So could this weapon be defeated with mirrors? With a movable mirror could you bounce the beam back at its origin?
A LASER beam would need to be very powerful to be effective against military targets.
No mirror is 100% effective, so some of the energy in the laser beam would not be reflected, but would be absorbed by the mirror, and the mirror would need to be able to withstand that energy.
Don't know how well a mirror outside a laboratory would do at not breaking the cohesion of the beam.
Biggest problem might be in getting the mirror where you need it, when you need it and oriented correctly.
The LASER pulse is quick..maybe fractions of a second...and I doubt there would be time to point focus the mirror.
Not likely the entire target could be mirrored without sacrificing some of it's functionality.