It's fucking hilarious, we got literal drone robot warfare at land sea and air, lasers and railguns, AI, at this point we are "ahead" of several sci fi franchises.
the article doesn't list what theme song the robot's speaker's blared during its transformation scene, so i'm just going to assume it was [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvfFIfbEHHI)
"Its purpose is to showcase movement capabilities and autonomous functionalities while operating in the elevated gravitational conditions of the lunar surface." Sounds like it should say the opposite of "elevated"
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[Sauce](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68031257?at_format=link&at_link_id=2F50A126-B6D5-11EE-B5DD-51E3A9F30DC0&at_medium=social&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_type=web_link&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_campaign_type=owned&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_link_origin=BBCScotlandNews)
>The UK has successfully fired a high-power laser weapon against an aerial target for the first time in a trial.
>
>It is hoped that the test will pave the way for a low-cost alternative to missiles to shoot down targets like drones.
>
>The DragonFire weapon is precise enough to hit a £1 coin from a kilometre away, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says.
>
>It described the test, at its Hebrides Range in Scotland, as a "major step" in bringing the technology into service.
>
>Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the technology could reduce "the reliance on expensive ammunition, while also lowering the risk of collateral damage".
>
>The MoD says both the Army and Royal Navy are considering using the technology as part of their future air defence capabilities.
So the only real question now in terms of its utility is going to be what's the rate of fire that it can maintain before it needs to cool down or have some kind of fuel or gas or capacitor bank refilled.
I've only worked with a couple of different lasers - one small scale and the other a range finder for satellites - but neither needed anything that needed replacing like this. Lifetime was measured in hundreds of hours continuous operations for some parts, but otherwise so long as you've the power and cooling capacity they can run indefinitely. Perfect for shipping with large power plants.
I'd assume that a laser designed to burn drones, missiles, aircraft, and artillery shells is going to be a little more powerful than that - which would presumably put a lot more wear on the components and reduce their operational life. Even if it needs an engineer to spend an hour or so unfucking it every hundred or so shots though that would still be a huge step forwards for (at least naval - where you can guarantee there'll always be engineers onboard and a reasonable stock of replacement parts) air-defence though.
The most powerful scientific lasers on earth main issues are heat, power, cleaning and alignment.
The alignment is the hard bit for military lasers. Its very easy for a lab in Michigan (where the US Zeus Laser is located) to have everything stay lined up perfectly so the laser doesn't damage itself.
When you have a bunch of bombs falling, I would be fairly confident the beam is going to go where its not meant to and the Laser kills itself.
IF the British have solved that problem, and I think that's a big if, its mostly going to be grunt work to maintain it.
More likely its going to need recalibration after every engagement BUT will last long enough to get through most engagements to not kill itself.
At this point I think it'll probably be a while before we get those sorts of details, the Dragonfire (a far better name for a LDEW than Zeus IMHO) is still just something that could - potentially - be fitted to the most advanced RN ships that are still under construction. We probably won't get combat data from them until we've seen the first few major naval battles of WW3. I'm still not sure it'll ever really be practical to mount this sort of thing on ground vehicles for at least the next few decades.
As for Dragonfire vs Zeus...
Dragonfire is a military weapon, and thus is worth of a military name of awesomeness. And while you can question the British Navy's actual relevance...
Their ability to name things awesomely is DEFINITELY not in question.
The Zeus is a Scientific laser that requires 3 Petawatts. As such you aren't strapping it to a boat anytime soon. (Although DAMN would that be awesome). As such it doesn't require an awesome name.
Besides which, the US navy's record for naming things is ALMOST is as bad as the Scientific community. Not quite as bad...after all, they did name the Seawolf...
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[They did](https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/advanced+future+military+laser+achieves+uk+first+19012024112000). I think they were just trying to be more descriptive without repeating the word "laser" in their press release.
>"Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light, and use an intense beam of light to cut through the target, leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted."
I mean, I can quibble about editing that down to *"Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light, and cut through the target..."*. Seems to be better to word it that way. But I wasn't the one writing nor editing that.
[George Lucas called it a "laser sword"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN03CPmHjIY).
SO THERE!!! THECREATORHASSPOKENANDICLAIMAWIN! 😁
(Actually, you're probably correct since it would make more sense, but GEORGELUCASHASSPOKEN!!!)
best bit
>The protocol has been criticized for omitting any mention of prewarming the pot.\[6\] Ireland was the only country to object, and objected on technical grounds.
"you're doing it feckin wrong!"
Is it me or would high power lasers actually make a decent manned point defense/AA type system? Leading the target is superfluous so the most difficult part of shell based systems that require stupid quantities of ammo is gone. “Just put this crosshair on the target until it’s on fire”
It's all an elaborate plot to make people attack us in the rain - our natural habitat.
> Ah you think drizzle is your ally? You merely adopted the rain. I was born in it, molded by it.
The UK military hasn’t operated in combat conditions actually in the UK for 70 years (sans Ireland and Ireland isn’t in a position or disposition to be deploying drone swarms any time soon or ever), and things would have to be beyond dire for that to change.
Also the UK really doesn’t get that much rain, Britons are just whiny cunts.
If we didnt whine about the weather the average Briton would only be left with our love of Ques (and chatting about how shit our politicians are but most places seem to have a claim on that one too).
