The TRUTH about the UK's new DRAGONFIRE Laser
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- čas přidán 22. 01. 2024
- The UK Ministry of Defense recently announced the successful testing of their Dragonfire laser-directed energy weapon system, and it has since been touted by media outlets as everything from the answer to missile defense to a replacement for missiles themselves. But as cool as this system genuinely is, none of that is true.
Let's talk about what Dragonfire really is, and why it's important even if it doesn't live up to the science fiction hype.
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Citations:
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www.rafael.co.il/worlds/land/...
www.sandboxx.us/news/lasers-w...
www.laserax.com/blog/types-la...
www.popularmechanics.com/mili...
news.lockheedmartin.com/2022-...
news.lockheedmartin.com/2023-...
sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF1188...
www.globalsecurity.org/milita...
www.armscontrol.org/blog/2018...
www.bbc.com/news/uk-68031257
news.lockheedmartin.com/2023-...
www.mbda-systems.com/press-re...
www.military.com/daily-news/2...
www.gov.uk/government/news/dr...
aviationweek.com/shownews/far...
interestingengineering.com/in...
www.theengineer.co.uk/content...
What also needs to be taken into account is the scaling up of these systems in sheer numbers. Instead of thinking 1 system intercepting 1 target, you can also have 20 of these systems intercepting 1 target.
they should be fitted onto the AWACS or other fighter aircraft converted into anti drone and in the future missile defenses
But there could come more than 1 target. Then the 20 lasers should cooperate on target assignment.
Yeah, Alex is a little limited with his thinking here. He made the same error when talking about lasers vs hypersonic weapons.
Is the energy output of multiple lasers cumulative on a target? If you put two 50kw lasers on a target on the exact same location, is it 100kw worth of heat?
You are both power and space constrained. 1MW is not a small about of power for a ship. That is not to mention the cost of these systems.
It can be used to boil water for tea, just needs reducing in size to fit in boiling vessels in AFV's. Remember to use Yorkshire Tea!
Red bush all the way
Earl Grey, hot.
Depends on the water hardness, Yorkshire Tea is blended for soft water.
There's a special blend for hard water (otherwise known as "down south")
@@cjckdbdhxMy first girlfriend had a red bush.
The needs of coffee drinkers are being dismissed and not addressed at all. This offends me.
You missed the point, the dragon fire is a proof of concept prototype design. So it is not about the power of the laser but all about the targeting. Now that they know it works it will be scaled up with a much more powerful laser.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's DE systems and all DE systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
@ethanwashington60 Came here to say this, well spotted and well said
Alex, if DARPA is not thinking about repurposing the ancient space based laser concept from the starwars period, they should be. Think about it. Obviously, the reaction time to target is dependent on location of the laser. As you noted, a land or sea based laser can overcome atmospheric distortion and destroy objects at 10 miles. Right. But note that the atmosphere is only 6 miles thick, and thats a gradient, so it has the dissipation effect of around 3 miles of atmosphere at sea level.
This means that a high altitude CAP over the fleet would be in geosynchronous orbit over the fleet, ready to fire its megawatt lasers at incoming drones. The fleet is responsible for identifying targets, and a modular nuclear reactor onboard the highCap vehicle would fire its lasers down to destroy drones. This is an all weather solution because it is known that lasers of this power can tunnel through and vaporize cloud cover. Maintaining such a tunnel is possible to a specific spot, but beaming indirectly to friendly reflector aircraft under that clear sky hole could redirect the beams to incoming target drones or other hostile targets. These reflector aircraft would be stationed as pickets around the protected asset- the fleet, port, etc. These potentially could be unmanned drones flying at low altitudes in contested airspace.
All of this is known science. We have the modular nukes, the megawatt lasers and the high speed communications, and the heavy lifting usinge SpaceX launchers to do this, and do it cheaply. This is applicable not just for third world hostile forces, but China. For example, likely scenarios for assaults involve swarm attacks on Taiwan or fleets defending Taiwan in order to saturate and overwhelm conventional air defences.
He missed lots of points tbh, the dragonfire is one of if not the the best laser so far.
@ethanwashington60 spelling too...
btw 50kw is what was shown, they mentioned if you research what was actually said, the system has been built to scale up to much higher power. The impressive thing is how accurate and robust the system is vs cost.
*50KW Minimum being the key information against Dragonfire. Any other information would be pushing the boundaries of national security. 👍🏻
50kw is the test strength
I like to keep in mind.. up till about 8:00 a.m. August 6th 1945, only a handful of people knew that bomb existed. It seems like what they allow us to know, is about 40 or 50 years behind. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the Dark Sector has a 5 lb drone with a 10,000 KW laser 😂 it's all about National security, until someone shows their ass, and they get to see what we've got up our sleeve.
Another problem with directed energy is that you don't have to destroy the gun. Pretty much any damage cause to power control systems will disable the weapon. Whereas with guns....you can still fire them even if your ship is limping.
@@markbeaumont3292
Let's hope they can do way more than that, because 50kW is puny.
Commercial laser cutters are closing in to 50kW these days and other military laser systems with outputs of up to 150kW have been around for years.
500kW is when things get truly interesting regarding low to medium danger threats like RAM targets and drones, but for defense against higher danger threats like Mach 1 anti-ship-missiles and other common cruise missiles, you'll need cross the 1MW threshold.
50kw also comes within the EU safety limits for energy consuming appliances such as vacuum cleaners microwaves and hair dryers.
