I guess I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean to say that a nuke warhead would denotate when it hit the ground; just that it wasn’t going to be destroyed by the laser. As you said, our designs probably won’t give a nuclear yield, but who knows about Korean/Iranian technology?
Good discussion too. And remember in the Gulf War, patriots actually hit several scuds, and their HE warheads then fell to earth doing damage.
That was presumably with more airframe damage than a laser would do. How much more sensitive a nuke is to damage like that, i just don’t know. Good question.