The Hottest New Defense Against Drones? Lasers – Cheaper than advanced air defenses and more versatile than low-tech options, lasers have become a popular choice for nations worried about drone attacks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/world/europe/drones-laser-weapons.html
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From the article
Drone swarms that have deluged Ukraine for years — and crossed the border into Poland last week — have sent NATO militaries in Europe rushing to upgrade air defenses in case they ever face a similar threat.
Soon they will have a new solution: lasers.
Scientists have for decades sought to harness directed energy beams into weapon systems that would be cheaper and more efficient than missiles or rockets. A [growing](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advanced-future-military-laser-achieves-uk-first) %5Bnumber%5D(https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/news/2023/9/2023-09-22-laser-weapon-trials-at-sea) of %5Bcountries%5D(https://www.militarydrones.org.cn/silent-uunter-anti-drone-laser-weapon-developed-p00193p1.html) are %5Bdeveloping%5D(https://voennoedelo.com/en/posts/id235-russia-tests-new-laser-weapon-to-destroy-drones-in-seconds) or %5Bdeploying%5D(https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46925) their own laser air defenses, and some have already been used in war, by [Israel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfN-_htA4sY) and %5BUkraine%5D(https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-using-laser-weapons/).
A NATO nation in Europe is now buying an air defense laser from an Australian company, which officials, experts and industry executives said appears to be the highest-power direct energy system to be sold on the global weapons market. That is a sign that they are becoming more widely available and could be a mainstay for future warfare.
The Australian laser’s maker, Electro Optic Systems, advertises it as able to shoot down 20 drones a minute, at a cost of less than 10 cents per shot. Nicknamed “Apollo” for the Greek god of light, it has about the same level of power as Israel’s [highly anticipated Iron Beam](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/world/middleeast/israel-laser-rockets.html) air defense laser, which is being built for its own military.
Really, I will never understand the fetishization of laser weapons. All of them are short range, mostly equivalent to heavy machine guns, so you would need a lot of them to cover a meaningful area (like a front line). And don’t be fooled by the “per shot cost”, that is calculated solely based on the cost of energy generation.
The cost of the system is high ($83 million) and I can imagine that the cost of maintenance under anything resembling combat conditions would be high as well. Even at a $1,000 per drone the breakeven point is 83,000 drones. Can this system survive long enough to shoot down 100,000+ drones? I don’t think so.