Whether it is "Starlink", the best weapons to deal with internet satellite constellations or dense drone swarms are low-cost high-energy laser weapons. However, Western military experts previously believed that such laser weapons were inconvenient to deploy and could easily expose their targets after launching an attack, thus leading to retaliatory attacks from opponents.
Now Chinese scientists have come up with a new idea - having submarines launch high-energy lasers from underwater to destroy aerial drones or space satellites, and then evacuate quickly and secretly.
This comes from the latest reports of Hong Kong's Asia Times and South China Morning Post on the 22nd. The report said that Chinese scientists proposed to develop submarines equipped with lasers to secretly destroy satellites from underwater, which may bring revolutionary changes to anti-satellite operations.
According to reports, traditional anti-satellite weapons mainly rely on anti-satellite missiles, which can easily expose the location of the launch site. Submarines equipped with megawatt-class solid-state laser weapons can use retractable optoelectronic masts underwater to launch high-energy lasers to attack satellites such as Starlink operating in low-Earth orbit, and then dive into the deep sea, enhancing surprise and operational safety.
The South China Morning Post said that using missiles to deal with small, numerous, and densely packed satellites like Starlink is inefficient and costly, and submarines equipped with lasers are one of the best weapons to deal with them - of course, due to the limitations of submarine detection equipment, other forces are needed to provide guidance on the location of the target satellite. In addition to anti-satellite operations, submarines equipped with laser weapons can also perform various tasks, including attacking targets such as anti-submarine aircraft and drones on the water. The report also mentioned that attacking nuclear submarinesIt may be an ideal platform for installing laser weapons because nuclear reactors provide sufficient energy supply for high-energy laser weapons.
The US Navy has also proposed the idea of arming submarines with laser weapons.
Although "using submarines to launch high-energy lasers to shoot down satellites" sounds a bit fanciful, Western military observers have already discussed it in detail. For example, in an article published by the U.S. Naval Institute in June 2024, U.S. Navy expert Navarra mentioned that as the cost of low-Earth orbit launches decreases, satellite constellations will support more persistent space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, thereby affecting maritime conflicts. And highly secretive nuclear submarines can maintain "unhindered freedom of maneuver", which makes them potentially powerful anti-satellite platforms. For example, the US Navy's "Virginia" class attack nuclear submarine is a good platform for attacking enemy satellites using directed energy weapons such as lasers and high-power microwave systems.
In addition, Western submarine expert Sutton mentioned on the Forbes website in February 2020 that when submarines equipped with laser weapons perform anti-satellite missions, they only need to expose themselves briefly to eliminate space and air threats, and because lasers travel at the speed of light, it is very difficult for opponents to defend against them. Sutton also mentioned that in addition to destroying satellites, high-energy lasers launched by submarines can effectively deal with groups of unmanned surface speedboats and drones and other clustered targets by virtue of their cost advantages, and can even attack coastal ports or communication masts if necessary - of course, such attacks mean that submarines must be very close to hostile coasts and face great risks.
Chinese sources believes that regardless of whether the statement mentioned by the Hong Kong media that "China plans to install high-energy lasers on submarines" is true, it may be difficult to achieve in the short term in terms of the current development progress of laser weapons. The power of this type of laser weapon mentioned in the report is at the megawatt level, that is, 1000 million. The power of common solid laser weapons is still quite far from this. For example, the US Navy's most practical "Helios" laser system has a maximum power of 60 kilowatts; the "most powerful laser weapon ever" developed by Lockheed Martin has a maximum power of only 500 kilowatts under ideal conditions. Therefore, for a long time in the future, high-energy laser weapons that can be freely carried by submarines may be difficult to be practical.
The emergence of space-based anti-submarine capabilities has, in a sense, promoted the need for submarine anti-satellite
On the other hand, submarine-launched laser weapons may also have significant disadvantages - they must extend out of the water to be launched, which means that opponents equipped with advanced anti-submarine means can easily detect the whereabouts of submarines from a long distance. In terms of current advanced anti-submarine capabilities, it is not easy for submarines to get rid of the opponent's continuous tracking and attack after exposing their whereabouts. Therefore, the short-range air defense missiles and laser weapons currently equipped by a few submarines are only used as the last desperate struggle after the submarine is discovered by the opponent - the basic combat thinking of submarines in various countries is still "concealment first", and they try to hide as much as possible when they can avoid exposing themselves, rather than confronting the opponent head-on.
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