Lets not forget..the UK has always punched above its weight..and have some of the best engineers in the world..
BAE Systems spring to mind.
Yeah and most get poached by the USA
@@darrent404Often weapons are discovered here in the UK and American has the big money to develop and stuff the developers mouths with gold, its been this way and will continue to be, patriotism doesn’t pay the school fee’s or buy you a home commensurate to the persons ability. You would think our government would realise this.
Idę na trial tej broni yeah
Well, that may be true. But even if it is you can't alter the science
Researching this correctly, the truth is it’s a *minimum 50kw* so far more powerful than what he’s stated. Looks like the Brits beat us to a viable energy weapon. Shameful need to downplay the achievement of an ally.
usa have no laser
Thank you sir.
The thing about lasers is what frequency of light they put out.
The higher frequency of light means more energy per pulse/beam.
@@lesleyrussell8200No.. but they do have rail guns. Linear Magnetics
@@marcwolf60 well thats a laser
Ww3 could be the craziest light show in history
Pyrotechnics won't last long.
@JesusSaves6369 I wouldn't even go that far, it's just those laser pens parcel taped together on a stick , won't last long as the batteries will be from poundland
Once the technology matures I expect it to complement CWIS. It can't defeat hypersonic missiles using ceramic shielding but it can protect against many other kinds of threat.
Subsonic cruise missiles will need be the ultimate test because of the short range of lasers and at 750km per hour, you'll have very little time.
Slow uavs are what this laser is really for!
@@virginccyy7645As it turns out, the US Valkyrie laser has been successfully tested against high subsonic cruise missiles.
The US Army’s 300kw laser should enter serial production this year.
It could defeat ceramic, The incoming threat has to have sensors to be able to target objects ( Unless its area of effect Like nuclear weapons. ) those sensors are always going to be a vulnerability. As they have to be able to see.. even if shielded for flight that shielding has to open up or otherwise be discarded when in the target area for those incredibly delicate and sensitive systems to be able to work..
@@kwonekstrom2138 the US has advanced power systems (portable fusion reactors). Their directed energy weapons, when provided with high power inputs, are decades ahead of what they admit to
@@paulbarclay4114 Sure…. if you say so. Although when you consider that the 300kw valkyrie laser uses a diesel generator on a truck…. I’m not really sure that they need a portable fusion reactor just yet….
Don't forget, lasers require sharks to wear them in order for them to work.
That's only for the top-level F-RICKEN class, cheaper ones can fit on otters.
@@TransoceanicOutreach Or sea bass.
@@CIMAmotorare they mutated?
@@TurnerN4tor500 I'm not sure but they are certainly bad-tempered.
Great point.
It should be remembered that the UK used lasers as 'dazzle' weapons in the Falklands War back in 1982. The low flying Argentine fighters not only had to contend with missiles and small arms fire when they attacked the ships, but there were low power lasers being used to distract the pilots. The sort of laser that was popular at a nightclub. Not strong enough to hurt the pilot, but enough to momentarily distract them when they had to be focussed on their target.
The new systems are capable of burning the target and if used in the same context, they would not only set fire to missiles or drones, but potentially cause optical burns to anyone that looked into the beam for any length of time. It is a much better way of bringing down swarm attacks by sea or air drones.
The UK sent a laser weapon designed to "dazzle" Argentine pilots during the Falklands war, official documents show.
The device, despite being quickly developed, was never used during the 1982 conflict.
The point from a UK point of view is that we have the technology ourselves - just like we do with cruise missiles, submarines etc. It means along with our US friends we'll have the targeting technology nailed. Scaling up to higher power is comparatively easy, especially with nuclear power plants. As other have mentioned you could easily have half a dozen or more of these and can be used alongside CWIS. For ballistic missiles we'd likely use missiles as we do today, but for drones and cruise missiles lasers are a good additional weapon in our Navy's arsenal. Should the lasers not be effective (very large drone, shielded etc) then we can still use a missiles and/or CIWS.
the raw power output isn't the problem, lens focusing at range is, 50kw into 1cm is more powerful than 350kw into 10cm because the energy dissipation is more spread out.
@@123AndersonevYes I see.So you would need 500kw over 10cm to be equal?
@@Anglo_Saxon1 yes basically it would be equal over a larger surface area and if you could get the 500kw down into 1cm it would then be 10 times more powerful than the original.
US "friends"😂
@@Anglo_Saxon1 Actually for the 10cm target you would need 5 MW to equal the 50 KW on the 1cm target. You're not talking length, you're talking the area of a circle.
Pi r squared: 1cm = 0.785 square cm and 10cm = 78.5 square cm
still really effective for small drones. Having this capability certainly helps supplement other assets.
only for small drones. nothing else
@@riskinhos in enough numbers, even larger drones. It would still be cheaper than a missile.
@@supremecaffeine2633 drones can cost 100 million and can also carry missiles. and can carry lasers too. and can cost 20$.
also, with basic electronic warfare small cheap drones can't even fly.
you can't stop a missile you have to shoot them down, you can disrupt guidance but you can't jam internal guidance or ballistic missiles. not even mentioning warhead size.
missiles don't replace drones and vice versa.
@@riskinhos What is the point you're trying to make?
@@supremecaffeine2633 I'm making no point. I'm pointing out facts.
I think you missed a possible application: blinding the terminal guidance of incoming missiles, and blinding ISR drones. Otherwise a great episode as always.
