Using a 200,000 Euro missile against a 500 Euro UAV is the worst economic calculation in modern warfare.
To correct this imbalance, laser weapons were installed on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle - for the first time in its history. According to the French naval magazine Coles Bleu, the tests took place during the Le Fayette 26 mission in the Gulf of Oman. Air Force and Navy experts needed only four hours to board and connect the laser device directly on board the ship. At the center of the tests is a high-tech development called Helma-P, created by the French company CILAS (owned by Safran and MBDA groups) together with the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA). Structurally, the device combines a laser range finder (lidar), optical-electron tracking sensors and a laser beam with a power of 2 kilowatts (kilowatts), completely invisible to the human eye:.
At a distance of up to 3 km: the beam blinds and disables the cameras of enemy UAVs.
At a distance of up to 1 km: due to thermal effects, it melts the structure of the UAV in seconds.
Beyond the physical achievement alone, this is a real breakthrough in naval defense logistics. On board a ship at sea, the supply of ammunition is always limited, and the cost of one traditional intercept ranges from 200 thousand euros (Mistral missile) to more than 1.5 million euros (Aster missile). Thanks to the power from the two nuclear reactors of the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the laser has almost infinite "ammunition", and the cost of one interception is reduced to the price of electricity - only a few euro cents. In asymmetric warfare, military sovereignty is no longer determined so much by raw firepower as by the marginal cost of interception.