A laser illuminator, David Hambling explains (in Swarm Troopers), is not a laser designator:
The Raven’s most conspicuous battlefield shortcoming is the lack of a laser designator to highlight targets for Hellfire missiles and other guided munitions. It has a laser illuminator so it can “sparkle” targets, highlighting them for helicopter gunners or others to aim at, but it cannot “lase” a target to guide a missile to the aim point.
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Laser designators are large because they have to put out a beam powerful enough for the laser seeker on an incoming missile to lock on to.
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Back in the early 2000s, the US Army’s “portable” laser designator weighed almost forty pounds. The latest version is below ten pounds.
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Previously laser guidance was confined to bigger and more expensive weapons like the Hellfire and 500-pound bombs. These days, there are small, cheaper laser seeker heads. Not only are there laser-guided artillery rounds and rockets a quarter the size of Hellfire, but even mortars can fire laser-guided bombs. The mortar might have a range of ten miles, but still needs someone within eyeball range of the target to light it up with the designator. If artillery spotters could do this with a small drone, they would be able to direct precise fire to anywhere.
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Standard, unpowered laser-guided bombs can hit targets fifteen miles away if the plane dropping them has enough speed and height. More advanced gliding bombs, like the recent SDB II, have a range of up to forty miles and almost qualify as drones in their own right.
Air strikes can be carried out by simple “bomb trucks” like transport aircraft which have no need for high speed and maneuverability to avoid anti-aircraft defenses. The enemy would only ever see expendable unmanned drones, loitering overhead permanently and holding everything underneath at risk of instant, laser-guided destruction.
Yes, one aircraft where that is clear is the Tornado. Under its chin it has the Laser Range Finder and Marked Target Seekers (LRMTS), a laser ranging device to help calculate distances, speed, etc. for the ballistic computer and navigation. If it wants to designate targets for laser guided weapons it needs an external pod like TIALD or LITENING put into a pylon.
Laser designators also use a coded pulse system. That avoids spoofing and also enables multiple projectiles to be inbound to separate targets simultaneously.