A good source tells me that the US Navy has been 'testing' DEW's in Ukraine and the Gulf of Aden this last several weeks. No word as to their effectiveness in real combat conditions, however.
Well even then most modern missiles have a back up location system that uses internal navigation.
There are already soft kill systems that do that. The thing is that you don't need hundreds of kw to daze a missile. You need hundreds of kw for a hard kill.
smoke. reflective surface. ablative coating. thermal shielding. you can't jam radar with lasers.
@@ObamanableSnowman Some sophisticated missiles do have inertial guidance, but that does not help the missile if the target is evasive.
Congratulations to the UK. Dragonfire can now boil 1 l of water 1609 m away in less than 7 seconds. Tea is ready.
what is not ready is the us laser,....and the tempest will be better than raptor
The point you miss is the incoming missiles operate at the edge of their design envelope. They don't have more shielding that they require, they have exactly what they need. and so you don't need that much extra heat to knock them out 🤷♂
Last time i was this fast.. the mrs wasnt happy.
Every time they’re tested it’s easy to tell . You can’t find cats for shit .
Let's not forget that atmospheric conditions - such as dust, smoke and fog - can also greatly effect the range of directed energy weapons. A sandstorm could render such a system useless.
Counterpoint.. the enemy probably won't be attacking with small, cheap drones during a sandstorm, anyways. The best case scenario for a drone swarm to defeat this kind of system, imo, would be something like a very heavy fog with low wind. A sandstorm would be too difficult for off the shelf type drones to fly in.
.@@evananderson1455A sandstorm would also be difficult to find in the ocean, as these are navy weapons
Yep, lotta sandstorms at sea.
Raytheon stated they are already defeating these issues with variable frequencies.
@@ZaphodOddly I know! I saw three just yesterday.
It’s the Royal Navy, not the U.K. navy.
Snob.
@@devacore477 but still true 😅 even if they are a snob 😅
Royal navy longer than America had a navy rule brittania marmalade & beer
A cluster of these setup around a city centre could coordinate to hit targets with like 50 beams at a time, dramatically boosting results…
I remember reading about engineers at Sandia getting together and testing the idea of using a laser to push the air out of the way for an electron beam. It was successful in allowing 10k times as many kw's in the electron beam as in the laser beam. Of course they have quit a lot of power available to operate such experiments.
Beam coherence over distance is an issue with e-beams. They just aren't effective at reasonable distances...(worked at a company that developed particle accelerators, including for DoD).
Huh. Physics is wild, eh?
@@Mike80528what is reasonable distance, in your experience?
I think I heard of a similar Theory being applied several months ago. It was in reference to a high-powered laser on the nose of an ICBM. It was supposed to superheat and cavitate the are directly ahead of the missile. It mentioned the pistol shrimp being the inspiration for the idea
Hopefully we are testing US laser weapons in the Red Sea. Perfect weapons test environment
Yh its confirmed its already being used in the task and purpose video
Why do we need to conduct weapons test on foreigns seas? Oh wait I know! It's cause you're a war monger and you're making a joke! Oh so funny! hahahahahah
Terrible place to text anything chinese warships are shadowing US strike Group I guarantee they are getting some juicy information about our ballistic missile defense
On barefooted childre??
@@bastogne315 please actually read what you opined on. I was referring to the missiles fired on tankers in the red sea. Shooting a 5000 dollar drone down with a 1 million dollar anti ballistic missile isn’t ideal. So laser weapons shooting down missiles fired by Houthis is less expensive. For the record I’m all in for a ceasefire and peace for everyone.
Rumour has it the MOD are lashing together plans for a Death Star.
Loved the clip of the intercept missile showing it's nose vector correction ; using the rocket motor thrust for course correction.
The only question, in my opinion, which remains a really big elephant in the room : given that depending on the wavelength, some material might be transparent or opaque (glass is transparent to visual spectrum, being opaque to IR, whereas dark garbage bags behave the exact opposite). As such, the optical system needs to be optimized for a specific wavelength, for which a appropriate mirror/diffuser material will reflect a significant portion of the incoming beam, not rendering the weapon useless, but drastically decreasing the power density, thus the effect
It doesn't solve the issue of lasers that can put out multiple different frequencies of light.
Your mirrored drone is going to get smoked either way.
Ablative heat shield would be interesting, but that could also change the aerodynamics and make it unstable.
High temperature resistant ceramic coating may be the best way forward as a cost effective solution.
Edit. That said. I don't think the drone solution would be to make it tougher... It would be to launch 10 times more at once. Drone swans are the terrifying new future of war.
There are ways to effectively use a laser to drill or cut through transparent or reflective materials. I think these typically use short-duration laser pulses with a high repetition rate in which the energy of each pulse is delivered in such a short time that the peak power levels can be insanely high. The combination of extremely high power and short pulse duration can cause the optical properties of the target to change and allow you do things like drill and cut materials without heating them up, and it works even if the target is transparent to the wavelength of the laser. Question is whether you could apply this technology to military lasers engaging targets at long distances - I don't know enough about it to say one way or the other but I suspect you can't.
What does work are tuneable lasers that can alter their output wavelength - titanium-sapphire lasers are a common type, and the most extreme examples are free-electron lasers which can have a 10x variation in wavelength or 100x with a larger system that has multiple outputs and can be built to operate from the Terahertz range up to hard x-ray wavelengths but cost, size and power consumption limit their military use. The simpler alternative might be to just install multiple laser systems, each operating at a different wavelength to make them more difficult to counter.