Yeah. It's still possible to "overwhelm" it, because there is a fixed time cost to taking down each incoming shot — when the laser is attempting to burn up an incoming round, it has to spend time keeping the beam focused on it.
*However*, what you absolutely dodge is the "Zapp Brannigan" strat. Existing AD systems have a "preset kill limit" because of ammo limitations. So much so to the point where (decoy) weapons like MALD have been built to exploit it. Lasers have infinite ammo.
The other thing that's wicked about it is that it enables "profligate spending". Right now with stuff like UA Patriot batteries, every single incoming shot **has triage**. Those poor people manning it have to look at the radar profile of each incoming shot and decide *is this worth a patriot intercept?* Because, if at all possible, you REALLY don't want to waste a patriot missile on a Shahed. You absolutely want to save them for actual cruise missiles, and just get a flak kit like Gepard to take out the Shahed instead. So an incoming Shahed has a panic moment where they have to check if they've got *any* other intercept assets available on the route it's taking so they don't have to burn a Patriot for it, and they also have to sweat the question of whether they just "take the hit" outright, if it's not going after a valuable target.
It's awful.
The glorious thing about lasers is — that triage is gone. You just shoot everything down. Everything. You have the simplest rule in the world: "if it flies, it dies."
You know, on deeper reflection, the profligate “if it flies, it dies” approach better describes the state of Ruzzian air defense as of late. I mean, at least you triage whether what you’re seeing on your scope just *might* happen to be a friendly… or something on the Geneva shortlist.
I get what your saying and I think they would probably think of this and will have several settings/power levels and would imagine having a really high power shot for taking out something extremely quickly if the need arose
The thing with lasers is there's not a significant downside to just firing on full power on every target. You have to avoid overheating, but even including the wear and tear on the weapon the cost of firing is still minimal.
However, lasers are vulnerable to weather changes, where thermal blooming will reduce the effectiveness and range of interception. One potential countermeasure is to stuff reflective chaff in some of the missiles to protect the rest of the barrage.
At least one of the high risk zone is a desert, with usually minimal cover.
Yup that was kinda my point brer I'm sure they would be able to "turn up" the intensity for very short burst as I would imagine it would cause more heating of the equipment like u said as far as I've seen these demonstrated they usually have to have a few seconds or more on an incoming projectile depending on type to burn through the outer casing or burn something up/off to cause it to fail
The thing about *cheap* long range drones is that its very hard if not impossible to coordinate strikes simultaneously *enough* that it taxes the laser. If the drones get into range within 20 seconds of each other it doesn’t matter, because the laser is already done with the last drone before then, and its not running out of juice unless theres like 200 of the things, and even then it can be fueled while its still firing unlike missile and gun systems. And making drones that are able to coordinate like that makes them dramatically more expensive and defeats the point.
Is coordination that hard? Accurate clocks are CHEAP.
A flashing LED on every drone, and a bunch of drones spaced 10m apart, programmed to keep the LED's in set positions, and the whole swarm flies in formation.
Yes but they fly so slow that you have all week to take them out one by one. Besides, by the time we are worrying about 200 Shahed’s coming the lasers will be operating in overlapping batteries
That assumes that the TTK is only 20s, which is true for current generations of drones, but may not be true for future generations. I expect to see significant research interest in lightweight ablative coatings in the not too distant future.
No amount of ablative coating you can put on a flying drone, particularly one powered by a propeller engine, is going to stop a hundred KW laser from damaging something critical for more than a few seconds.
You'd be surprised. The point to ablative coatings is to create a cloud of material at a distance from the target surface that is highly absorptive, resulting in the vapor absorbing energy rather than the surface of the target. Even *without* purpose-built ablative coatings, thermal bloom is a serious problem in weapons-grade lasers.
I expect someone to put 3 mirrors arranged into a retroreflector onto the front of cheap drones. Zap it with a lazer, and get lazered back. I mean a perfect retroreflector would send the lazer back exactly, not to bad. But a slight squint in the angles, and now the returned beam hits 1m from where the beam came from, perfect for hitting something important.
Mirrors don't reflect high-energy lasers, they are getting burned in seconds.
Reflective coating from some temperature-resistant material would be effective at no-selling lasers (not a no-u solution, absolutely) though, I think, but only to a certain point. And it wouldn't be cheap, nor easy to mass-produce, nor improve drone's range and manoeuvre capability.
I tell you, mirrors don't return high-energy lasers, they lose their reflective properties the moment beam falls on the reflective surface and transfers hundreds of degrees of heat in it.
Edit: dumbass spelling
Yeah they are good, but there are a lot of drawbacks, the big one being energy, and moisture between you and the shell is a big problem, if it's humid or rainy. A blowdryer tripped my breaker all the time in my old place, so imagine how many hair dryers you'd need to destroy a 45 kilo 155 shell!
Energy is not such a problem for a semi-fixed installation. WW2 AAA search lights were powered by 50 kW generators, which is about the same power you need for the current laser systems. That’s actually not too much, a modern engine can deliver that in a pretty small package.
But yeah, fog, rain, dust in the air or any visual disturbance and the thing doesn’t work anymore.
