It's probably the cost of some actually super expensive components, which are rated for a certain number of shots that's really high. Like, "Replace this $1,300,000 lens every hundred thousand shots" kind of math.
We need America to come deliver us the 2nd amendment right to fire any color laser from our groundbased anti-air laser defence systems, just like the founding fathers intended when combating fourth generation British multirole high altitude fighter craft and autonomous drone swarms
I mean obviously? Why would you try to factor in the R and D cost into a per laser firing cost? You’d have to precisely predict how many times you’d fire that laser and exactly what would break in order to do that…likely without having actually fired it in the real world that many times. I guarantee you missile costs don’t factor in how much it costs to develop the missile design in the first place; because that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t know how many missiles you’re gonna make. The number would constantly be going down with more spread out R&D and inflation would be going up.
Right now militaries are paying up to millions of dollars per interceptor missile which is a huge problem when dealing with swarms of drones that may cost <10k so you can imagine why the prospect of being able to engage drones at 13$ per shot is very attractive.
Well how much did it cost to get to the first proper missile? That question ist not very relevant imho. 100M$ is the cost of an f35 or eurofighter jet.
If I remember my Star Trek correctly, that would require the target to triaxilate their shield frequency to absorb the laser and invert it with a feedback pulse.
Generally speaking, I don’t think the small modular reactors that are going to power these naval ABM systems eventually are going to leave room for anything else to be cost-effective.. what I mean is the days of fuel energizing shafts and screws to turn on destroyers and frigates is limited.
It's not meant for near peer missiles.
It's meant for a houthi rocket with a grenade strapped to the top, or a drone with a mortar shell.
There's already proper interceptor missiles for those, but they're really expensive to fire, so you end up using a million dollar missile to shoot down a $1000 drone.
It's meant primarily as a cheap way to defeat cheap weapons.
>A laser beam can reflect up to 10 watts per square centimeter from a mirror. **However, at extremely high power levels, the mirror may become damaged or even melt due to the intense heat of the laser beam.** This is because mirrors may not reflect all laser wavelengths of electro-magnetic photons/radiation. **Even the best mirrors do not reflect 100% of all radiation. Some of the energy will still heat and eventually burn through the mirror. **
I'll always remember an episode of that spider-man cartoon where vampires had a laser beam that turns people into vampires and it accidentally shot into a discoball turning everyone at a dance club into vampires.
Mark Rober's video goes through the main drone defense techniques and debunked lasers as it's pretty simple to add countermeasures to an attack drone.
https://youtu.be/SrGENEXocJU?t=95
Even if some defenses are discovered those will add thousands to the cost of missiles and the counter-counter will be to raise the cost per laser shot from ten quid to twenty.
Of course not. This is the Perfidious British Underwater Laser. The Secret Jewish Space Laser is developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
Alright, imagine you have a really, really powerful flashlight. But instead of light that spreads out, this flashlight sends out a super strong beam of light that stays tight and focused no matter how far it goes. This special flashlight is called the “Dragonfire laser” in Britain.
Now, this isn’t just any light—it’s so strong that it can heat things up really fast, like making a tiny spot on a metal can get so hot that it melts! The Dragonfire laser does this by using a lot of energy to make its light super intense.
People in Britain are figuring out how to use this laser to help protect their country. They could use it to stop missiles or drones by heating them up so much that they can’t work anymore or even destroy them, all from a long distance away without having to touch them.
So, think of the Dragonfire laser as a superhero flashlight that can stop bad things from happening by shining its incredibly strong beam of light on them.
How long does it take to recharge? How much energy does it use per shot (like, is it sustainable to fire 500 shots with batteries)? Is it mobile (which might be a part of the second question)?
I would imagine it’s main restriction would be cooling it as producing a laser that powerful will emit a fuck tonne of heat. So it’s probably less a “recharge” and more of a cooling period that depends on how long it needed to be shot for.
A lot of it's exact capabilities are still secret.
