Right. That’s just the telescoping mast. The original poster wasn’t sure what’s under the tarp.
Chinese laser weapon development
- Thread starter maozedong
- Start date
A supplementary image of a Laser Arrow-21 system guarding Beijing.
Laser Arrow series demonstrating both hard kill and blinding capabilities against FPV and fiber optic drones.
While it’s cool that they are trying out new things, I am not sure how practical it really is in anti-drone role since drones can fly at fairly fast speeds. Even with a large aperture laser beam there is no guarantee that you can hit the camera sensor. With vehicle mounted weapons you have targeting and vibration reduction. No such thing really in human arm.
Silent Hunter bought and deployed by the UAE near the airport.
20KW system
It’s the Shennongdun system credited with numerous recorded shootdowns in Russian-Ukrainian War.
Machine tramslation aGain:
System Reaction Time
Time from radar detection to laser pointing on target: > 5 s
Fire Transfer Time
Time from destroying one target to aiming at the next: > 8 s
Operating Angle Range
Azimuth: N × (0°–360°); Elevation: −5° to +80°
Target Engagement Performance
Low-speed targets: at 1.5 km, damage time > 10 s; Electro-optical targets: at 3 km, blinding time > 5 s
Wow those are not good figures against fpv drones. This is not a diss on the particular system but it makes me wonder if lasers are still quite a bit away from being useful in said role.
So basically 5+10+8 seconds for one target??? At 1.5 km away? You wont get a chance to destroy another one.
And blinding is not really better. Still 5 seconds needed at just 3 km away?? Probably another 10+ seconds for retargeting.
I would have expected that a 15 kw laser could blind that simple optic on a quadcopter from longer distances, and faster.
If those figures apply to most lasers, we wont see them in ukraine anytime soon.
System Reaction Time
Time from radar detection to laser pointing on target: > 5 s
Fire Transfer Time
Time from destroying one target to aiming at the next: > 8 s
Operating Angle Range
Azimuth: N × (0°–360°); Elevation: −5° to +80°
Target Engagement Performance
Low-speed targets: at 1.5 km, damage time > 10 s; Electro-optical targets: at 3 km, blinding time > 5 s
Wow those are not good figures against fpv drones. This is not a diss on the particular system but it makes me wonder if lasers are still quite a bit away from being useful in said role.
So basically 5+10+8 seconds for one target??? At 1.5 km away? You wont get a chance to destroy another one.
And blinding is not really better. Still 5 seconds needed at just 3 km away?? Probably another 10+ seconds for retargeting.
I would have expected that a 15 kw laser could blind that simple optic on a quadcopter from longer distances, and faster.
If those figures apply to most lasers, we wont see them in ukraine anytime soon.
It has already successfully engaged much bigger fixed wing drones than FPVs in Ukraine on numerous occasions.
FPVs, which are faster, are also easier to shoot down than normal quadcopters because they strip down as much material as possible to save weight so they can go faster and fly farther on battery power.
Also, keep in mind that Shennongdun is a civilian system and would not have been exported to Russia if it exceeded 30KW in power capacity. More powerful systems like OW-50 can pretty much hard kill small sized fixed wing drones within 2/3 seconds.
【北方工业的A50激光武器系统-哔哩哔哩】
Exactly - against bigger fixed wing drones lasers seem like a better idea. As such drones don't really come in high numbers and are easier to detect from a longer distance. Against FPV drones - these kind of engagement, dwell and retargeting times are simply not very useful.
Of course more powerful lasers will be more effective - but I would expect the distances or dwell times not to scale linearly/inversely with added power, and targeting and retargeting times to remain the same - which suggests even a 50 kw laser might still need like 12-15 seconds for a single fpv drone engagement and retargeting of the next.
Of course more powerful lasers will be more effective - but I would expect the distances or dwell times not to scale linearly/inversely with added power, and targeting and retargeting times to remain the same - which suggests even a 50 kw laser might still need like 12-15 seconds for a single fpv drone engagement and retargeting of the next.