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I arrived at my M1 Tank unit right after the first Gulf War. Nobody in the platoon, freshly back from combat, ever mentioned having the slightest problem with the LASER range finders. And you may recall that the world was somewhat shocked at our accuracy at great distances during that war - that accuracy is 100% attributable to the LASER range finders.

I never went to combat, but I've fired a heck of a lot of tank rounds. Every single time that tank fires, the gunner uses his range finder...and I mean EVERY single time. The gunner lases, and the commander sees that the range has gone from all zeros to some value...meaning it has attained a ballistic solution. Only after seeing a good range does the commander order 'fire'. I was the commander - if the gunner did not get a good range, I would shout 're-lase'. I can count on one hand the number of times I had to do this.

Keep in mind these were relatively low powered LASERs, and used as a range finder, it relied on not only the LASER arriving on target, but also the LASER bouncing back. If that worked 99% of the time without issue, I'm pretty sure the statement about a high powered LASER not penetrating dust and smoke is a mis-direction. Looked at another way, if somebody were pointing a high powered LASER at you, would you count on dust and smoke stopping it?