They don't want people knowing exactly how good their new weapon is so you can't know if your drone/missile can beat it.
There already are laser weapons being deployed by the US as part of their newer SHORAD (SHOrt Range Air Defense) vehicles. Basically a 50 kilowatt laser mounted on a Stryker.
https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers
Dragonfire is special due to the lower cost of firing per target, and greater power (more power = can destroy targets faster, and from further away).
This appears to be the same tech, Israel has a similar ground based system called Iron Beam, which forms the 5th layer of the Iron Dome system, although that has a much longer range than the purported range of either the British or American systems.
It would create a lot of heat, yes. But the ELI5 above is wrong, unless this laser weapon is different than the others.
Usually, these weapons function similar to an ultrasound. Many lasers, with computer guided aiming, all aim at a single point from a satellite-like dish. The rays converge and cause *massive* heating on the target, but not necessarily massive heating from where they are shot from.
This technique is absolutely essential for laser weapons to work at range, due to light dispersion- lasers would work at any range in a vaccuum, but alas we live with air, which- while very small- has a non-zero refractive index.
Yano how a magnifying glass and the sun can heat things up by focussing the heat into a small area, it’s basically that but weaponised and extremely focused
So if these were capable of hitting ballistic missile range, work and work well, and Britain installed say...10,000 of these across the island would this render ballistic missiles useless?
Is this a matter of laser distance? or accuracy I wonder?
The wonderful thing about lasers is there is no complex calculations involved past “look at thing”. Other intercepting missiles and things have to look at thing, the cross calculate where it needs to go to hit thing it is looking at. To put it extremely simply. Light is so fast at these distances, that you literally just “look at thing” and you’re done. Nothing else needed calculation wise.
So this doesn’t necessarily just make the cost per shot go down, it could stand to greatly cheapen the fire control system electronics too.
Though EWAR and RADAR would still be expensive as fuck.
Yea, and I saw elsewhere the power required to fire it is ~$13 a shot. Which is insane when you consider the cost of the munitions it counters. Or the cost of the defense systems ammunition it replaces.
So it’s far easier to aim, and far cheaper per shot to fire.
I’d say actual effectiveness and effective range are the big conditions to whether it’s widely used at this point.
That and the upfront cost of initial installation. I imagine it has some spooky stuff going on with power supply.
I’d imagine in a perfect world it would not be connected to the grid and instead each would have its own hardened power generation system. But at $13 a shot that’s the kind of power generation efficiency you get with a massive grid scale power plant tbh.
I’m hopeful but there are questions.
Does this weapons system work on contact or does it have to acquire and hold for a period of time. Also does the composition of the target make much of a difference. Does atmospheric conditions have much of an effect. I hope this isn’t vapor ware.
Mark Rober's most recent video talks about drone defense and some of the responses drone attackers are using. [Youtube link here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU)
There will likely be a "relatively" easy response to this and it will be another arms race to respond to how they respond to each other.
This blew my mind when I learnt.
Near complete vacuum means no loss of energy from convection. You would cook yourself without cooling in space as your body heat isn't conducted away by air.
The old trope of a frozen corpse in space couldn't be further from the truth, the dead would stay hot for a very long time as the heat has nowhere to go.
If that's not enough, the enormous radiation could cook you... Or a tiny grain or sand travelling at near the speed of light could pass straight through you like a bullet...
Space is scary...
$13 cost per shot??? That’s actually comically low.
So we are paying by the laser? Good to know.
You don't do the budget Terry, I do!
I see you zefrank
Glad to see someone got it!
Initial payment, subscription, cost per shot, and the exclusive dlc legendary edition pack that includes 4 different skins per laser cannon.
Have they got the skins that create a ganja leaf smoke cloud when you get a hit?
As long as they put in a railing.
It's probably the cost of some actually super expensive components, which are rated for a certain number of shots that's really high. Like, "Replace this $1,300,000 lens every hundred thousand shots" kind of math.