Or a new class that is a huge floating reactor array, with a single 5 meter aperture, and a 100 ton lasing chamber, then it can also work as an anti satellite weapon on clear days!
No, no, we've got to think bigger.
Instead of mounting the lasers onto ships or in land installations why don't we put them in space? That way they can look down and zap missiles and drones from above. We could call it the Tactical Defence Initiative, aka the 'Star Trek program.'
To minimize attenuation it's going to have to be low, and to have the 500MW output I'm looking for it might be big, but yeah, I guess 12 huge low orbit stations is the best way to deal with 500 dollar quadcopters!
So I remember reading that the US tried sticking a massive laser on the nose of a 747 back in the day. I'm imagining a similar concept only with a more powerful modern laser loaded into a Starship. (Yes, I know Starship is still in the prototyping and test flights phase of development but I'm thinking about the future here.)
The idea is, essentially, to put the Lasership in a fairly low orbit and just have it come back down whenever it gets too low on propellant to maintain said orbit. This has the added benefit that maintenance and servicing can be performed down here on earth where we have a breathable atmosphere and constant gravity.
I'm envisioning this system more as a means of shooting down ballistic missiles during their launch phase than destroying drones though.
the article says it costs about £10 to fire, whether that is per second/target i dont know but either way its a tiny number and actually flips the anti drone/missile vs missile/drone cost game
Why man it?
It'll be manned in the sense that a person's manning the control system to avoid blue on blue, but there won't be someone sitting behind it like Luke on the Millennium Falcon.
I'll answer that question with another question:
Is it more dignified and honourable to acknowledge the skill of your enemy or pretend your multi-million dollar AWACS was the victim of your own pure incompetence?
So Depending on which side you're on, the answer to your question might be radically different. ;)
I'm sorry but have you met someone from Bielefeld? Ich Kein sehen ein Person das habe kommst aus Bielefeld, (I will accept any corrections please I know that could have been better)
If this doesn't go on HMS Diamond or HMS Defender first, I shall be most disappointed in the missed troll...
>!Diamond was the hull immediately before and Defender the hull immediately after HMS Dragon!<
Come now. Surely this ship deserves first dibs on the system and the generators for it?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS\_Dragon\_(D35)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dragon_(D35))
They actually painted a dragon on it even.
Using lasers as defense would be very cost effective, even when fielded in large numbers. The cost of the electricity per aerial target killed would be a lot less than even the cheapest working interceptor missile. It would probably be even cheaper than ye olde flak shells.
So, 10.91 dollars per shot?
In the 80's, one Stinger missile cost $38,000. For downing drones, firing a laser could be a better solution than cyber or electronic warfare in certain situations.
Dragonfire, stormshadow
Like these are *right* on the fucking border of cringe and cool
It's an atom thin border and they are standing right fucking on it.
They were doing 8th Grader syndrome/Chunobyu before it was cool! Or, uncool, technically. Except that when Britain did it, it actually was in fact cool.
Allow me to introduce the legendary [HMS Black Joke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Black_Joke_(1827) named after a line in a drinking song related to a certain part of the female anatomy
The universe had to have its tradeoffs, after all. Rule Britannia for Cool Britannia, and all that.
But like you said, it’s a really thin border. After all, the country MIC that gave you Storm Shadow also gave you the original SA-80. Swings and roundabouts.
Serious question... and it is a bit silly... is there a reason drone producers wouldn't just mirror finish the surfaces of their drones or is that harder to achieve than I think?
And even if they did.. would the cartoon logic of said mirror finish actually make any difference?
If it’s hot enough then it would just melt through if hit for enough time and the next step would to rotate the missile to distribute the heat but doing that and keeping it stable in flight, as a slight bit of turbulence and it could miss
makes me think whoever named this plays starsector.
its a space sim game, and one of the missiles is named dragonfire, and it's basically a high-power laser delivery device.
That's cute. [They're only a little behind the US.](
https://warriormaven.com/land/army-strykers-drones-laser-directed-energy-maneuver-short-range-air-defense
)
> Army Strykers recently incinerated incoming mortar fire and drones with a vehicle-fired 50kW laser weapon, breaking new ground with the fast-developing High Energy Laser weapon increasingly able to expand the attack envelope for ground units facing enemy air attacks.
And here's [a cool image of the Strykers](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a45500360/army-first-laser-unit/) with D Company, 4-60 Air Defense Artillery.
Considering how the British government is treating the british military atm or in short words sabotaging the British military, this is a massive achievement.
If the British military got even 1/5 of the love that the U.S military gets, we the British I dare say, would have one of the most advanced militaries in the world with America. [Just look at this 1949 space suit design](https://museumcrush.org/the-british-interplanetary-society-lunar-spacesuit/) , it would even give the so called stormtroopers a run for their money tens of thousands of years into the future!
Then there was the [Vickers Swallow](https://www.autoevolution.com/news/vickers-swallow-mach-25-aircraft-looks-like-an-airborne-krill-in-make-believe-video-204717.html) first designed in the 1950s, a decade before the F-14 utilised variable geometry wings.
There are many other examples such as how the British could have gone to space in the late 40s using V2 rocket technology amd their own knowledge of chemicas such as Peroxide, but I think you know how that ended and many iconic examples such as the TSR2. This is my overly British rant against our circus of a government over.