Yeah whatever wonder weapons uk makes ... nazi getmsny wonder weapons proves to be useless against Russia... uk never learns.
@@trolleriffic
The atmosphere's transparency is highly frequency dependent. A potential drone target would mostly care about the frequencies where the atmosphere is transparent, and care less about the rest. Sure, it could still be overcome but not without negating some of the cost advantage.
It's a question of economics. If the enemy uses more expensive weapons against you, you are free to use more expensive weapons in defense and not lose from an economic perspective. If cheap drones(or even boats) and rockets/missiles are heading your way, laser it is. If more sophisticated and expensive weapons are, the logic is you can also match that with another weapon.
Dragonfire is a fantastic name though.
🦟 dragons 🐉 🔥
Yeah, but have they solved the "don't cross the streams" issue?
As a layman, here are a couple of thoughts. 1) Perhaps the UK has reduced the laser spot size, as the purpose is usually to pierce the casing of the missle and then damage the vulnerable circuitry or explosive. Hence, a 100kW laser dot will have the same power as a 50kW dot, albeit the latter will make a small hole. 2) It might also be deployed to the outer ships protecting a carrier or remote vessels placed out further still, which would give either a longer period to burn a hole or allow the shot to be made from behind, which will have less protection and be near the fuel.
Plus..won't necessarily have to aim at nose cone
StyroPyro : hold my beer 🍺
They have no control over the spot after it leaves the weapon, atmospheric diffraction dissipates it rapidly.
There is no overcoming this problem.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
@@AzaIndustries That's simply not true lol
Check out PMFR ( Pacific Missile Firing Range) at Barking Sands, Kauai. Local scuttlebutt in the 90's was that they were building and testing a MgW class carbon dioxide laser there back then. I don't know what exactly they were doing inside that great big double walled reflective glass cube of a building, but it sure did look high tech from a distance.
I find it amazing you did a video on Dragonfire without actually mentioning that it downed an aerial target
He's annoyed that a smaller country can invent more, and better devices, than his omnipotent, #1 country the "USA! USA! USA!"
As soon as it started I was like "ahh, more US propaganda". Got to love how every 5th or 8th word was "US". Bet he had a hard-on too haha.
@@ethanwashington60 You do realise 99% of US technology is worked on in someway by UK or other European nations?
Heres something to think about, people talk about how advanced computer chips are and how taiwan makes them. But nobody tells you that its a dutch company that creates the MACHINES that CREATE the CHIPS.
of course theres a huge pattern of america claiming the invention of things 100% to themselves and forgetting to mention the collaberative efforts. Look at Nukes for instance or jet engines.
Dragonfire is a prototype, built for testing and probably being used primarily to prove and improve the targeting software. The current power output is largely irrelevant... being large enough to demonstrate functionality but without the build costs of multi-megawatt units. Massively powerful lasers are almost trivial to build these days and once proven, the platform can be built out to whatever requirements are set.
Just remember that the public are, in reality, two years at least behind the truth. If you think that you have a handle on this, well, that's exactly what they want you to think. Dream on.
Wouldn't it make sense to have two or more of these lower powered lasers focusing on the same point on a single missile, rocket or mortar? I think that would be easier than developing higher powered versions. 4 - 200kW lasers can effectively defend against massive swarms AND together, against drones and missiles.
Not really. Targeting at distance is the biggest difficulty.
Current laser systems such as distributed gain systems are compact and easy to scale up. It sounds like dragonfire is using a multi-fiber beam combiner.
good god no !that's NOT the biggest issue ! optics and sensors are very very good now, good enough to photograph the rivets on a ship from orbit, that's how good they are. The real issue isn't even power output, it's controlling waste heat to prevent optics from being damaged. Have a look at NIF. See what happens to their Neodymium slabs after each shot.
@@ashleyobrien4937 Heat isn’t that big of an issue anymore. The distributed gain lasers use multiple small slabs that allow for appropriate heat dissipation. Fiber lasers didn’t have heat issues but are larger than distributed gain systems.
The issue with targeting isn’t sensors… light bends as it passes through different media. It has different effects on different media. The motor and tracking systems need to be exponentially more precise as the distance increases (remember that pi are square)… and it has to do all of this in an system that is reliable in combat conditions.
This is what I say. Make a ship with 100 separate laser turrets. Have it sail out 30 miles ahead of a supercarrier, between the target and the carrier.
If they fire hypersonic missiles, you zap it out of the sky before it ever gets near the carrier.
Might as well make the ship nuclear, so you don't care about how much energy it uses.
If these end up replacing CIWS, each ship will have 2-3 and each ship in the fleet will have thir networked weapons cooperating to defeat in incoming barrage, as well as expending defensive missiles where needed.
Two things, blinding or damaging of sensors and other systems is viable at lower levels of energy. The second, quantity has a quality of its own. If you can reliably hit with one such system, and you can mount 10, 20, 30 of them on the weapons platform and give it enough power to activate them all, you suddenly have not only a point defense system against minor drones, but also a single aggregate system against more formidable threats. It's still better to have as much power as possible on each such system, but numbers do count if you can reliably aim within an acceptable target circle. Excellent episode
Except we don’t have ANY platforms that can mount more than a couple of lasers. None. Nada. Zilch. Flight III Burkes can’t even handle a single HELIOS.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
Lasers are just another layer of defence. Every system has it pros and cons and once the issues with lasers is figured out it will be a very effective defensive weapon.
