As I understood it, that big laser could shoot down a missile in 6-8 seconds shortly after it was launched from a few 100 kilos away. All well and good, but how deep into enemy airspace would a 747 be able to go without getting shot down with an ground to air missile? And what are the chances of a weapon like this working with a warhead speeding into US airspace?
I am not 100% on the range (do not believe it is public info), but a few hundred kilos is not bad considering it is an early generation. It pushes back the effective range of enemy missiles. If Iranians have a missile that can fly 1000 kilos (I know they can go further but using easy numbers for the example) but you can knock down anything fired within 500 kilos of their boarder, they now have an effective range of only 500 kilos. Launchpads within the range are now useless. They also have to be concerned that your next generation system will be 700 kilos once again pushing back the effective range of their missiles and rendering the next set of launchpads useless.