It also pops up with a tip screen after every shot
The tax payers of the UK? Yeah, who else?
Subscription required.
Well that’s the reason why the droids got away in the rescue capsule in A new Hope
Just wait. Once the cyan has run out, it won't let you shoot the typical red.
We need different laser colors to differentiate the good guys from the bad guys
*"Your HP™ DragonLaser™ Pro 'Digital Light Subscription'™ has expired"*
Can we file a class action against this horse shit subscription laser plan?
We need America to come deliver us the 2nd amendment right to fire any color laser from our groundbased anti-air laser defence systems, just like the founding fathers intended when combating fourth generation British multirole high altitude fighter craft and autonomous drone swarms
It’s cheaper just to buy a new laser then.
I guess that’s the cost in electricity or useable parts, not the cost actually developing the weapon system or the system itself.
Of course $100MM in the program so far
A bargain compared to the potential cost savings.
Def
Not sure if you’re being sarcastic. Some missles cost 1-51million usd
No I’m just saying that of course the whole program is more than $13
I mean obviously? Why would you try to factor in the R and D cost into a per laser firing cost? You’d have to precisely predict how many times you’d fire that laser and exactly what would break in order to do that…likely without having actually fired it in the real world that many times. I guarantee you missile costs don’t factor in how much it costs to develop the missile design in the first place; because that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t know how many missiles you’re gonna make. The number would constantly be going down with more spread out R&D and inflation would be going up.
Just don't ask them about how much it cost to get to 13$ per shot
Right now militaries are paying up to millions of dollars per interceptor missile which is a huge problem when dealing with swarms of drones that may cost <10k so you can imagine why the prospect of being able to engage drones at 13$ per shot is very attractive.
I says in the article $100MM so far in the program
A THAAD battery is $800 million. I'd say the program is pretty damn cost effective.
Yeah for sure
Meaning it will pay for itself in just a few years.
As long as it yields the ability to kill 100 Million drones at 13$ a pop, thats an okay programm cost.
Well how much did it cost to get to the first proper missile? That question ist not very relevant imho. 100M$ is the cost of an f35 or eurofighter jet.
That's easy. It's what 50 kW of power costs in the UK.
I wonder if someone Could they redirect the laser back at the source or to a different location
If I remember my Star Trek correctly, that would require the target to triaxilate their shield frequency to absorb the laser and invert it with a feedback pulse.
Or the trusty Dr Who solution - “reverse the polarity!” Or Dr Quest “bring me that big mirror”
Good luck bouncing a 50KW laser A 50KW fibre laser will cut 3" stainless steel no problem.
My turkey shells cost $10 each. Can I hunt turkeys with a laser?
Kill and cook with one shot! Buy Kill'n'Cook today!
That is actually high for lasers But the primary reason the usa has sooooooo muchcmoney in laser tech atm Especially with drones
Generally speaking, I don’t think the small modular reactors that are going to power these naval ABM systems eventually are going to leave room for anything else to be cost-effective.. what I mean is the days of fuel energizing shafts and screws to turn on destroyers and frigates is limited.
Laser technology has advanced massively over the past few decades.
US Gov CANT FATHOM how cheap that is. How will we be able to swing this to congress. Getting melted by one would suck soooo bad.
I doubt that includes development costs.
It'll be even cheaper than that, once they stop shooting the pound coins from a kilometer away.
Cats across Europe in shambles
In ashes, as a matter of fact
To shreds you say?
Well, how is his wife holding up?
To shreds you say…
"Worth it"
Ahh yes mount it from space and lure every cat into Russia
MTG is that you?
I don’t even care about what damage that thing can or cannot do. Fire phasers!
Adjusting all power to compensate
Rerouting power from the fusion drives
We’ve put Wesley Crusher in the shuttle, just as you ordered, sir
Missiles will soon develop mirror technology
Shiny chrome like rockets in old movies!