I hope the MoD continues the tradition of naming their laser defence systems after Doctor Who stories.
OK, so we have ray guns now. So where's my flying car, or my jet pack?
The Red Sea is good practice for these new weapons!
so is the US southern border
Dragon fire is one of the two uk based laser systems in development and it’s believed it’s long term purpose is to be a portable land based anti drone system. This makes the 50kw range more sensible as it won’t have the power supply of a warship to rely on and if it’s primarily meant for shooting down drones the range doesn’t need to be further than a few miles
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
I woulda never thought the way we'd get frickin' laser beams is because Drones went wild.
Almost doesn't matter what it does, when it's got that sort of name.
I thought that imagine going to war with dragon fire on your boat haha
British like poetic names for their gear, Americans prefer acronyms
Maybe the UK have a different application in mind for these, maybe is a step in a more complicated ladder. They just said it worked, not that it solved all probelms.
The spec actually states a minimum of 50kw power, so likely it’ll be much more powerful. I added a comment stating this and for some reason he deleted it. Obvs doesn’t like being proved wrong when he’s reports inaccurate information. He really doesn’t like other countries having superiority over Uncle Sam. Shame such a narrow minded attitude.
Little Johhny and his pocket mirror just sunk a Navy ship!
Overcast. Clouds. Fog. Smoke. Huge hurdle for directed energy weapons to overcome.
A small piece of trivia that a lot of people here probably know but for those who don’t…
The Royal Navy first deployed a ship-mounted laser weapon back in 1982 during the Falklands War. It was experimental and I don’t think it was ever actually used, it spent most of its time hidden under a tarpaulin due to its secret nature. Back then it had nothing like the power of the systems mentioned in this video, it was designed as a “dazzler” to dazzle (realistically more likely blind) the pilots of attacking aircraft. That sort of weapon was legal back then but subsequent changes to rules of warfare (Geneva Convention? I’m not sure) outlaws the use of such weapons so it never got further than the prototyping stage (as far as I’m aware).
We had 2 mounted on a destroyer in the gulf in 86. They were also hidden under a tarp
@@leonmarcusdavison Tarps are good - I had my smallish motorbike hidden under one on my minehunter .... but some rotten officer found it and made me take it off!!
He forgets to mention that the power density scales inversely squared with distance. So a targer further away will require more much more power than one nearby. In principe a 50 kW laser could easily destroy any missile in very short range and a 1 MW laser will still fail to destroy a ballistic missile in outer space.
He doesn't really need to mention that though; it's implicit that power eventually drops off to a useless level in the fact the he mentions they have a limited effective range. Besides which, Lasers don't follow the inverse square law in the way that a light bulb does, if they did they would be completely pointless. As they emit all their light in one direction as a coherent light source and it effectively remains as such within a certain range (the "waist") the intensity actually doesn't drop off much at all; it's beyond this distance that they follow the inverse square law and as such it is indeed this "waist" which governs their effective range.
@@godspeed133 The ideal Gaussian waist grows linearly with the focal length of the system. In this system the focal length equals the distance, because that is where you want your laser to be focused. However, this is just the radius of the circular spot size, the total surface thus grows pi*R^2. This means that the energy density drops with a factor of R^2. The reason why the spot size grows over distance has to do with diffraction and thus the wave nature of light.
Adding FLIR to the targeting system would allow super heating tender spots. Like combustion chambers on Turbines and nozzles on rockets. They are on their limits already.
from what i can see from images, i think a major unspoken benefit is its size. you could possibly mount them onto buildings, put lots of them onto ships or possibly even some vehicles and if you have many of them targeting the same object you negate the raw power disadvantage
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
The US Army just chose General Dynamics and Rheinmetall as finalists for the 4000 Bradley replacement IFVs.
Could you do a Firepower series video about this program, the two finalists and the other three that dropped out. Or more generally the current state of IFVs (Bradley, CV90, Puma, Lynx) and their most likely future. Maybe even including anti air IFVs like some CV90 variants and SkyRanger.
Would be really surprised if they choose anything not American. They have a thing for making competitions and just not buy anything if the winner isn't American. Then make a new competition a few years later with either changed the requirements or have a improved American design.
@@Di3LeberwurstRheinmetall have an American factory for this reason.
@@Di3Leberwurst yeah, apart from American Rheinmetall, they also have teamed up with all the big names as partners. Raytheon, Textron, L3Harris, Allison and even Anduril which could be huge with their AI and drone tech.
@@Di3Leberwursti think this is why we're not buying cv90's which is a shame
@@Di3Leberwurst I assume that comes down to preferring to avoid relying on foreign platforms where it can be avoided, for logistical/control reasons.
Lasers are a great solution to the drone swarm problem as its around 10$ per shot which in laymans speak mere pennies then pair it with drone jammers the two systems are a perfect match.
Local area defence of small drone swarms… literally nobody said it was designed to shoot down hypersonic missiles…
I see a lot of potential in such a weapon, especially in view of the new chapter of warfare we have entered: the drone war. Defense systems like Iron Dome or similar rocket based systems are simply too expensive to use on cheap drones. With those, you can simply drive a enemy into bancuptcy, if he has to spend hundredthousends to down a 1000 dollar target.
This looks totally different with a laser weapon - plus, as said in the video, the "magazine" is much bigger and the accuracy is better.
As every new technology, it takes time to get to good results, but it will come. The modern rifle was also not invented in one day.
