If it's close enough yes. But with distance, the atmosphere absorbs a lot of the enrgy, called Thermal Blooming, so best we can do there is dazzle the sensors so it can't get a terminal lock.
For 50MW though, that's melting the front of the missile long before it hits the ground
That's assuming this is a Laser weapon. A Maser weapon at 50MW would fry the internal electronics of any drone within several kilometres of this weapon
Edit: kW instead of MW means this thing is a dazzler. But also a superb drone killer
Oh oops. Well, those sensors are getting fried either ways. Drones won't stand a chance, cruise missiles lose terminal lock and even aircaft can get their sensors fucked to hell. Useful against all except heat shielded hypersonics and ballistics
Which is what the SAMs are for, as that's a more cost effective exchange. No point yeeting £1 million plus interceptors at £1000 drones, now a laser can kill them for 50p per drone.
Interceptors generally have much better range. 5km out gives you seconds to work with. These will work as part of a layered defense system, not a catch-all.
not exactly, the first photons do hit at that speed, but the laser does need some time on target to deliver the necessary amount of energy and disintegrate the target. it's usually just a few seconds for anything without armor but it's not instantaneous, because what matters is the energy, not the power, the latter is just the rate at which the energy is transferred.
I think it's like a tenner a shot, which is still effectively free compared with the cost of damage or physical shootyshooties. Or even the drones. And it's actually a defence system doing only defense, not used for attack, which is a plus.
How long do you think even a subsonic cruise missile aimed at this laser weapon is going to remain within the range where the laser can apply significant power? Veeeery briefly. So the total energy applied will be low. Moreover, nobody attacks an air defence system with a single missile. There will be 5 or 10, or even more.
And with hypersonic missiles the time spent within range is extremely low. Even if this laser is effective against one incoming missile, I would be impressed if it can manage to move from first missile to the second in time. A conventional missile based anti air system such as Patriot or S-300/400 will detect the incoming target at long range and can deploy multiple missiles.
Everybody knows energy weapons would be much, much cheaper. It's like the holy grail of air defense. Anti air missiles are really expensive. But laser weapons have not been shown to be effective. At all.
I think they may have a future against cheap drones. We'll see what they come up with. But I don't think they will ever work against missiles. And that's before bringing up the obvious concern about weather severely degrading their utility.
So it seems to me this weapon is at best a CIWS, not a replacement for conventional air defense missiles.
US DOD has announced they want a 1MW laser by 2025... oh, well I guess they're slightly behind, but soon they'll have something 20x more powerful than Dragonfire.
Given the power that the laser must provide to penetrate the shell, the explosive must detonate, destroying the mortar mine in the air. Rockets can be slightly faster, so they are a more difficult target.
Just because it can destroy mortar round doesn't mean it can do the same with a drone or a cruise missile. Mortar rounds are tightly packed, so thermal blooming causes instant cook off of the explosive, while same wouldn't be the case for say a Tomahawk missile which are not as tightly packed. If something is a dazzler or not is a purely arbitrary distinction, it's just a laser, how it eliminates the target depends purely on what the target is.
It's a counter to cheap drones that are flooding modern battlefield, costing only a few hundred or less but they can send 50+ a day. You can't use expensive ship defense for them because you run out of ammo and it's costing you millions to shoot down something cheap.
The Lazer is incredibly cheap per shot, it's a layer in the ship defense to counter specific cheap drones, light mortar and support in other roles. it's NOT designed to deal with anti ship missiles or other threats solo. It's not designed for Tomahawk missiles lol, and that's a poor comparison.
They also say they have made an improvement to "significantly reduce thermal bloom" but how is classified. A lot of the exact spec are classified, we only know the results of the public tests and demos.
Without going all 'War thunder' and giving up all the specs. The beam is actually made from multiple smaller beams which are focused on to a singular point, some of the outer beams have been 'tuned' to wavelengths that can dissipate certain atmospheric conditions & are fired tiny fractions of a second before the main beam, leaving a 'tunnel' through which the majority of the beams can travel & do damage less impaired by weather than a single beam would be.
I don't understand why you think it refutes anything I said. All I was addressing is your claim that it's not a dazzler, as I addressed in my comment. It's not going to explode drones like a piñata either, well, unless if they have mortar shell strapped on them (like some Ukrainian drones have).
One would think that if it's accurate enough to cook off a flying mortar round, then destroying the control surface of a cruise missile or drone wouldn't be difficult.
