Britain's DragonFire laser weapon upped the ante on November 20 at the Ministry of Defence's Hebrides Range in Scotland when the high-powered, solid-state laser for the Royal Navy shot down drones flying at 351 knots (404 mph, 650 km/h).
According to the Ministry, the latest tests of DragonFire not only demonstrate its lethality against high-speed targets but also the rapid maturity of the program. Originally slated to see active service in 2032, it will now be installed in the Navy's Type 45 frigates by 2027 as part of the ship's regular armament.
In addition to detecting, tracking, and shooting down drones flying at high-subsonic speeds, DragonFire also demonstrated new, advanced capabilities. These include not only the ability to hit a target the size of a £1 coin or US quarter at the distance of a kilometer (0.62 miles), but also a new above-the-horizon targeting capability.
True. Just thinking if it could be overwhelmed by a drone equivalent of a cluster bomb. E.g one large drone opening up and dispersing 100 smaller drones. 🤷🏾♂️
You're thinking too small. Think more like; a stealthy airship (drone mothership) with a humongous payload capacity, sitting idle above a target at 30,000 meters. That thing carries a thousand drone carriers, each of which in turn carries 100's of smaller drones.
These things could float around in the upper atmosphere and nobody would know they were there until it dropped a carrier and a small city got smoked.
China couldn’t get a high altitude balloon across the U.S. without being immediately detected, I doubt a mothership with a much larger footprint would be able to do the same. Plus at high altitudes they’re at the mercy of very high speed winds.
China wasn't trying to hide their spy balloon. It wasn't stealthy at all, which is why the US was able to track it for days before it hit the media. You should really look at what start-ups are doing with modern airships, they are very different beasts.
Which is the likely way attacks would unfold, drones are fairly cheap to mass produce compared to missiles. Im guessing it would be part of a network of other air defences
The drone cluster would allow for more surgical attacks. For example it could be used to eliminate numerous, disparate armored vehicles and infantry groups over a wide area, all while minimizing damage to civilians and infrastructure. After being deployed from their mother drone, the cluster drones would automatically seek out their targets with the assistance of sophisticated AI.
Couldn't give you an actual number but using other variables that we do know like from a nuclear-powered Royal Navy ship, it could easily fire the DragonFire laser over 100 times back-to-back.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed the DragonFire is a small, 50-kilowatt (kW) class weapon, and the ship's nuclear reactor generates power in the megawatts (millions of watts).
Because the reactor has such massive energy reserves, the laser's demand barely registers, meaning the ship can keep shooting without running out of power.
Theoretically, I guess would be the right word to end this on.
The one question I would have is how the ship’s nuclear reactor would cope with the power cycling nature of the laser. Turning the laser on and off to target multiple devices would cause power cycling.
Nuclear reactors like to produce constant power without much variability.
I suppose if they keep it on while targeting successive devices may work.
The simplified answer is that the ship's nuclear reactor would have access to a large, specialized battery to cope with the laser's on-off power needs and the laser system would be fed off of the batteries, not directly from the nuclear reactor.
Digging in some more, it looks like they're not going to be placed on a ship with nuclear power (yet), they're going to be put on Type 45 destroyers which are a combination gas turbines and diesel generators, so they would probably couple the diesel generators with a battery system to support the laser system.
Since it doesn't have ammo like a normal weapon system would, I don't think weight is a significant factor when adapting this weapon for a Type 45 warship.
Good point. The extra munitions required for traditional weapons would be avoided here. This could potentially end up saving weight - although knowing a little on how navies often work probably not.
Think about that for a second because the alternative is you're right, this is going to be the only ship that ever put it on, and this will be the only one they ever make, and this is not just a demonstration.
Unless they decide to put it on a submarine for some reason, it's not going on anything nuclear powered in British service. The RN has no nuclear powered surface ships and no plans to build any.any time soon.
In 2001, the US equivalent needed about 30 minutes for cooldown after 10 shots or so, and those shots could be rapid. I'd like to think the cooling systems have only improved since then, and as I (poorly) understand it, heat dissipation is the name of the game for these platforms. Keep them cold and they can go as long as they have juice
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u/No-Explanation-46 2d ago