The thing is with lasers it one target at a time, I could see one harden missile to say target the laser directly, whilst others passed on by, why laser tries to destroy this one missiles. Where as a missile system can usually send multiple missiles at once.
Great defensive tool, especially for a soft kill. Offensively/ aerially there is much work to be done, though I believe the big boys are working on accomodating power output on next generation airbourne platforms like Tempest. Greetings from Spain.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
If they could just add a “Pew-pew” sound to these lasers, it would be way more cool.
Just sayin. 😎
As far as the Red Sea interceptions it's not just the cost of the weapon being shot down, but also the cost of the ships spared impacts.
If you had paid attention to the article it talked about destroying drones and not inbound missles. Now given that drones are responsible for more "kills" in Ukraine than missles. This is looking to fighting future wars and not the last war this is a big step forward. An actual low cost answer to drones.
I predict a lot of targets being painted / coated with reflective materials like chrome et al.
Now try putting a chrome plated object in the beam of a high power laser and see how long it lasts. It could provide some protection but it's not a viable solution - no mirror reflects all the light hitting it, and even the tiniest amount of dust and dirt can cause catastrophic failure of a mirror.
@@trolleriffic Coat your missile in vantablack then and let it absorb the beam.
One question that occurs to me watching these CGI lasers rapidly fire shot after shot is how quickly the laser can fire after being discharged. These lasers generally use a bank of capacitors (something like a battery) to store up a large electrical charge to make the laser fire at say 100 kW. After firing laser the capacitors are discharged and need to be recharged. How quickly this happens determines how soon the laser can fire again. This can be in large systems by having multiple banks of capacitors continually charging. But overall this puts a bottle neck into how quickly an individual layers or system can fire.
sure, but can't a tesla battery field 300kw? It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility to have ten of them on the back of a truck with a generator.
I suspect heat is the main problem. Cooling the laser each time it is fired would limit its operational time. 100kw is not too hard to generate continuously on a ship.
I would say that the narrowing of these beams with their current wattage might be able to achieve the desired outcome, and then there is Pulse Lasers, High power in a pulse followed by further pulses, and computer controlled.
A good description of the usage of this in future combat situation was given to me be a young Royal Navy weapons specialist. He said firstly from acorns do Oak trees grow and the primary purpose of these weapons will be to swarm laser the swarm drones and to lock on to larger weapons from multiple assets - made sense once he explained the future possibilities for it.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
According to Janes, the first laser weapon tested by the RN was back in the 1970's. On board a Leander class frigate, used to dazzle Warsaw Pact cameras on Bear bombers. By all accounts, it was mounted on the ship photographers tripod! Things have come a long way since then.
These weapons would be perfect for including on vessels with nuclear reactors. It could usher in a new generation of nuclear powered surface vessels. Let's hope so, because there are many other benefits to having huge amounts of electrical power available on demand.
Nice video! It should be noted that the electrical or thermal output performance of the different systems cannot be easily compared. The decisive factor is the energy density at the target. And that depends crucially on the optical components of a laser. A modern 50kW laser could therefore cause similar damage to the target as an older 100kW laser.
Yep, optics here is almost everything. If they are using adjustable focal length optics then who knows how good it will be.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
I don't think there would ever be just 1 dragon fire in any location, there would be a lot of them all targeting the biggest threats first but i don't think it's designed to take down missiles but rather the new drone warfare we have been seeing recently in conflict.
I can just imagine Houthis frantically googling "How to chrome plate missiles" now 😄
There are some extremely bright people in the U.K. I don't think they will have a problem getting the power ramped up. Computer tracking is something that has to happen in a blink of the 👁️.
What if you fired multiple lasers using different targetting... for a fraction of a cost? I imagine a few ships or trucks could work together for cheap drones
I HAVE A GREAT IDEA!
Now that i have your attention. There is a way we could mitigate the range issue, range will still suck but this could help. I've only ever seen one per vessel. If power wasn't a factor, put six or eight of these things on a carrier for example. 3 or 4 of them on target would reduce contact time.
I don't know where you get 150kw for the Helios system. On Lockheed Martins web page it is touted at above 60kw, that's it. Dragonfire is a phase combined laser so potentially it could reach 1 MW but that would require further innovations in cooling technology and power conversion. So I would be cautious about any d***k measuring contest.
Great video. Now I understand how many kw you need to take out what kind of target. Seems like we have drones and small rockets covered but we have a ways to go before we can take out large missiles and hypersonics.
Not really the research is rough. He also seems to forget that you can have more than ONE system on a ship, stick 4 on one target compared to 1 and you could see really different results.
The opening of this video sounds a lot like a American commentator salty that the Brits beat them to a workable laser weapon of the sort the US had been working on for decades. 😂
100%. Clearly doesn’t like Uncle Same being upstaged. Theres nothing he can do but to release a petty video to try down play it. Shame really as I usually enjoy his releases. He’s shown his colours. By the way, this weapon is 50kw *minimum*. Funny he left that bit out.
refresh my mind on the tests the Royal Navy conducted with laser weapons in the Mediterranean in Feb 1997, as announced on BBC World Service Radio
I suspect that this is the first level of such laser weapons being developed by the UK. The target tracking mechanism needs to be perfected and would be very similar if not identical if the laser power were updated. So a family of lasers could be directed by the same tracker. As others have said, 1 big laser or several smaller versions could deliver the same knockout punch and different wave lengths may provide flexibility across different protective coatings (on the target) and different weather conditions. Probably more effective in warmer climes than the UKs legendary mix of moist weather!
