[Baron von Kriterium]

IMHO, the issues that have to be solved for these LASER weapons are:

1. dwell time on the target. especially a hypersonic, sea-skimming, anti-ship missile. Good luck trying to keep a LASER pinned on that for five seconds;

2. a fire control system with enough precision to maintain that dwell time for hi-speed jinking targets; and

3. countermeasures. Chrome? I don't know about that, but I think it's conceivable to mount highly reflective mirrors in the nose. Mirrors with extremely high reflectivity can be made for a certain wavelength of light. The key, however, is knowing the wavelength of the LASER.

A fourth - and not perhaps as important as the above three - issue is power requirements. Very high intensity lights lead to "self focusing" due to the change in refractive index with intensity. This then leads to ionization. That is, light is generated along the beam path, and thus power is lost along the way. This is for dry air so the effects are magnified in ocean air. Space does not have these problems, obviously. So, how much energy can this weapon put on a target at X distance from source? A drone is one thing; aircraft and missiles are something else all together.