Which is more suitable as a space weapon, an electromagnetic gun or a laser gun? What's the difference between them?

Among high-energy weapons, laser weapons, microwave weapons and electromagnetic weapons are all promising development directions. In recent years, many high-energy weapons have been tested and reformed, and they have already had a practical foundation. Among them, laser weapons in China and the United States and electromagnetic weapons have developed the fastest. The characteristic of electromagnetic weapons is that it does not use traditional chemical energy to launch artillery shells, but uses Lorentz force generated by powerful electricity to launch artillery shells. There is almost no upper limit to the theoretical range of electromagnetic gun, because the greater the input power, the greater the kinetic energy. At present, the electromagnetic weapons in China has developed to hundreds of kilometers, far exceeding the range of traditional naval guns. However, electromagnetic guns also have shortcomings.

First, the power consumption is too high. At present, electromagnetic guns need tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of kilowatts per second. With the current capacitance level, it is difficult to support the use of electromagnetic guns, and it faces the trouble of taking up too much space. In addition, due to the particularity of the projectile, the projectile is seriously worn, and it is necessary to develop new materials to solve this problem. The advantages of laser weapons are obvious. First of all, laser can generate a lot of energy quickly and focus it on one point. By concentrating energy in a very small area in a very short time, current laser weapons can even hit missiles flying thousands of meters away. Moreover, the speed of laser weapons is the speed of light, so it is almost unnecessary to calculate the propulsion when attacking long-distance targets, which also greatly improves the hit accuracy and efficiency.

Laser weapons also have many disadvantages. Such as smog, rainy days, heavy snow and other weather conditions, the intensity will drop sharply, and only one smoke bomb is needed to defend against laser weapons. In addition, the power consumption of high-energy laser weapons is not lower than that of electromagnetic guns, or even worse. It needs to carry a large battery pack for maintenance. Laser cannons will be a traditional deterrent. Because the speed of laser weapons is the speed of light, it is generally not necessary to use them in advance, but because lasers are easily affected by the weather, laser weapons have not been popularized today.

Laser weapon is a kind of directional energy weapon, which uses strong directional laser beam to directly destroy or disable the target. It is a new high-tech concept weapon, which uses the huge energy carried by high brightness and strong laser beam to destroy or kill enemy planes, missiles, satellites and personnel. Laser weapon has the advantages of fast target attack, fast fire transfer (only a few points) and high cost-effectiveness ratio, and will surely become the key weapon and equipment in the information war era. At present, Russia's theoretical research is in the leading position in the world, and the United States is in the leading position in the application of laser weapons.