I'm truly surprised that lasers appear to be operational defenses against mortars, rockets, and UAVs. I had thought it would be too difficult to get enough energy from a laser to destroy a target.

But if it works, it's really a game-changer for air defense. In particular, each shot will be orders of magnitude cheaper than existing rocket-based defenses. I would think reliability would improve as well, since the laser can continuously track its target, rather than a single shot as with current defenses.

I wonder how effective countermeasures would be. If you put a mirror coating on a missile, will it reflect enough energy to make the laser ineffective?