Well, I couldn't read the article, but I remember reading about these things a decade or so ago.
They fire a couple blasts from a kilowatt laser to measure the atmostphere between the plane and the target. Air temperature, wind speed, particulate matter -- everything scatters the laser and reduces it's effective range. Then the main laser fires. I guess the thing ionizes some of the air around it, causing turbulance around the aircraft as it passes over the disturbed air. So the plane can only fire a pair of shots within something like 250ms, and then it has to wait something like 20 seconds before the platform is stable enough to shoot again.
It's a good idea for a mobile defense platform, but because there's a effective arc that the laser cannot target outside of, it's got severe limitations.
I think the ground based ones will be more effective, with the planes supplementing them.
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