But did they actually work? Cuz I'd think there'd be a lot more laser-based weaponry around if the Soviets had actually made them useful.
Yes, they actually did work as intended. However, the laser weapon development program was closed after the collapse of the Soviet Union due to lack of funds, and most prototypes were scrapped. The surviving vehicles had their laser emitters removed.
Apparently I'm in in the thread title now, so here's another interesting Soviet weapon prototype: 17F19D Skif-DM, an experimental Soviet anti-satellite military spacecraft.
Skif-DM was created in response to the American SDI program. This spacecraft was designed to destroy SDI satellites with the help of a megawatt carbon-dioxide laser installed onboard. The laser emitter installed in Skif-DM was originally created for
Beriev A-60 airborne laser system (it's like Boeing YAL-1, except A-60 was made 30 years before its American counterpart and is still in service).
The only prototype of this spacecraft, called Polyus, was launched on the 15th of May 1987 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was mounted on a superheavy rocket Energia, which would be later used to launch the Buran space shuttle.
The ship was launched upside-down due to technical reasons. Unfortunately, during orbit circulazation manoeuvre, the ship spinned 360 degrees instead of 180 degrees because of a programming error. As a result, when the ship's engines automatically fired to circularize its orbit, Polyus was actually deorbited. It burned in the upper atmosphere.
The best friend of America Mikhail Gorbachev was very afraid that the disclosure of the Skif programme could piss off the United States and ruin the reputation of the Soviet Union, so no other spacecraft with laser systems were made. The flight data were used during further development of Energia launch vehicles. The development of Energia launch vehicles was ultimately abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Also:
Well, as has been posted before, the US is deploying one on a ship this year. Even if they're over-hyping the thing, it's apparently something that they're wanting to continue to improve.
Dunno if any of its functioning specifics have been posted anywhere, though. Probably not.
I've heard very, very sketchy reports once that Soviet engineers tried installing an experimental laser gun on one of Soviet Navy destroyers in the 1970s. The operational tests were successful, but the project didn't take off for some reason.