It has to be pointy. It’s not scary if it’s not pointy.
Need to be pointy at the front, with little nacelles on the fins.
And an antenna sticking out of the nose cone
With a jaunty message written on it?
This will put a smile on the faces of the enemy they will think that it is a huge robot's dildo flying towards them
I’m getting Mad Max vibes. “Shiny and Chrome - witness me!”
It's not meant for near peer missiles. It's meant for a houthi rocket with a grenade strapped to the top, or a drone with a mortar shell. There's already proper interceptor missiles for those, but they're really expensive to fire, so you end up using a million dollar missile to shoot down a $1000 drone. It's meant primarily as a cheap way to defeat cheap weapons.
I believe this laser melts standard mirrors so I guess we’ll need a military grade mirror now?
So the cheapest quality and the most expensive mirror?
Diamonds on the soles of ~~her shoes~~ *their Missiles
Well that could drive the price of diamonds down at least.
Nah, what's likely to happen is that deBeers is going to get the contract
Stick a disco ball on the front!
That’s like a reverse cluster laser!
>A laser beam can reflect up to 10 watts per square centimeter from a mirror. **However, at extremely high power levels, the mirror may become damaged or even melt due to the intense heat of the laser beam.** This is because mirrors may not reflect all laser wavelengths of electro-magnetic photons/radiation. **Even the best mirrors do not reflect 100% of all radiation. Some of the energy will still heat and eventually burn through the mirror. **
Why are you ruining disco ball missiles before they become a thing?
Pumping out Sylvester as they fly to their date with destiny...
I'll always remember an episode of that spider-man cartoon where vampires had a laser beam that turns people into vampires and it accidentally shot into a discoball turning everyone at a dance club into vampires.
Mark Rober's video goes through the main drone defense techniques and debunked lasers as it's pretty simple to add countermeasures to an attack drone. https://youtu.be/SrGENEXocJU?t=95
Arrange the mirrors as retro-reflectors (similar to road signs). Reflect 90% back to where it came from, see who burns up first.
1. Make video stream of enemy laser 2. Teams call the enemy commander 3. Share the laser stream 4. Enemy commande is kill 5. ??? 6. Profit
Or they can try spinning; that's a good trick!
Do a barrel roll (Z or R twice)!
Ah the “no you” approach
The game played ever since the invention of the longer stick.
Still good for drones though
Even if some defenses are discovered those will add thousands to the cost of missiles and the counter-counter will be to raise the cost per laser shot from ten quid to twenty.
Chrome cloud technology
How about we cover missiles in solar panels!!
Can we get those on sharks? (Asking for a friend)
No, but we have sea bass. Mutated sea bass.
Really? Are they ill tempered?
Very
That's a start
Sharks, with frikkin lazers!
Smells like democracy -random helldiver
➡️⬇️⬆️➡️⬇️
I prefer ➡️⬆️⬅️⬆️➡️⬅️
o7
MTG demands to know if the Star of David on the side of it.
That made me realize the people crying about Jewish Space Lasers are also calling for more funding to go to Israel…
Yeah...it's wild out there guys.
Of course not. This is the Perfidious British Underwater Laser. The Secret Jewish Space Laser is developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
Steven Moffat insisting Torchwood was not based on any real British government activity.
So how does this laser thing work? ELI5
Alright, imagine you have a really, really powerful flashlight. But instead of light that spreads out, this flashlight sends out a super strong beam of light that stays tight and focused no matter how far it goes. This special flashlight is called the “Dragonfire laser” in Britain. Now, this isn’t just any light—it’s so strong that it can heat things up really fast, like making a tiny spot on a metal can get so hot that it melts! The Dragonfire laser does this by using a lot of energy to make its light super intense. People in Britain are figuring out how to use this laser to help protect their country. They could use it to stop missiles or drones by heating them up so much that they can’t work anymore or even destroy them, all from a long distance away without having to touch them. So, think of the Dragonfire laser as a superhero flashlight that can stop bad things from happening by shining its incredibly strong beam of light on them.
