Given the power, weight, and cooling resources of an aircraft carrier, how hard would it be to field a pretty good laser system using current tech? I'm thinking not all that hard.

Once the tech is developed on land it wont be that hard- question is how much surplus power can they generate to operate it- my guess is that info is classified, but I think they could easily do it- but thats my guess, I am assuming normal operations do NOT max out the reactor- by a long shot.

given current tech it will be a chemical laser- (unless solistate lasers have advanced FAR beyond what is public) this means very nasty chemicals... It wont be small, but it will fit on an aircraft carrier a heck of lot more easily than on an aircraft- we could do it today...

Tracking and firing systems would be almost off the shelf.

That is probably mostly true... the question is the speed that they can move

The bitch, in my uneducated opinion, would be the optics, both for shaping and aiming the beam. Would probably have to include active compensation for atmospheric anomalies.

Yup- Adaptive optics work great at compensating for a few 10's of kilometers of air above a telescope- withe te air currents matterin less and less with altitude- but this application will be firing a beam a long way at sea level, with likely a lot of turbulence-

For reasons I dont want to go into, I think this would not work at huge distances- the missile would need to be a lot closer, but Lasers, of the type we are discussing, could beat ballistic defense easily when it comes to range. And the effective range of the laser would be greater BY FAR ...

Without going into anything you're working on that may be classified... (And it IS possible in your line of work. It is in mine...)

I have only hunches- I submitted my security classification documents for review just after 9-11, I changed jobs before they went through, so I have never had access to secret info... I always found it odd that they let me work on lasers that foreign nationals were not allowed to see when I was completely without a security clearance- I once saw a presentation from a laser company where they presented this billiant 'new' idea- because of my non-disclosure agreement (Corporate secrets, not national ones) I could not say "_____ has already done that and developed it for a few years"- I am not sure if there are secret patents...

But I am free to talk and speculate about anything