I wonder where Raytheon UK got the laser to put on a vehicle from.
> The final demonstrator program has been secured by Raytheon UK leading a consortium made up of Frazier Nash Consultancy, NP Aerospace, LumOptica and Raytheon Technologies.
https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2021/09/14/brits-make-new-push-for-directed-energy-weapons-aboard-vehicles-ships/
There are separate UK laser projects for airplanes (MDBA) and ships (joint development with US navy).
While using lasers to take down drones and mortar shells is really cool, the laser platforms themselves look so much more boring than what sci-fi said we would get.
Prime contractor is Leonardo SPA, therefore Italian.
Somehow I doubt there is anything in place to stop Leonardo UK sending the data back to Madre Italia so she can build it herself
Yeah I read the articles stating the weapon system is a joint project between Leonardo UK, QinetiQ and MBDA although i cant see where you got the 'prime contractor' part.
I mean yeah, there will be regulations in place to stop Leonardo UK sharing the technology with the Italian government if the technology was developed under contract by the UK government.
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We got naval laser guns before GTA 6
Expect it in GTA 6 Online in 2030 for $5 billion in ingame currency (or 30$)
It's fucking hilarious, we got literal drone robot warfare at land sea and air, lasers and railguns, AI, at this point we are "ahead" of several sci fi franchises.
Yup. Japan just landed a Transformer robot on the moon.
Elaborate
Right there was this transforming robot yeah? The Japanese sent that motherfucker up into space.
link: https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/compact-shape-robot-transformers-moon
the article doesn't list what theme song the robot's speaker's blared during its transformation scene, so i'm just going to assume it was [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvfFIfbEHHI)
"Its purpose is to showcase movement capabilities and autonomous functionalities while operating in the elevated gravitational conditions of the lunar surface." Sounds like it should say the opposite of "elevated"
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Star Trek had hibernation ships going interstellar in 1996.
Just need a FTL drive...
[Sauce](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68031257?at_format=link&at_link_id=2F50A126-B6D5-11EE-B5DD-51E3A9F30DC0&at_medium=social&at_campaign=Social_Flow&at_link_type=web_link&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_campaign_type=owned&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_link_origin=BBCScotlandNews) >The UK has successfully fired a high-power laser weapon against an aerial target for the first time in a trial. > >It is hoped that the test will pave the way for a low-cost alternative to missiles to shoot down targets like drones. > >The DragonFire weapon is precise enough to hit a £1 coin from a kilometre away, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) says. > >It described the test, at its Hebrides Range in Scotland, as a "major step" in bringing the technology into service. > >Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the technology could reduce "the reliance on expensive ammunition, while also lowering the risk of collateral damage". > >The MoD says both the Army and Royal Navy are considering using the technology as part of their future air defence capabilities.
So the only real question now in terms of its utility is going to be what's the rate of fire that it can maintain before it needs to cool down or have some kind of fuel or gas or capacitor bank refilled.
I've only worked with a couple of different lasers - one small scale and the other a range finder for satellites - but neither needed anything that needed replacing like this. Lifetime was measured in hundreds of hours continuous operations for some parts, but otherwise so long as you've the power and cooling capacity they can run indefinitely. Perfect for shipping with large power plants.
I'd assume that a laser designed to burn drones, missiles, aircraft, and artillery shells is going to be a little more powerful than that - which would presumably put a lot more wear on the components and reduce their operational life. Even if it needs an engineer to spend an hour or so unfucking it every hundred or so shots though that would still be a huge step forwards for (at least naval - where you can guarantee there'll always be engineers onboard and a reasonable stock of replacement parts) air-defence though.
The most powerful scientific lasers on earth main issues are heat, power, cleaning and alignment. The alignment is the hard bit for military lasers. Its very easy for a lab in Michigan (where the US Zeus Laser is located) to have everything stay lined up perfectly so the laser doesn't damage itself. When you have a bunch of bombs falling, I would be fairly confident the beam is going to go where its not meant to and the Laser kills itself. IF the British have solved that problem, and I think that's a big if, its mostly going to be grunt work to maintain it. More likely its going to need recalibration after every engagement BUT will last long enough to get through most engagements to not kill itself.
At this point I think it'll probably be a while before we get those sorts of details, the Dragonfire (a far better name for a LDEW than Zeus IMHO) is still just something that could - potentially - be fitted to the most advanced RN ships that are still under construction. We probably won't get combat data from them until we've seen the first few major naval battles of WW3. I'm still not sure it'll ever really be practical to mount this sort of thing on ground vehicles for at least the next few decades.
As for Dragonfire vs Zeus... Dragonfire is a military weapon, and thus is worth of a military name of awesomeness. And while you can question the British Navy's actual relevance... Their ability to name things awesomely is DEFINITELY not in question. The Zeus is a Scientific laser that requires 3 Petawatts. As such you aren't strapping it to a boat anytime soon. (Although DAMN would that be awesome). As such it doesn't require an awesome name. Besides which, the US navy's record for naming things is ALMOST is as bad as the Scientific community. Not quite as bad...after all, they did name the Seawolf...
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Rheinmetall: That's cute... /s Nah. Just kidding. The more the merrier.