You should do a video on SEWIP. That thing is terrifying.
Basically our directed jammers have gotten so powerful that they have become energy weapons themselves. You can pretty much instantly microwave anything that gets near your ship. That's what's actually been taking down most of the drones and missiles in the red sea. And now SEWIP block 3 is entering service.
The main thing is it’s going to be another good layer in the layered defence on ships and I’m sure in the years to come these systems are only going to get better and more powerful, while this system can be used against the slower cheaper drones the missiles and ciws can be saved for more dangerous weapons
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
@@ethanwashington60 bro I have to admit I know fuck all about lasers but if it’s another weapon that can defend the ship then it can only be a good thing, like I said once it’s integrated onto the vessels then it’s only a matter off time before there upgraded
@@ethanwashington60 but 5to10 centimetres will be a huge deal will comparing systems I would imagine, some people love to brush over such facts, cheers mate we learn something new everyday
@@user-td8ls5mn5q exactly, it's a huge detail that was skillfully glossed over in this video. He said "but we already have 300w" like we are supposed to be impressed. That 300w is being spread over 10cm, so it's not as powerful as the Dragonfire. It's all about focus and intensity, not wattage.
I could say "omg we've just built a 1000w laser - but it covers a space of 100cm. So 10w per 1cm." and you wouldn't be impressed unless the word "thousand" is impressive to you.
Please don't be getting your information from these idiots lol. Google is your best friend.
@@ethanwashington60 no mate i only listen and let them talk, but come our American cousins can’t help it lad, we ruled the world with wooden sailing ships, I think sometimes our American brothers try and over compensate, actually they claim rights to most inventions created in the U.K., I say let them be as it’s pointless arguing with them and pointing out such facts, we know how great Great Britain is and when you know the facts there’s no need to argue with lesser things
Love that video at 2:34. Missile Command IRL. LOL.
You forgot about the possibility of using multiple laser weapons in parallel. Aim ten Helios lasers at the same spot on a single incoming threat and you've got 1.5MW of defense.
just a quick question, isnt it super easy to counter these with the drones just having mirror surfaces?
Mirrored beam would instantly reveal that Laser is on-target. Like shouting back to a sniper "I'm here!".
@@Mrbobinge so what? It's going to hit the target in a couple of seconds and the laser can't do anything about it
No, can’t explain the exact details but mirrors simply would not work. I believe partially due to the fact it is a minimum of 50kw in a area of 1cm
I spoke with an engineer from the ABL and he said another challenge was "beam jitter." Trying to keep a beam on the same spot long enough to accumulate effective energy. Like trying to hold a laser pointer on a thumbtack from across the room....while you and the tack are moving.
Exactly, it's easy to start a fire with a magnifying glass from a few feet, but try it from 10 yards.
Except people won't be holding these, and we already have targeting laser systems that are accurate on the move within a millimetre. Are you sure your friend is an engineer or did you imagine thw whole conversation? 😂.
Another well-grounded presentation this is a good building block for solid state laser technology for close defence systems in the future, especially drone swarms.
Minor nit: 8:28: No! Targeting doesn't happen at the speed of light! It happens at the speed of the motors driving the targeting mirrors. Admittedly, that is very fast. lasercuters and 3D printers are doing hundreds of inches per minute travels, and I'm sure a laser targeting system will use something far more powerful than those tiny motors, but they'll still be about 10 orders of magnitude off from the speed of light...
As someone from the Uk, I had seen the click bait headlines. But I came here for the facts!
Another cracking video.
Then you came to the wrong place, this guys spoke total BS
You came to a clearly non bias American who nearly through the whole vid compared to US systems. Do you think our military would show the full power of its new weapons😂
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
You didn’t come to the right place then mate. The level of research in this video is SHAMBOLIC
A good analysis. I'm afraid the UK media likes to sensationalise things and I'm inclined to agree that this is more about slow moving targets like drones or fast attack boats and cost effectiveness. It's a start, let's hope the MoD doesn't blow it.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's DE systems and all DE systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
@@ethanwashington60 Thanks for the info.
@@ethanwashington60where can I read more about this?
The analysis is not good mate, the lack of research in this video is dreadful.
I find it interesting that no one really talks about the anti laser systems that could come up and cause some real problems. Ablative costings that sublimate to an opaque cloud of dust and Chaff with it's foil ribbons would be extremely effective at disrupting the effective energy on target. This could make time to kill unworkable if it isn't already. Personally I don't see these systems ever working, especially for swarm due to time to kill. It would be interesting to see if anyone uses the laser to carve a conductive channel through atmo for a follow up munition of some type around EMP though. You may also want to concentrate on aerodynamic destabilisation instead as well, perhaps through air flow manipulation at distance.
Of course, the defence agencies are not telling us the true output power of those weapons. Some will be grossly under-reporting, and others will be exaggerating significantly. After all, nobody wants to tell an adversary the truth about their systems. That would be a silly thing to do.
As per normal…
Alex … keeping it real and based in fact.
Not conjecture…not fantasy…not wishes…bloody FACTS!
Thank You Sir!
Very Much Appreciate what you do.
❤😎👍
Rather short seighted of him tbh, makes A LOT of assumptions on very weak research.
@@furiousscotsman2916 Please post a link to your video for comparison
@danlake7970 Don't need to his assumptions are based on one paper using a different type of laser technology to the one the UK is using.
