But is this the same type of light? We’re talking about pure heat damage, how do mirrors reflect heat?
A good mirror reflects more than 99% of incident light, effectively increasing the amount of power the laser needs to destroy the target by a factor of 100.
This isn't the real concern, however. Fog, dust, clouds, and rain are quite common on the damp and dusty sphere we live on, and they would all strongly attenuate the beam power and greatly reduce the effective range.
Paddzr@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Shadow@lemmy.ca 9 months ago
Lasers don’t send heat. Lasers send light energy that is absorbed by the surface and radiates it as heat.
If a mirror was 100% effective it would work, but the tiny bit that bits the backing of the mirror will melt it and then it’ll cascade.
Zorque@kbin.social 9 months ago
Wouldn't all those things also affect the mirrors ability to reflect?
Jaytreeman@kbin.social 9 months ago
You're not wrong, but at that power level anything longer than a short pulse is going to vaporize the stuff in the way.
They probably take that into consideration and pulse the lazer before giving a more consistent shot.
Clearing out the path before shooting the shot.
Maybe they have a ring around the primary shot as well. Vaporizing the stuff that could get in the way of the primary attack.
These people are smart. It's easier to assume they've taken that into consideration
Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 9 months ago
Off the cuff idea, but thermally ablative coatings that dissolve into light blocking smoke might buy drone operators time to evade - assuming their rotors don’t thin out the smoke screen too much.