I have been paying attention. Your flying laser will be a big huge, heavy, expensive, ineffective boondoggle. We are not currently out there replacing bullets and missiles for lasers. We do use lasers for lots of purposes now. But to knock a fighter out of the sky or a to disable a tank, you need a long extension cord. Or a huge battery and you get one shot.
I am sure there is a general and a congressman out there who is gullible enough to ok this thing.
You keep mentioning taking out a fighter jet with a laser, which means that you *haven’t* been paying attention.
What’s getting mounted into DANG by 2030 is the currently road-mobile Iron Beam defensive system, which is meant (in DANG configuration) to shoot down anti-aircraft missiles...not fighter jets.