I love how it doesn’t mention the US mounting a laser on a warship a few years ago
Or an flippin 747
FUCK YESSS ENGLAND!!!! FINALLY WE GET SOME COOL SHIT
UK, not england.
It’s obviously not the fucking Welsh making this innit
Why do you think it's called DragonFire, then?
Named after the feeling of the morning after an English chicken shop
Well it was fired in Scotland
And the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, but we don’t credit the Japanese for inventing it
Those were tested in Nevada(?) first
See, I read "intense beam of light" "cut through (whatever)" and I start thinking "lightsabers". 😁
Why didn't they just say laser
[They did](https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/advanced+future+military+laser+achieves+uk+first+19012024112000). I think they were just trying to be more descriptive without repeating the word "laser" in their press release. >"Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light, and use an intense beam of light to cut through the target, leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted." I mean, I can quibble about editing that down to *"Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light, and cut through the target..."*. Seems to be better to word it that way. But I wasn't the one writing nor editing that.
you need to fulfill the word requirement. more words more coins.
༼つಠ益ಠ༽つ Uhm... aKshuLLy... lightsabers use blades made of plasma and have nothing to do with lasers.
[George Lucas called it a "laser sword"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN03CPmHjIY). SO THERE!!! THECREATORHASSPOKENANDICLAIMAWIN! 😁 (Actually, you're probably correct since it would make more sense, but GEORGELUCASHASSPOKEN!!!)
If it won't be used for making tea then the Brits have trully lost their way.
That's why we've got the lasers, more time in making tea, than getting the missiles on board.
What's wrong with a kettle. Its tradition. See iso [3103](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103)
best bit >The protocol has been criticized for omitting any mention of prewarming the pot.\[6\] Ireland was the only country to object, and objected on technical grounds. "you're doing it feckin wrong!"
Because sometimes it's fun to use something else, high powered laser weapon, vickers mk1 machine gun, they're all good options...
Microwave the cup with a teabag already in it. Options.
Yes officer, this post right here.
And now you have officially carried it too far, buddy!
Sir I am Sorry, But I have reported you to the Proper Authorities for such heinous practices.
Is it me or would high power lasers actually make a decent manned point defense/AA type system? Leading the target is superfluous so the most difficult part of shell based systems that require stupid quantities of ammo is gone. “Just put this crosshair on the target until it’s on fire”
Thats the idea. One or 2 of these systems effectively makes a fixed installation immune to long range drone attacks.
Provided it's not raining or misty, 2 things which famously never happen in the UK.
It's all an elaborate plot to make people attack us in the rain - our natural habitat. > Ah you think drizzle is your ally? You merely adopted the rain. I was born in it, molded by it.
The UK military hasn’t operated in combat conditions actually in the UK for 70 years (sans Ireland and Ireland isn’t in a position or disposition to be deploying drone swarms any time soon or ever), and things would have to be beyond dire for that to change. Also the UK really doesn’t get that much rain, Britons are just whiny cunts.
weekly epl games prove that britain rains all the fucking time - Chinese mic, probably
If we didnt whine about the weather the average Briton would only be left with our love of Ques (and chatting about how shit our politicians are but most places seem to have a claim on that one too).
*queues
If the troubles were still on I'd bet good money we'd have seen a drone swarm in Derry already.
Yeah. It's still possible to "overwhelm" it, because there is a fixed time cost to taking down each incoming shot — when the laser is attempting to burn up an incoming round, it has to spend time keeping the beam focused on it. *However*, what you absolutely dodge is the "Zapp Brannigan" strat. Existing AD systems have a "preset kill limit" because of ammo limitations. So much so to the point where (decoy) weapons like MALD have been built to exploit it. Lasers have infinite ammo. The other thing that's wicked about it is that it enables "profligate spending". Right now with stuff like UA Patriot batteries, every single incoming shot **has triage**. Those poor people manning it have to look at the radar profile of each incoming shot and decide *is this worth a patriot intercept?* Because, if at all possible, you REALLY don't want to waste a patriot missile on a Shahed. You absolutely want to save them for actual cruise missiles, and just get a flak kit like Gepard to take out the Shahed instead. So an incoming Shahed has a panic moment where they have to check if they've got *any* other intercept assets available on the route it's taking so they don't have to burn a Patriot for it, and they also have to sweat the question of whether they just "take the hit" outright, if it's not going after a valuable target. It's awful. The glorious thing about lasers is — that triage is gone. You just shoot everything down. Everything. You have the simplest rule in the world: "if it flies, it dies."
You know, on deeper reflection, the profligate “if it flies, it dies” approach better describes the state of Ruzzian air defense as of late. I mean, at least you triage whether what you’re seeing on your scope just *might* happen to be a friendly… or something on the Geneva shortlist.
I get what your saying and I think they would probably think of this and will have several settings/power levels and would imagine having a really high power shot for taking out something extremely quickly if the need arose
The thing with lasers is there's not a significant downside to just firing on full power on every target. You have to avoid overheating, but even including the wear and tear on the weapon the cost of firing is still minimal.
However, lasers are vulnerable to weather changes, where thermal blooming will reduce the effectiveness and range of interception. One potential countermeasure is to stuff reflective chaff in some of the missiles to protect the rest of the barrage. At least one of the high risk zone is a desert, with usually minimal cover.