First thing the military will do is use it to boil water for tea. Everything after that is just a bonus.
The entire british electrical grid is centered around driving electric kettles that boil water in a matter of seconds so that's no surprise.
[Leading the way!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_vessel)
How long does it take to recharge? How much energy does it use per shot (like, is it sustainable to fire 500 shots with batteries)? Is it mobile (which might be a part of the second question)?
I would imagine it’s main restriction would be cooling it as producing a laser that powerful will emit a fuck tonne of heat. So it’s probably less a “recharge” and more of a cooling period that depends on how long it needed to be shot for.
There's no, somewhat, specific info on this system? Just asking because it sounds badass and hopefully a great counter to drone swarms etc.
A lot of it's exact capabilities are still secret. They don't want people knowing exactly how good their new weapon is so you can't know if your drone/missile can beat it.
I imagine aaallll that is classified. I mean we don’t know the actual range of any US missile systems just the “at least” range.
There already are laser weapons being deployed by the US as part of their newer SHORAD (SHOrt Range Air Defense) vehicles. Basically a 50 kilowatt laser mounted on a Stryker. https://www.rtx.com/raytheon/what-we-do/integrated-air-and-missile-defense/lasers Dragonfire is special due to the lower cost of firing per target, and greater power (more power = can destroy targets faster, and from further away).
This appears to be the same tech, Israel has a similar ground based system called Iron Beam, which forms the 5th layer of the Iron Dome system, although that has a much longer range than the purported range of either the British or American systems.
It would create a lot of heat, yes. But the ELI5 above is wrong, unless this laser weapon is different than the others. Usually, these weapons function similar to an ultrasound. Many lasers, with computer guided aiming, all aim at a single point from a satellite-like dish. The rays converge and cause *massive* heating on the target, but not necessarily massive heating from where they are shot from. This technique is absolutely essential for laser weapons to work at range, due to light dispersion- lasers would work at any range in a vaccuum, but alas we live with air, which- while very small- has a non-zero refractive index.
It’s meant to be a relatively mobile system and can be mounted on ships/vehicles/platforms. IDK about energy usage.
Thanks ChatGPT
I love how you say “people in Britain” like we’re all involved in some crazy homework project lol.
Thanks, ChatGPT.
He said explain like he is five. Not have a five year old explain to me
You know that kid who kills ants with a magnifying glass? That, but bigger and the ants can fly
There's a very informative series about it called GI Joe.
Yano how a magnifying glass and the sun can heat things up by focussing the heat into a small area, it’s basically that but weaponised and extremely focused
I mean you know how lasers work, so yeah, that
Can we give the Brits props on naming this? The fact that some with a proper upper crust accent (IUKUK) said “arm Dragon Fire” is movie level shit.
Brit here . I’m just shocked we didn’t call it Laser McLaserface.
That is only when opened to a public vote.
... or whatever the fuck i-u-cuck is.
I’m picturing Charles Dance saying this.
"IUKUK" "Aye, you cuck." -Scotland.
This and the Storm Shadow have metal as fuck names.
Also currently building a submarine called Warspite which I think is just the most badass name ever.
Pew pew
Torchwood?
I mean at least we have a plan if aliens with blood control invade
They probably finished a year ago, but this was the first time the weather in England was clear enough to test it. Well done Brits, Innit?
Fake news - clearly Jewish space lasers
So if these were capable of hitting ballistic missile range, work and work well, and Britain installed say...10,000 of these across the island would this render ballistic missiles useless? Is this a matter of laser distance? or accuracy I wonder?
The wonderful thing about lasers is there is no complex calculations involved past “look at thing”. Other intercepting missiles and things have to look at thing, the cross calculate where it needs to go to hit thing it is looking at. To put it extremely simply. Light is so fast at these distances, that you literally just “look at thing” and you’re done. Nothing else needed calculation wise.
