A consortium led by missile developer MBDA is to develop a high-energy laser weapon for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
Under the £30M contract, which is currently being finalised by the MoD, the UK Dragonfire group, which includes MBDA, Qinetiq and Leonardo-Finmeccanica, plans to develop a 50kW class directed energy weapon optimised for use on both land and sea.
According to a statement issued by the group, the project builds on the significant MoD and Industry investment in the areas of laser coherent beam combining, weapon systems command and control, advanced pointing systems and high power storage. It is expected to put the UK at the forefront of laser weapon development.
Laser weapons have key advantages over traditional systems: the munition is potentially unlimited, and it operates at the speed of light so the time from when you say “fire” to the weapon hitting its target is more or less instantaneous.
The high-powered laser system will be provided by QinetiQ, which is expected to conducting the trial itself at one of the ranges it manages for the MoD. Meanwhile, Leonardo Air and Space Systems (a division of Leonardo-Finmeccanica) will contribute the electro-optic beam director to the programme and support the trials and evaluation.
Dave Armstrong Executive Group Director Technical and UK Managing Director of MBDA said, “UK Dragonfire will put the UK at the forefront of high energy laser systems….it advances the UK towards a future product with significant export potential, as well as providing opportunities for partnerships with other nations’ armed forces that have similar requirements.
A number of other defence firms have revealed that they are developing and testing directed energy weapons in recent years. As previously reported in The Engineer US defence firm Raytheon began publically demonstrating the weapons back in 2010, whilst in 2012, Europe’s MBDA demonstrated a 40kW laser that successfully hit airborne targets at a range of over 2,000m.
More recently, Lockheed Martin last year used a prototype 30kW laser weapon to disable a truck. Lockheed’s technology is based on laser beam combining – a technique in which beams from multiple fibre laser modules are combined to form a single, powerful, high quality beam.
The Dragonfire system – which is likely to exploit similar techniques – is expected to be ready for trials by 2019.
Something that always worries me about laser weapons – what happens if our enemies cheat and polish the missiles so they are reflective?
Even when polished they will still have damage thresholds.
No matter how highly polished they are, they don’t reflect ALL the light,,,even at 99 %, enough could get through to destroy the missle…of course, there are some other work arounds but I expect we’ll use tunable lasers, because different wavelengths have different reflectivity…
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-reflective-materials-on-earth
“….is expected to be ready for trials by 2019.”
Hope our enemies note this date!
What happens if the beam misses the target and somebody happens to be wandering along minding their own business somewhat beyond but in a direct line with the target? What is the maximum range of these systems?
Well they certainly won’t see it coming will they?
At these power levels, the polishing would have to be immaculate; even slight imperfections will result in enough energy being dumped into the target to do significant damage.
Well, around these parts where I live, we used to have a saying: ” If you cannot dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your B.S.”
That certainly does not, and will not apply here. Have you considered using FEL with high field superconducting magnetics?
As Chris Elliot writes; What happens if the Laser hits a polished surface such as a mirror, in fact isn’t that how it will be aimed from the ship to allow rapid changes of target? In addition Missiles and aircraft are often designed to low angles of incidence, to deflect radar and make them hard to see, won’t the surfaces scatter the laser energy in the same way, Just as on the equater the sun’s power per sqrm is greater than at the arctic circle? also surely to create damage the laser must have to linger in a spot for a while (I suppose depending on the substrate and the thickness, how is it to be maintained in a single spot for 1ms, 5ms 50ms 5000ms to burn through a 1-2mm aluminium plate, not difficult in a lab or on a range but at a distance of several miles from a pitching ship on a target moving at 600mph?
I love the idea of a rapid firing laser very Sci fi but is it actually practical?
They can’t be perfectly reflective and once the reflective surface starts to degrade…. But they might try ablative surfaces and so on. Surely there will be counters but they may only give an opponent a short bit of extra time.
“….advanced pointing systems” Had the word ‘aiming’ occurred to the MoD?
“….so the time from when you say “fire” to the weapon hitting its target is more or less instantaneous” I sincerely hope that whoever created this piece of gobbledy-gook is better at fighting than language.
If I recall other bloggers pointed out a series of issues with the Lockheed trial picture repeated here. Presumably it would take an enemy, even more ‘st**id’ that we are, to make arrangements for ‘their’ vehicles to be slanted to allow maximum laser effect?
“….it advances the UK towards a future product with significant export potential.”
So that is what Brexit was all about. At last I know. Words like lunatics, asylum and take-over come to my mind.
Laser requires a huge source of power, but not only – a huge power impulse must be provided in one moment. It can be realized by the ground-based weapon, more difficult by the sea-based one and looks as a fantastic by the space-based. If even MBDA will not take a success in the nearest future, research should be continued.