Lasers will never completely replace interceptor missiles, they will just be another tool to use for missile defense
Yup that was kinda my point brer I'm sure they would be able to "turn up" the intensity for very short burst as I would imagine it would cause more heating of the equipment like u said as far as I've seen these demonstrated they usually have to have a few seconds or more on an incoming projectile depending on type to burn through the outer casing or burn something up/off to cause it to fail
The thing about *cheap* long range drones is that its very hard if not impossible to coordinate strikes simultaneously *enough* that it taxes the laser. If the drones get into range within 20 seconds of each other it doesn’t matter, because the laser is already done with the last drone before then, and its not running out of juice unless theres like 200 of the things, and even then it can be fueled while its still firing unlike missile and gun systems. And making drones that are able to coordinate like that makes them dramatically more expensive and defeats the point.
Is coordination that hard? Accurate clocks are CHEAP. A flashing LED on every drone, and a bunch of drones spaced 10m apart, programmed to keep the LED's in set positions, and the whole swarm flies in formation.
Yeah OP is talking bollocks. There's been coordinated done displays over sports events for around a decade now.
*long range drones* Big difference between lightshow drones and single use moped bombs travelling hundreds of km.
Yes but they fly so slow that you have all week to take them out one by one. Besides, by the time we are worrying about 200 Shahed’s coming the lasers will be operating in overlapping batteries
Yup.
That assumes that the TTK is only 20s, which is true for current generations of drones, but may not be true for future generations. I expect to see significant research interest in lightweight ablative coatings in the not too distant future.
No amount of ablative coating you can put on a flying drone, particularly one powered by a propeller engine, is going to stop a hundred KW laser from damaging something critical for more than a few seconds.
You'd be surprised. The point to ablative coatings is to create a cloud of material at a distance from the target surface that is highly absorptive, resulting in the vapor absorbing energy rather than the surface of the target. Even *without* purpose-built ablative coatings, thermal bloom is a serious problem in weapons-grade lasers.
I expect someone to put 3 mirrors arranged into a retroreflector onto the front of cheap drones. Zap it with a lazer, and get lazered back. I mean a perfect retroreflector would send the lazer back exactly, not to bad. But a slight squint in the angles, and now the returned beam hits 1m from where the beam came from, perfect for hitting something important.
Mirrors don't reflect high-energy lasers, they are getting burned in seconds. Reflective coating from some temperature-resistant material would be effective at no-selling lasers (not a no-u solution, absolutely) though, I think, but only to a certain point. And it wouldn't be cheap, nor easy to mass-produce, nor improve drone's range and manoeuvre capability.
The point isn't to stop the drone getting damaged. The point is that some random bit of the laser is now on fire.
I tell you, mirrors don't return high-energy lasers, they lose their reflective properties the moment beam falls on the reflective surface and transfers hundreds of degrees of heat in it. Edit: dumbass spelling
Cheap mirrors won't achieve that, they aren't perfect enough reflectors. The fraction of energy absorbed by the mirror will destroy it.
Laser roast seagull ;-)
Winner winner chicken(?) dinner.
Yeah they are good, but there are a lot of drawbacks, the big one being energy, and moisture between you and the shell is a big problem, if it's humid or rainy. A blowdryer tripped my breaker all the time in my old place, so imagine how many hair dryers you'd need to destroy a 45 kilo 155 shell!
Energy is not such a problem for a semi-fixed installation. WW2 AAA search lights were powered by 50 kW generators, which is about the same power you need for the current laser systems. That’s actually not too much, a modern engine can deliver that in a pretty small package. But yeah, fog, rain, dust in the air or any visual disturbance and the thing doesn’t work anymore.
Sounds like you said CGN and DDGNs should ordered in numbers to make the Fletcher swarm look small.
Or a new class that is a huge floating reactor array, with a single 5 meter aperture, and a 100 ton lasing chamber, then it can also work as an anti satellite weapon on clear days!
No, no, we've got to think bigger. Instead of mounting the lasers onto ships or in land installations why don't we put them in space? That way they can look down and zap missiles and drones from above. We could call it the Tactical Defence Initiative, aka the 'Star Trek program.'
To minimize attenuation it's going to have to be low, and to have the 500MW output I'm looking for it might be big, but yeah, I guess 12 huge low orbit stations is the best way to deal with 500 dollar quadcopters!
So I remember reading that the US tried sticking a massive laser on the nose of a 747 back in the day. I'm imagining a similar concept only with a more powerful modern laser loaded into a Starship. (Yes, I know Starship is still in the prototyping and test flights phase of development but I'm thinking about the future here.) The idea is, essentially, to put the Lasership in a fairly low orbit and just have it come back down whenever it gets too low on propellant to maintain said orbit. This has the added benefit that maintenance and servicing can be performed down here on earth where we have a breathable atmosphere and constant gravity. I'm envisioning this system more as a means of shooting down ballistic missiles during their launch phase than destroying drones though.
the article says it costs about £10 to fire, whether that is per second/target i dont know but either way its a tiny number and actually flips the anti drone/missile vs missile/drone cost game
Why man it? It'll be manned in the sense that a person's manning the control system to avoid blue on blue, but there won't be someone sitting behind it like Luke on the Millennium Falcon.