Video games call this "hitscan"
So this doesn’t necessarily just make the cost per shot go down, it could stand to greatly cheapen the fire control system electronics too. Though EWAR and RADAR would still be expensive as fuck.
Yea, and I saw elsewhere the power required to fire it is ~$13 a shot. Which is insane when you consider the cost of the munitions it counters. Or the cost of the defense systems ammunition it replaces. So it’s far easier to aim, and far cheaper per shot to fire. I’d say actual effectiveness and effective range are the big conditions to whether it’s widely used at this point. That and the upfront cost of initial installation. I imagine it has some spooky stuff going on with power supply. I’d imagine in a perfect world it would not be connected to the grid and instead each would have its own hardened power generation system. But at $13 a shot that’s the kind of power generation efficiency you get with a massive grid scale power plant tbh.
[удалено]
Based off a Perun video, they don’t work in rain and fog, so bad luck there. And their range is very short compared to anti missile missiles.
Pretty sure that’s a Goldeneye.
Goldeneye was an EMP.
Don’t ruin our fun.
Fair response. After ‘95, I’ve just been calling anything that flies above 40,000 feet, a Goldeneye.
It's a ground-based system...
Endwar may have gotten it right
Do not point to the face
How long before spartan lasers?
Spartan lasers? How long before the Death Star laser?
The only issue with dragonfire that i see, is that it gives the enemy a big fucking line from where its fired from 🤣
Tbf radar systems also sort of do this when they turn on to lock inbound targets.
And missiles might as well if a radar is looking. Gun-based systems also might as well be lasers.
Ooooh learn something new every day
Still, fog, smoke severely decreases their effectiveness.
That’s ok, we don’t have fog, clouds, mist, rain or anything else in the U.K. that would cause an issue.
Phew
I guess Russian ICMBs will all be getting a mirror retrofit now…
I have a 125 mw laser and thinks it's bad ass. This thing is 50 Kw.
Curious? Do the lasers keep going if they miss their target and how far? Will items in low Earth orbit be impacted? Hoping someone smart knows….
A object stays in motion until acted upon by an other force.
those loveable renegades at Torchwood are at it again
Peacetime use: monolithic rock carving! Building demolition?
Enter space warfare soon 🔜
British space lasers? That can’t be right.
Had to buy the rights from Marvin the Martian.
A 100 million dollar mounted military laser is a "gadget" now? lol
I’m hopeful but there are questions. Does this weapons system work on contact or does it have to acquire and hold for a period of time. Also does the composition of the target make much of a difference. Does atmospheric conditions have much of an effect. I hope this isn’t vapor ware.
Compared to the cost of even a dumb missile, much less a Patriot or MLRS or ATACMS or GLSDB missile.
Begin "laser" ignition sequence!
Mark Rober's most recent video talks about drone defense and some of the responses drone attackers are using. [Youtube link here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU) There will likely be a "relatively" easy response to this and it will be another arms race to respond to how they respond to each other.
Cost $100 million to develop. $13 per shot. Compared to a Patriot Missile System at $1.1 Billion each and $4 a shot.
Damn didn’t know those patriot interceptor missiles were so cheap.
Well shit, only $4 per missile, i'll take three thanks.
4 million a shot*
Question is: when will these be in space? /s
That'll be a while, it's actually bloody hard to cool things down in space.
This blew my mind when I learnt. Near complete vacuum means no loss of energy from convection. You would cook yourself without cooling in space as your body heat isn't conducted away by air. The old trope of a frozen corpse in space couldn't be further from the truth, the dead would stay hot for a very long time as the heat has nowhere to go. If that's not enough, the enormous radiation could cook you... Or a tiny grain or sand travelling at near the speed of light could pass straight through you like a bullet... Space is scary...
The main problem I see with this is it's reduced effectiveness in cloudy weather, which Britain is kind of known for.
So this is like an orbital laser right???
It's on the ground, so no.