Directed-energy Weapon - Operational Advantages

Operational Advantages

Laser weapons could have several main advantages over conventional weaponry:

• Laser beams travel at the speed of light, so there is no need (except over extremely long distances) for users to compensate for target movement when firing over long distances. Consequently, evading an accurately aimed laser after it has been fired is impossible.
• Because of the extremely high speed of light it is only slightly affected by gravity, so that long range projection requires little compensation. Other aspects such as wind speed can be neglected at most times, unless shooting through an absorption matter.
• Lasers can change focusing configuration to provide an active area that can be much smaller or larger than projectile weaponry.
• Given a sufficient power source, laser weapons could essentially have limitless ammunition.
• Because light has a practically nil ratio (exactly ) of momentum to energy, lasers produce negligible recoil.
• The operational range of a laser weapon can be much larger than that of a ballistic weapon, depending on atmospheric conditions and power level.

Modern ballistic weapons commonly feature systems to counter many undesirable side-effects mentioned for them in the above comparison. As such it follows that laser weapons' advantage over ballistics could end up more about elegance and cost.