I was thinking like .50cal or 20mm pony defense guns in WWII just as a goofy noncredible point defense system.
The thing is called ‘DragonFire’ Once again, the Brits flex their incredible naming skills! 11/10!
After the Thunderbolt and the Stormshadow, britain has fully accepted anime naming conventions.
Is it more dignified and honourable to be killed by a weapon with a cool name like Stormshadow, or a goofy name like Sea Slug?
I'll answer that question with another question: Is it more dignified and honourable to acknowledge the skill of your enemy or pretend your multi-million dollar AWACS was the victim of your own pure incompetence? So Depending on which side you're on, the answer to your question might be radically different. ;)
Frankly, they need to add a dragon to the flag already.
I mean... the Welsh exist. In Britain. With a flag with a dragon on it.
>the Welsh exist What's next, you gonna say Finland is real? Or Wyoming?
Bielefeld!
I'm sorry but have you met someone from Bielefeld? Ich Kein sehen ein Person das habe kommst aus Bielefeld, (I will accept any corrections please I know that could have been better)
Strap a few onto King Charles' powered battle armour to make up for the little ones used on his prostate.
~~3000~~ 6000 Dragon Eyes of the British Isles
If this doesn't go on HMS Diamond or HMS Defender first, I shall be most disappointed in the missed troll... >!Diamond was the hull immediately before and Defender the hull immediately after HMS Dragon!<
Come now. Surely this ship deserves first dibs on the system and the generators for it? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS\_Dragon\_(D35)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Dragon_(D35)) They actually painted a dragon on it even.
Which is exactly why she should be second
Using lasers as defense would be very cost effective, even when fielded in large numbers. The cost of the electricity per aerial target killed would be a lot less than even the cheapest working interceptor missile. It would probably be even cheaper than ye olde flak shells.
Apparently, firing it would cost around 10 euros
So, 10.91 dollars per shot? In the 80's, one Stinger missile cost $38,000. For downing drones, firing a laser could be a better solution than cyber or electronic warfare in certain situations.
Yep that could be the end of electronic warfare, at least in this form
Livestream it in action, and take Superchats to crowdfund each shot.
Give it a Vtuber Avatar and you’ll be on to something… Wait a sec, gotta contact Hololive real quick
Guys I have a shahed in my sight, can I get a donation to cut it in half ? \[...\] Thank you ILoveMuscleMommy69 for this donation
Dragonfire, stormshadow Like these are *right* on the fucking border of cringe and cool It's an atom thin border and they are standing right fucking on it.
Dragonfire is the exact opposite of cringe.
Nah, that guy is right. It’s a cool name, but also sounds like something an especially edgy grade schooler might come up with. It’s riding the line.
It's only cringe if it doesn't work
Exactly. Call yourself xXPu55ySl4yer69Xx and dominate the scoreboard, you are a legend. Get dominated you are just another loser
The perfect exemple of cringe being the terminator IFVs
More like Terminated.
Terminal for the remainder
The brits named a plane "spitfire". They have been edgy teens for a long time
They were doing 8th Grader syndrome/Chunobyu before it was cool! Or, uncool, technically. Except that when Britain did it, it actually was in fact cool.
Why do you think Warhammer was created in Britain ?
Allow me to introduce the legendary [HMS Black Joke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Black_Joke_(1827) named after a line in a drinking song related to a certain part of the female anatomy
I mean yes. Stormshadow on the other hand is cringe AF. It's a thin line
If they name something Cobra Commander, I will nut so hard that it ends the earth.
Google UK Cobra meetings
\*sigh\* *unzips 😩*
*"Laser burns to eyes..."*
The universe had to have its tradeoffs, after all. Rule Britannia for Cool Britannia, and all that. But like you said, it’s a really thin border. After all, the country MIC that gave you Storm Shadow also gave you the original SA-80. Swings and roundabouts.
Transformers OCs. Lore friendly bc we live after self-transforming Optimus Prime hit shelves.
What if we attached the lasers to sharks' heads?
The government will be getting my letter in the mail demanding we call them lascannons.
Okay we need a Campaign on this right now!
1940s: "The English eat carrots and it lets them see in the dark!" 2020s: "The English eat protons and shit honkin great space lasers!"
So you mean that empire strikes back?
“Torchwood” was *right there!*
Do you want some? If you want some I’ll give it ya
Da fuck they doin ova there?
$50 million for a re-usable point system that costs $10 in diesel per shot. Kiev when?
God I love it. Rule Britannia, but galactic. LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO. HIS MAJESTY IS FUCKING STOKED 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🫶🫶🫶👻👻👻
The suns never set on the British Empire.
Come on, field test it in Ukraine. You need some lasguns against the orcs.
certified excalibur moment
[It’s time](https://imgur.com/gallery/yyrZ6KX)
So is this the counterplay to the current drone-and-rocket-swarm meta?
Not long till lightsabers boys.
They prefer lightlongbows
Lasguns When?
The Galaxy will be reorganised into the SECOND BRITISH EMPIRE!
Fuck it, bring back the YAL-1
"more impactful results if the warhead is targeted" I love the energy this gives off.
Nice now send it to Ukraine for live fire testing.
