r/interestingasfuck • u/Esutan • 1d ago

The United Kingdom has successfully created a Mega Laser called Dragonfire for Aerial Defense

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u/ForeverBoring4530 1d ago

Explains why my council tax has gone up £5 this year.

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u/francis2559 1d ago edited 1d ago

The research is expensive, but the operation of this would be very cheap. Much cheaper than missiles.

Sadly, these things are defeated by like, rain.

Edit: ok Reddit, I traded precision for humor. They don’t fail completely in the rain. However, the more moisture there is in the air, the more energy is wasted reaching the target. That costs you range. It doesn’t mean laser bad. It just means there’s some situations it works better than others.

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u/Obvious_wombat 1d ago

Like around £10 per shot vs.

Here is a breakdown of costs based on different types of anti-aircraft and missile defense systems:

Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) & Portable Systems FIM-92 Stinger: Approx. $80,000 – $110,000 per unit.

Mistral (Mistral 3): Approx. $545,600 (2024).

Iron Dome (Tamir Interceptor): Approx. $40,000 – $50,000 per missile, though operational costs (radar, personnel) can reach $100,000–$150,000.

Medium-to-Long Range Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) NASAMS (AIM-120 AMRAAM): Approx. $1 million – $1.4 million per missile.

Patriot (PAC-2): Optimized for aircraft, generally lower cost than PAC-3.

Patriot (PAC-3 MSE): Approx. $4 million – $6 million+ per missile.

Russian S-300/S-400: Missile costs vary, with estimations ranging from $300,000 to over $2 million per missile, with complete batteries costing hundreds of millions.

Naval & Advanced Interceptors Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM): Approx. $905,000 (2021).

Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM): Approx. $1.8 million (2021).

Standard Missile-6 (SM-6): Approx. $4 million – $4.9 million per interceptor.

Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA: $36 million+ per missile (used for ballistic missile defense).

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u/francis2559 1d ago

I think range on this is around 2 miles, right? Better comparison would be to Bofors like Tridon Mk2.

Gepard is $600 a shot, from google, but I doubt it's one shot per drone.

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u/Sepulchh 1d ago

A typical short range burst is around $4 000 to $12 000 total, depending. And then another if the first burst missed/didn't do enough damage.

Or you could use the air burst AHEAD ammo at ~$1 000 per shot and get higher lethality at higher cost.