One recent update is that Apache Attack helicopters are being refitted to hunt/kill these types of drones, but the newest Iranian models are flying 300+ mph which is faster than a single rotor helicopter can fly (the leading blade of a helicopter starts to break the sound barrier).
Targets: UAVs/drones (including swarms), short-range rockets (Qassam-style), mortars, artillery shells, cruise missiles, and potentially other low/slow-flying threats. It excels against cheap, high-volume threats where kinetic interceptors are uneconomical.
The US is working on a megawatt version that will be mounted on ships to take down full sized aircraft, hyper-sonic weapons and ballistic missiles. Timeline: 2030. Even at 30-50 kW (e.g., the earlier AN/SEQ-3 LaWS on USS Ponce), lasers can target helicopters or manned aircraft to cause crashes by frying sensors or engines. Scaling to hundreds of kW extends range and lethality against faster, larger aircraft.
If your laser emplacements are somewhat expensive and only lightly armored, you might end up in a situation where your opponent happily throws cheap drones, 10 at a time, straight at your defense and still comes out way ahead financially.
Israels situation is quite unique in that it is very small, but gets exposed to imprecise indirect fire a lot, so what works for them might be a really bad investment for the restt of the world.
If we take 4 million per interceptor at fact value, you can compare them on cost basis. More area coverage for less money would be a potential benefit. Alternatively, reusability could be a benefit if we expect prolonged conflicts or many more of these situations in the future.
perfect is the enemy of the good
No idea. I would imagine one would have to call, negotiate, kvetch, negotiate, stall, and so on.
I also can't find the accurate time to target stats, just overall dwell time.
However, they have 100 of them (so spend 4mil). so you might have to spend (if say 100k each). 10mil to protect your 10mil in property (and more if the interceptors cost more).
If on the other hand you can get the cost down to pennies (minus R&D costs), this is no longer part of the calculus.
They flew countless helicopters over the exposed reactor core and because this was 1986, helicopters didn't have a million sensors or electronics in it. It was entirely mechanical. Effectively all in-use aircraft nowadays could not complete such a mission as the electronics would be rendered null almost instantaneously, even with ECC, etc.
Do these high energy lasers fry the electronics, or are they able to simply ignite and burn holes through the aircraft?
The lasers can fry sensors like I mentioned. They can also burn holes in the body of the aircraft and damage engines. I think you may be conflating the modern glass displays with the sensors themselves. In many cases the actual sensors have not changed that much in terms of being vulnerable to directed energy weapons. The energy being emitted from Chernobyl was gamma radiation which at high enough prolonged exposure can cause bit flips. The two TU-16 bombers that seeded rain clouds around Chernobyl were not affected at all by the gamma radiation and I doubt modern aircraft would be affected just flying over it.
Some time log out and view your comments [1] as almost all are auto [dead]. A new account could be a fresh start.
The main weapon that Apache's use to hunt drones are laser guided rockets (APKWS) with a per-shot cost around $30k (https://www.airandspaceforces.com/apkws-base-laser-guided-ro...)
These weapons have been fitted to most US tactical fighters for the counter drone role as well. APKWS is also not a "new" weapon system - it started fielding back to 2012, and was adapted into the counter drone role.
There are other lower cost (compared to legacy systems designed to take on manned aircraft) solutions currently deployed. The US Army has the Coyote, which is in the ~100k range.
Beyond cost of munitions, you have to consider that cheaper systems are going to have less range, and therefore you'll need more launchers, and you can start running up costs that way.
It's an arms race with each side constantly updating the tech.
The Ukrainians have offered to help out in the Gulf but for some reason Trump is kind of dismissive.
There's a new UK/UKR one called Octopus coming shortly https://united24media.com/latest-news/ukraine-and-uk-success...
In practice, this was seemingly validated by the 2002 Millennium Challenge controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002#Exer...
Drones such as the Shahed are little more than cheap mediocre cruise missiles. Because they are cheap, the enemy can launch them in large numbers. You counter them by detecting them early and then using plenty of cheap mediocre anti-aircraft weapons. Mostly guns and interceptor drones (=cheap mediocre anti-aircraft missiles).