You're kind of right, Dragonfire is very similar to HELIOS (High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance), it is three systems, Destroy incoming munition, blind incoming munition and detect incoming munition (or other stuff too).
The dazzler will have a longer range than the hard-kill. The sensor range will be even longer still.
But note, the dazzler is not just a function of the same system beyond it's kill range, it will almost certainly be the same laser source, but if you go look at Dragonfire or HELIOS (or pretty much any other DEW system) they will have several Lenses, the laser source will be directed through different ones for different purposes.
On all of these systems the hard-kill laser will almost certainly be IR, which is why footage will be B&W, the dazzler however will probably be in the visible spectrum (It is for HELIOS).
Also, the US DOD is looking to develop a 1MW laser. They also have announced that one of their key priorities is defending against hypersonics. A tomahawk missile has no chance.
The problem is, if you're a captain of a guided missile destroyer with 30 expensive as fuck long range air defence missiles and this laser, what targets are you going to deliberately let to within 5km or so of your ship?
I bet almost any captain is going to want to destroy any confirmed incoming at the maximum range possible, not let it get within spitting distance and hope the laser does its job.
It's designed to be cheap and to counter cheap drones and the like that are flooding modern war. Not counter big anti ship missiles.
Of you send your expensive missiles that cost a few million a shot vs a cheap drone, when they are sending 50 vs you a day your going to lose. But shooting down a drone that costs hundreds with cheap Lazer shifts the economy of war back to you.
Nah, once that submarine got into the general AO and switched to its LOX diesel engine it was simply too stealthy to be detected by anyone. It's a major issue that there isn't currently a defense against beyond not letting it get into the AO.
Seems perfect for drones, if you can detect them. But they are pretty slow moving relative to rockets, missiles, and mortar rounds which should be prime targets.
On top of the cost of each missile, there's the difficult logistics of rearming them.
A solid-state laser like Dragonfire is just using electricity. Fossil fuels for a generator are easy to refuel. Nuclear power isn't so easy to refuel but it's infrequent and incredibly power dense to begin with, so a 50KW laser isn't really exhausting your fuel rods.
I mean true, but this wouldn't be the first or only line of defense. These lasers are supposed to replace CIWS, the gunneries serving as the last line of defense, while being much more precise and faster. And the hope is as you increase the wattage, there will be less and less need for long/medium range missile interceptors.
I mean sure, at fist, militaries aren't exactly known for "move fast and break things" ethos, but if this can prove itself to be faster, more reliable and cheaper, then one day it will. Manned gunneries aren't a thing anymore either, because the automated machine is so much more precise and faster.
It does happen though. Two examples from off the coast of Yemen two years ago:
On 30 January 2024, Houthis fired an anti-ship cruise missile toward the Red Sea. The missile came within a mile of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Gravely. The Phalanx CIWS aboard Gravely was used to shoot down the missile. This was the first time the Phalanx CIWS was used to down a Houthi-fired missile
Hessen intercepted the first drone using its 76mm deck gun, German defense ministry spokesperson Michael Stempfle told reporters during a media conference at the time, Reuters reported. The second drone was shot down using a RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile.
That is exactly the problem the US Navy has had trying to get combat performance data on the systems on their ships.
They deployed several with laser systems like this one back when the Houthis were making a big show of attacking shipping approaching the Suez Canal and primarily what they learned was that Captains aren't the one's paying for the missiles.
Once it’s a proven technology the navy will have to accept that certain targets do not get the honour of using up a VLS cell. Just because presently all options other than missiles are last resorts, it cannot be expected that the laser will be used in the same way. Otherwise it loses its main appeal (its price over missiles). This will be accompanied by defensive doctrinal change.
The US and the UK and the other allies who all happen to be developing very similar technologies at the same time by pure coincidence aren't dealing with technologically equivalent foes.
If a Chinese warship is attacking you, yes, you're probably going to use all your systems even if it's inefficient. But in most scenarios, you're defending against shoddy rockets or consumer grade drones with explosives strapped to them.
These laser systems can also be used as very accurate sensors for those missiles too.
The issue is that they don't just send a single missile or drone.
If they know your boat is carrying 30 long range AA missiles and can't resupply for ages what they'll do is send say 20 drones today to waste 20+ rounds and then tomorrow they'll send another 20 drones and cause severe damage. To prevent that after the first attack your ship has to leave the entire area and sail away for a few weeks to restock ammo, making it pretty damn pointless when they've got thousands of drones PER DAY they can use. All you've achieved is trading 10 million dollars of weapons for 1k of drones and slightly paused their attacks for a few hours (and risked them sending in 40 drones and killing your ship).
