have mirrors as armour.

The answer is both yes and no. Yes, because they offer a cheaper option to warfare. The issue is atmospheric defussion and power output. No, because conventional weapons are a known quantity and very reliable. Even if you fast forward to 20 or 300 years from now you will see both platforms being used because the various threats requirements meet a specific hammer to beat that nail back to where it came from.

I played SinCity 2000, I know what happens when the beam misses the power dish…

What kind of efficiency is reached with powerbeaming? I can't imagine it's very good

Everyday, we get closer to Ace Combat being real.

This is our modern version of the cannon. In the middle ages, cannons were a technological marvel. Then the first handheld firearms came along and rapidly revolutionized the battlefield. I would take a guess that we will have an early version of handheld laser weapons sooner rather than later. Styropyro has already made some amazing stuff, but imagine the might of the military industrial complex behind a man like Styro? That would be insane.

Reminds me of a science fiction novel I read, in the story humanity divided into two rival groups with multiple planets under their control, one side scorched the other group from their planets with lasers until there was nothing left. YAY we can almost wipe ourselves out in a new and exciting way! Go humans!

I currently have little confidence they will soon replace current systems but seems well worth including on vessels. I trust that at bare minimum, lasers can burn out the sensors on missiles. Given the cost of each short, well worth the shot. Added layer 👍

Would an effective counter to anti-drone lasers be to have the drones drop payloads such as smoke grenades to obscure a direct line of fire? Would smoke from something like a smoke grenade be good enough at diffusing the light to prevent the drones from being burned by the lasers?

plot twist: the enemy has a mirror

They have a laser weapon we have a mirror shield😏

Energy Weapons also push development of miniature fusion cell unit as well. Just like the submarines, little down time, massive return.

But I still have one question. If the object is completely covered in mirrors do laser weapons still work?

DJI accidentally becoming an arms dealer lol

Just wrap the drones with reflective material. Laser proof🧠

I went to an airshow in Australia and got to a laser system that would be placed on a vehicle in the place of a M2 Browing for example on the bushmaster. this small laser was able to cut a hole in several cm of metal in less than 3 seconds. can't image what it would do to a human. You could be walking around and start taking fire from a silent target with no idea where its coming from

It's really hard to imagine that a space-based beamed energy system could ever be cost-effective compared to just shipping fuel around. Gas is just so energy-dense.

But wouldn't an infrared reflective panel or coating negate the infrared energy as it wouldn't heat the target up?

12:55 - I really like the idea of a laser beam comming from cosmos through a thick layer of snowing clouds... A pity you didn't mentioned about some SERIOUS drawback lasers have - they are useless at long ranges (atmosphere interference) and in bad weather. Half of the ideas you mentioned do not make much sense because of that.

It is very cost effective. Nice vid👍

It's all MAD - if you can get a direct or mirrored indirect view of the target you can take it out. Ship to ship, air to air, land/ sea to air and vice versa. Instant destruction of vulnerable targets.

This video eschews the negatives of laser weapons (though I agree they're the future). For example you mention that they require no reloading, but they do generate large amounts of heat that require dumping periodically, which is functionally the same as needing to reload. Also, you didn't mention the other drawbacks of laser systems, such as atmospheric interference. Rain, fog, cloud cover, all significantly reduce their effectiveness, to the point of being ineffective within certain important ranges. Finally, the concept of sending electricity to/from space using lasers isn't particularly viable for the same reason, which is why for space to ground electrical transmission we're looking at highly directional microwaves that can pass through cloud cover (though in space itself, satellite to satellite, laser communication and energy transmission is very viable). Anyway, you covered all the positives in the tech in general which was great, and you're right with it being a very important part of defence in depth moving forward. It would just have been nice to hear the full story about the tech, rather than just a perfect, rosy view of it :-D

Could you please do a video about the new Israeli submarine?

Recharging batteries from the ground could make civilian electric planes practical for passengers and cargo. It solves the energy density problem for batteries.

i imagine a commercial plane defending against missile attack and now everyone on the ground is blind

Awesome! I waited for the military laser era as a huge fan of lasers! Specially high power lasers!

Yes, directed energy weapons are the future.

This video did not mention that all laser systems are highly dependent on atmospheric conditions (humidity etc.) which is a huge disadvantage.

You missed an opportunity at the end to say, “Let’s hope it’s Not What You Think,” as you show that forest fire footage.

Just ask the people of maui

Moving energy by laser would be INSANELY cool!

the only thing i worry about with this channel, is that if he ever runs out of ideas for videos, im not sure what i'd do.

What I want to know is, what effect(s) can weather have on any of these lasers? (Cloudy, foggy, snowy, etc,.) Can the atmosphere create interference when beaming solar lasers down to earth? Can beaming energy to earth damage the ozone layer?

First of all I love your statements, to my knowledge, are always exact and never commonplace. Second I like the way you mix humor and technology. This clip surprise me with many news, but laser was near future weapon from fifties, in the sixties they become so popular we find it on Star Trek, in the eighties they came out of the laboratories to fly into empty space finding founds for a great research program (Reagan star wars), and so on... it's 50 years I'm waiting for a laser weapon, even just some sort of energy weapon, and we are here still talking... Laser is a Chimera due to its growth potential in the long term, but for these new elements on Battlefield drones, the last evolution of Rafael Typhoon IV mount (aka Mk38 in US Navy) using 30/173 mm round (lethal up to 2 metres away for a dismounted soldier) with proximity fuze requires a burst of only three shots to destroy it one up to 1 or 2 nm away depending on the speed at cost of 100/150 dollars per burst. On ground battelfield intended target could be everywhere, so drone can pass miles from gun making it ineffective. Even laser at 10/15 statute miles or 20 kilometres will find itself out the line of sight, but is much better. Just for laughs a 127 mm / 5" naval gun round have a proximity range against a cruise missile of 10 metres/ 33 feet probably 5 times more for target as drone, so killing swarm of drones with every round. This is not the way to fight a war, none give Ukraine a weapon capable to hit inside Russia the source of drone (by factory, deposit, supply convoy, bridge, roads, etc), nor one very peculiar war could establish rules for future wars... Thank you

"Where are weaponised laser systems being used today?" *stares at hawaii*

As soon as these lasers go into service there will be counter measure and they will quickly become mostly useless. Reflection is the killer of laser weapons.

Great, now I can heat up my coffee at the charging station, I'll just set this up here aaaaand I just got sliced in half.

I wanna see a military drone pilot that has the dexterity of those drone racing people.

lasers replacing gunpowder, like arrows giving way to guns, was bound to happens.

The laser knows where it is, because it knows where it isn't

That shit will permanently blind you if you look at it for even a second

As covenant elites say, energy beats projectiles