you'd be surprised how when your life depends on it certain engineering challenges become easier to prioritize. i'm not saying this weapon is more advanced than the other four countries. i'm just saying Ukraine may have made compromises the other countries would have considered jank ass bullshit that out in the field for Ukraine have been successful enough for what they need to do even with considerable downsides

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm not sure how many shortcuts you can make with such sophisticated tech like lasers. Afaik all those "small" mobile ground models are around 30-50 KW and I'd assume you cannot go too much further below that without drastically affecting the actual effectiveness against a target. At some point they just become too weak to actually destroy anything within a feasible time, if at all.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It could be as simple as a longer cool down time between shots.

Made up numbers but let's say a US prototype could hit 5 targets a minute due to heating problems, maybe the Ukraine one is 1 per minute.

That's still 1 less expensive missle used per shot.