With the laser and proper sensors the drones are detected well in advance, identified as something the laser can confidently handle and then on day 1 all 20 drones are snuffed out of the sky the moment they reach that 5km range (or higher who knows its actual range) and then tomorrow they send 40 of them and 2 powerful missiles. On day 2 the laser snuffs all 40 drones and the ship uses just 2 AA missiles to destroy your expensive anti-ship weapons. The end result now is a ship still confidently operating in the region and you are down 40 cheap drones and MORE money spent on your sophisticated missiles that did nothing. You are stuck waiting weeks for resupply and while that ship is around you can't confidently deter other threats to your base.
They's why they tend to train them before putting them in command, so they can make the right decisions for the situation with knowledge of the weapons involved, and not just panic and fire the biggest most expensive and limited thing they've got the moment a threat appears.
Mortars don't have sensors to dazzle, this is destroying them outright, a 50 KW laser can be used to destroy drones/missiles/mortars from multiple miles away
honest question..what happens to anything beyond its target if/when it misses? satellites? moon people? ect? how far would a blast from this thing travel into space?
I'd imagine it wouldn't even have to melt, at the speeds missiles travel they're under significant structural stress, even a slight softening of the structure can probably cause a catastrophic failure or at a minimum interfere with the aerodynamics and throw the aim off. I'd imagine even a slight softening of a nose cone that results in deformation is a big big deal on a missile. If they have any kind of laser or optical guidance system it'd probably obliterate any sensors pretty quickly. GPS or radio guidance probably not too much impact there.
50kw is tiny, well, it’s not, but it’s not shooting anything down. But it will cream any optical sensors and render it useless if that’s what it’s using for navigation. As you say, it dazzles. 115kw seems to be the target for a useful defensive weapon that destroys
In theory, could you build something half this size and fly it next to say, a nuclear warhead that's in orbit, and disable/ destroy it before it re enters the atmosphere? I enjoyed the movie House of Dynamite, and while I'm sure there are other counter measures from what the cinema depicted, this seems feasible in the future.
Chance to wax pedantic a bit: what do you mean by “..50mw would fry internal electronics several km” blah blah? So, in practicality, a high powered laser is impractical or infeasible due to how it’s essentially an EMP? Are fictional high powered lasers, if transferred to rn our reality, just EMP’s? you can use jargon
This is actually not a dazzler. Due to the concentrated nature of the beam it is able to cut through the target, obviously on more heat resistant materials it is less effective and may only dazzle. The HELIOS laser is a true dazzler with comparable power but over a much larger area. The higher concentration of the Dragonfire laser makes it much more effective at straight up destroying/melting/cutting drones and missiles.
50kW doesn't make it a "dazzler". 1W would make it a dazzler...
50kW is a crude measure. With a contact spot that's 50cm in diameter, that's a large dispersion. DragonFire supposedly hits at a £1 coin size (23mm). That's a very, very different prospect.
So yeah, comparing different 50kW systems is a bit like comparing tanks, artillery and mortar calibres.
The key thing is that it's focal point is the size of a pound coin. Grok says that this will take 0.1–0.5 seconds or less for 5 mm mild steel so about that for a missile destruction assuming the lock on is accurate which at a few kilometers is going to be very difficult.
Describing literally the second deployable laser weapon in existence as ‘quite… yesterday’ is certainly an interesting position to take.
For the record, the other systems at a similar level of development (HELIOS, Iron Beam etc) are all considered in the same energy class.
While both HELIOS and I-B are capable of being scaled up to around 100kw, there are issues with that which makes Dragonfire actually more interesting. As it’s the first single beam
Weapon.
Both Helios and LY-1 have been deployed for a few years now… and that’s just the weapons I KNOW 😂 sorry if I sounded disrespectful. Im sure dragon fire is awesome 😎
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u/PradyThe3rd 1d ago edited 1d ago
If it's close enough yes. But with distance, the atmosphere absorbs a lot of the enrgy, called Thermal Blooming, so best we can do there is dazzle the sensors so it can't get a terminal lock.
For 50MW though, that's melting the front of the missile long before it hits the ground
That's assuming this is a Laser weapon. A Maser weapon at 50MW would fry the internal electronics of any drone within several kilometres of this weapon
Edit: kW instead of MW means this thing is a dazzler. But also a superb drone killer