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Originally Posted by Karagin
Every decade since the 80s, the MIC talks, shows off a cool demo system, the DOD throws them money, and nothing ever makes it down to the rank and file to us, so what is going to change this time?
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1. )Big Army is now behind it with the system designated Directed Energy Maneuver-SHORAD [DE M-SHORAD].
https://www.defensenews.com/land/202...rones-at-yuma/
2.) The Ukrainian war has pushed anti-drone capabilities to the forefront. The cheapest possible weapon now -- IRON DOME style -- costs about $30,000 per interceptor. This just too much when dealing with the DJI MAVIC drone threat of $2 to $3K per drone just flying around with a camera and dropping grenades on you.
3.) Lasers are the solution to a lot of problems. While you can use a radar intended for an active protection system to track drones and probably zap them with microwaves; that's a very limited capability -- it only works on targets that need electronics continuously running to stay in the air -- lasers let you counter artillery shells, mortars and drones with a very low marginal per shot cost. You can also use the laser against ground targets -- i.e. zapping IEDs or suspected IEDs, clearing land mines, destroying UXO, etc.
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Also, adding a separate APU to an AFV means one more thing that can break down, one more thing that needs to be taken care of.
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The M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams upgrade has a 10 kW APU.
The M2A4 Bradley has an APU.
Big Army saw the light on APUs after thousands of hours were waste in Iraq using Abrams and other AFVs as road sentries, running their engines for hours on end to power the on board sensors needed for the sentry mission.