Hard kill active protection system for aircraft, is it possible?

As for DEW (direct energy weapon)

I wonder why military seeks for megawatt laser while kilowatts laser is used to cut through steel plate 1 inch thick with ease in industry. Unless target is a tank, normal skin of most target is much thinner than that. 5000 watts = 5 kW, too small for mobile generator, don’t know why they need big megawatt laser?

Another problem I always wonder is what if target is coated with reflective material, since laser is light, its energy will be reflected and will be useless. Maybe if power is enough, it will penetrate through mirror?

I think the most useful meaning of laser is for anti ICBM launches.

Here are my opinions, mouting laser on big aircraft will limit its altitude and air at low altitude is densier for absorbing laser. Second, because the curved surface of the Earth, based on some quick calculations, at altitude 20km, direct line of sight can reach target at the horizon at 500, and at altitude 100km, line of sight weapon can reach target on the surface 1100km away. Even 1100km is too short for early phase ICBM, and at altitude 1000km, the range is only 3700km.

Another problem is aiming the laser at 1 metre moving target at 10.000km, is like shooting at a flying bee at 100 km, don’t know whether it can be done or not.

Once you started to have EW able to shoot down things,
you will carry on and want to shoot down other aircraft as well,
this will result in installing more and more power generation to get the best reach,
and thus the only thing that count in future is power generation & speed.
This will in turn demand larger and more expensive a/c, few countries can afford it

I am of the same opinion, I think the Fighter : Bomber ratio would need a re look, with medium sized, Aircrafts would be vital to carry out a lot of the Non Kinetic missions…they can be optionally manned of course.

Once you started to have EW able to shoot down things,
you will carry on and want to shoot down other aircraft as well,
this will result in installing more and more power generation to get the best reach,
and thus the only thing that count in future is power generation & speed.
This will in turn demand larger and more expensive a/c, few countries can afford it

Like already mentioned, the major breakthrough in defensive protection would come from DEW’s. While the amount of power required for a true medium range (A2G) DEW makes them tough to incorporate on a fighter sized aircraft, having a defensive weapon is very much a possibility. The only program i am aware of that is currently funding such an effort is DARPA’s AERO-ADAPTIVE/AERO-OPTIC BEAM CONTROL program, which is in PHASE 3 of development, and should have hardware flying before the year end.

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/STO/Programs/Aero-Adaptive_Aero-Optic_Beam_Control_(ABC).aspx

http://www.aviationweek.com/blogs.aspx?plckblogid=blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckpostid=blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7post%3A7cb0a0b1-7082-41f8-aabb-7ad70a08a420

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Didn’t know that, thanks.

It seems this topic is not realistic coz there isn’t any big program aiming for hard kill APS for aircraft

You already have the IRIS-T with that capability. If it is succesful in reality it will redefine what a “self defense” weapon is.

Didn’t know that, thanks.

It seems this topic is not realistic coz there isn’t any big program aiming for hard kill APS for aircraft

IRIS-T has the capability of intercepting other missiles.
In future i expect DEW to do this.
Disadvantage is to lug around with stuff that increase weight