You know there is lots of talk about drones and all taking over the mission of manned aircraft, but I haven't really heard too many people talking about what the perfection of and the deployment of laser systems will do to aircraft and missiles as a whole. If/when those get workable anything in the sky that can be seen will die. Nothing is faster than light. They won't even need targeting systems that are all that complex relatively speaking as that there won't be any need to calculate leads or trajectories or anything like that. It won't be the complex problem of hitting a bullet with a bullet. It will be more like hitting an airplane with a laser pointer.
I think it is possible that we find ourselves in a position in the next 50 years or so where the top weapons systems are once again heavily armored ships armed with rail guns for ordnance delivery and lasers for protection.