His single piece of analysis is based entirely from this one point of view and he somehow thinks only one system is capable of being introduced onto a ship for e.g the type 45 destroyer produces 40 MW of power with a rather large excess of power for future systems this being one of them you could easily bank 4 or more per side of the ship.
The dragonfire platform also has a very small footprint compared to other systems he mentions.
He detracts from all the things the system could do based on one piece of I formation while simultaneously doing his entire presentation under the assumption one system is fitted, as I said rather short-sighted.
What this lad also failed to mention is that the Dragonfire has an effect radius of 1cm, whilst Lockheed Martin's ED systems and all ED systems employed in the US Military have an area of 5cm-10cm.
So that 300w Helios that this guy is fingering himself over, is only 30w per 1cm. Unlike Dragonfire, which is 50w per 1cm.
Common sense and intellect elludes most of our trans-Atlantic counsins
You know what else was blown out of proportion, but is now a pretty good weapon? aim missiles, sidewinder missiles, patriot missiles,ect, ect....
The fact that this is even brought out and in its beginning stages speaks volumes, as what it will be in the upcoming near future.
We can't change the laws of the universe and overcome atmospheric diffraction.
I think they'll be good anti drone defence, maybe anti missile, but I think it'll be more work involved before they can make a leap into a more anti-aircraft roll. I think it'll take much more tech into power output for whatever you're putting this device on as well before they're scalable to a level where they could replace other systems entirely, though they would be a good addition to some of the kit already present.
The more things change, the more they stay the same ! Drone-physics will adapt, and it will be very interesting to see what the counter measures will be ! Good luck Britain 🇬🇧 !
The solution isn't a single weapon that can replace an entire air defence frigate, it's a complex grid of smaller systems, drones, or turrets, where 2 or 3 or even more lasers can all target the same projectile.
The negativity is evident from the presenter. Be assured the Brits will overcome the engineering challenges.
He Doesn’t like Uncle Sam being upstaged, to the point of releasing a video. Shame really as I usually enjoy his releases. He’s clearly just a shill.
As they usually do these cow boys forget most things they have was provided to them by Britain including their rail roads
Must be a yank who's so envious of others
Drone swarms are a particularly difficult threat to counter with kinetic weapons.
I wonder how long it will be before laser weapons are integrated with ECM, ESM and CIWS systems?
Lots of people are scaremongering about the threat from AI, but an automated multifaceted defence is a very powerful ally.
very interesting info, thanks
You seem to be attacking claims made not by the UK MOD or the makers of the system, but rather the UK press, CZcamsrs and their usual hype.
Lasers in the latest US subs were reportedly being installed in the photonics masts
Navy refused to say why
Request you do a video on that
likely a dazzler. as far as i know they already have laser range finding and target painting.
@ravener96 AFIK, this is the first instance of lasers being powered by nuclear reactors
So the goal might be more ambitious
@@Chuck_HooksSome Carriers already have them and they're nuclear powered.
@ryszardfalkowski7917 The HELCAP system was tested on a US destroyer, not on an aircraft carrier
@@Chuck_Hooks Power is less of a limitation than the problems of constructing a compact, high-power laser suitable for military applications.
Very good research summary. Thank you
Perhaps the mirror covered F-35 and F-22 are preemptive test platforms for laser deterrence.
They are coated in EM absorbent paint, the complete opposite of a mirror. The last thing you want against radar is reflection since the entire premise of radar is to try and bounce signals off a hull/fuselage back to the array.
Isn't this about the same output as the DE M-SHORAD, a weapon that's touted as one of the next big things in a layered air defense? A weapon that's cheap to fire, and doesn't really need to worry about what the misses will hit?
So of course it's not the be all, end all, but for anti drone, and anti mortar? Could be awesome.
If I remember correctly the DE M-SHORAD was around 100 kw, while the smaller version that could be mounted on a buggy was 50 kw. I know task and purpose had a video on this a few months ago
@@matthewnovak3095however it’s the radius of the affect that matters. Dragonfire is capable of engaging a target in a span of 1cm. For context 50kw (the stated MINIMUM but be way which this terrible video fails to state) that is capable of engaging hitting a target with the affect radius of 1cm is far better than 350 kw with a span of 5-10cm.
Nice article. A small point: it is The Royal Navy, not The UK Navy.
I'm pretty much out on this post. If there is anything the British have ever been good at is innovation. I wouldn't ever gauge American intelligence vs British. This video is a case in point.
Well they had one of the biggest and richest empires! The empire isn't gone, it just turned into the worlds bank (who sets the price of gold? Which is linked to many price indexes), as well as the worlds shipping insurer (which then their govt can control who docks where as yachts and tankers need insurance to dock as we saw when Russia got sanctioned, it was the British Govt that told their national companies to stop insurance, the oligarchs then couldn't dock anywhere without fear of the yacht being taken even if the country wasn't abiding by the sanctions!).
I think there is an old saying, the Roman Empire turned into a church, the British Empire turned into a Bank.
About the missiles having heavy heat shielding on front because their speed. That armor is already in stress because of the speed it's going, so hitting it with extra heat from high powered laser would break that armor easier, it's not like it's designed to handle focused laser it was only designed to handle air friction. Honestly would like to see infantry carried laser based weapon to deflect enemy drones as those will be issue as every nation now is building up their drones because of Ukraine War proving them being very effective weapon.