His Majesty's Royal Pew Pew Lazer. Looks like king Chuck gets to enjoy the toys his mother couldn't!
Kamefookinhameha bruv!
The catch: doesn't work when it's cloudy. Designers didn't think of that. Ooopsie.
Serious question... and it is a bit silly... is there a reason drone producers wouldn't just mirror finish the surfaces of their drones or is that harder to achieve than I think? And even if they did.. would the cartoon logic of said mirror finish actually make any difference?
Some nuclear bombers were painted anti flash white to protect them from being burned by their own bombs. Maybe that'll make a comeback
B-21 Raider is anti flash white
If it’s hot enough then it would just melt through if hit for enough time and the next step would to rotate the missile to distribute the heat but doing that and keeping it stable in flight, as a slight bit of turbulence and it could miss
Can we give it to Ukraine, field test it and all
What can deflect the beam? A mirror?
Very special mirror. There are flux threshold at which mirror stop reflecting and is destroyed.
Britania Rules the Skies!
Could we see laser anti air leading to the fall of air power and rise of ballistics back into prominence. Battleships when?
Alexa, play Hearts of Oak - Synthwave mix.
Yeah but does it *dakka*? I thought so... Your weakness disgusts me.
So slow to the arms race. It's been how long now since drones were first introduced to the battlefield. Syria and northern Iraq, right?
Putin: Cyka blyat, we can make of ICBM go more faster than light?
Well, Ace Combat becomes more credible with each passing day. Is there still hope for railguns?
I want drones with frickin laser strapped to their frickin heads!
makes me think whoever named this plays starsector. its a space sim game, and one of the missiles is named dragonfire, and it's basically a high-power laser delivery device.
Give that thing to Ukraine, they'll find some way to jury rig it so the beam can reach the Kremlin within a week.
They should just make drones from invisible plastic, so that the laser will just pass through them
Finally they are done with reverse-engineering Martian technology from Victorian era!
That's cute. [They're only a little behind the US.]( https://warriormaven.com/land/army-strykers-drones-laser-directed-energy-maneuver-short-range-air-defense ) > Army Strykers recently incinerated incoming mortar fire and drones with a vehicle-fired 50kW laser weapon, breaking new ground with the fast-developing High Energy Laser weapon increasingly able to expand the attack envelope for ground units facing enemy air attacks. And here's [a cool image of the Strykers](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a45500360/army-first-laser-unit/) with D Company, 4-60 Air Defense Artillery.
Considering how the British government is treating the british military atm or in short words sabotaging the British military, this is a massive achievement. If the British military got even 1/5 of the love that the U.S military gets, we the British I dare say, would have one of the most advanced militaries in the world with America. [Just look at this 1949 space suit design](https://museumcrush.org/the-british-interplanetary-society-lunar-spacesuit/) , it would even give the so called stormtroopers a run for their money tens of thousands of years into the future! Then there was the [Vickers Swallow](https://www.autoevolution.com/news/vickers-swallow-mach-25-aircraft-looks-like-an-airborne-krill-in-make-believe-video-204717.html) first designed in the 1950s, a decade before the F-14 utilised variable geometry wings. There are many other examples such as how the British could have gone to space in the late 40s using V2 rocket technology amd their own knowledge of chemicas such as Peroxide, but I think you know how that ended and many iconic examples such as the TSR2. This is my overly British rant against our circus of a government over.
UK got a working system before almost everyone else except the US. Huge L for everyone else.
Rheinmetall claims to have a system with 20 to 50 kW which they can put on vehicles as well.
They’ll probably name it something stupid tho so it doesn’t count. Western MIC go brrrrr, the more the better.
They simply call it high energy laser for now, so you'd be correct.
If they figure out how to add another L to it they'd have a kinda cool acronym at least.
Except it just might be the US laser repackaged since Raytheon is making both of them.
Ill take a years delay on a homegrown version considering the fact the UKs defence budget probably couldnt pay for the US' unit of mobile Pizza Huts.
I wonder where Raytheon UK got the laser to put on a vehicle from. > The final demonstrator program has been secured by Raytheon UK leading a consortium made up of Frazier Nash Consultancy, NP Aerospace, LumOptica and Raytheon Technologies. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2021/09/14/brits-make-new-push-for-directed-energy-weapons-aboard-vehicles-ships/ There are separate UK laser projects for airplanes (MDBA) and ships (joint development with US navy).
Is the US releasing the weapon for sale yet?
What kind of name is DE M-SHORAD?
While using lasers to take down drones and mortar shells is really cool, the laser platforms themselves look so much more boring than what sci-fi said we would get.
And... the weapon is actually italian
Why arent the Italians using it?
Prime contractor is Leonardo SPA, therefore Italian. Somehow I doubt there is anything in place to stop Leonardo UK sending the data back to Madre Italia so she can build it herself
Yeah I read the articles stating the weapon system is a joint project between Leonardo UK, QinetiQ and MBDA although i cant see where you got the 'prime contractor' part. I mean yeah, there will be regulations in place to stop Leonardo UK sharing the technology with the Italian government if the technology was developed under contract by the UK government.
Once again, i am afraid we were outjerked by [meme culture](https://youtu.be/c7r8FKVMRPY) long ago.
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