DragonFire: the high-power laser capable of wiping out Russian drones | RUSI
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- Опубликовано: 5 май 2024
- Production of the DragonFire, a high-power laser capable of taking out Russian drones, is to be sped up in efforts to roll out the technology by 2027. Matthew Savill, Director of Military Sciences at RUSI, gives Times Radio a breakdown on the weapon and the impact it could have on the war in Ukraine.
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this weapon would probaly confuse the heck out of a cat.
the laser points to the drone and the cats destroy it
This would confuse ALL the cats simultaneously! 🤯
User instructions only allow this confusion to be targetted at Russian cats...
Are we starting a war on cats 🐈⬛️
@@yuriyl1618 it sounds look like anti-tank dog from ww2.. just anti-drone cat
The Elephant in the room is "how good is it as an Anti-personal weapon?"
Regrettably, I think it could be horrifically effective.
Something like this was needed ten years ago. Cheap drone swarms was a recognised military tactic for a long time.
Chemical, solid state and free electron lasers as well as other directed energy have been used in military weapons far longer than that but mass production has never been a thing.
It probably has been in development since around that time. Developing counters takes time. The only way something like this could/would be expedited is if the UK itself was at war. Then the technology gets developed and adopted very quickly.
The thing is,..no matter how good the drone killing laser is,..Russia will soon have the same weapons!...luckily in WW2 the Atom bomb wasn't developed until after hostilities in Germany had ceased.
They've been working on this before the TV show Star Trek was made in the 60s. Most of what you see on Star Trek comes from stuff based on science but it's taken a long time for them to reach the stage where we have phasers.
That's how long it takes to develop such technology
Back in the '70s, I read a sci-fi novel about a warring society. One of the weapons was some long-range laser-like weapon, with a good horizon, mounted on a pole.
It's not sci-fi. It's black budget tech. This is probably similar to the DEW that was used to toast Lahaina last year.
"A lot of people are looking at directed energy weapons."
By George, Watson! I think we've cracked the case of why people's eyes have been damaged!
😂
Several should be field tested immediately. I guess heavy rain, fog, smoke, etc. limit it's capabilities. However, a nice present from the UK. Best of luck with this one.
Skies could be cleared with radio frequency
In combination with things like Gepard, some kind of missile based shorad like Avenger, and an electronic warfare platform. You'd have a very effective way of protecting armoured groups from the skies!
It could also be added to existing gbad installations around key infrastructure and military assets.
Anybody that has ever subscribed to Satellite TV knows how disruptive 'atmospheric conditions' can be.....
Its not capable of anything (It has to stay on target for ages before it can do anything!
@@DarrenJamiesonJamieson
Drones are slow moving and not sophisticated hence why they are used.
It would be nice if, as an industrial exercise, we could field it this year
If they have a working laser, the rest is trivial
The US already has it. You Brits are just rebranding it.
It’s different to Americas
@@Budget_Prepper actually old boy its the other way round, we the brits have had it for years
@Budget_Prepper wasn't it the Israelis who had this first?
🇨🇦💂Directed energy beam weapons "in a variety of roles"🇨🇦💂👍
This is kinda epic ! The west really is miles ahead in technology
Imagine, you're Russia, and you haven't even mastered the art of effectively using drones, and now, your own drones are obsolete. 🤣
@@Stanley-px3bt Not to mention their tactics. They are still back in WW1. 🤣
@@Stanley-px3bt imagine your the west and are not even close to making the numbers of weapons russia produces
like the western weapons in ukraine all underperforming and junk
@@frankrenda2519 The American military could defeat the entire Russia military in a week or less. They haven't given Ukraine any of the advanced weapons the US has.
These are already mounted on US Nuclear Naval Vessels, where there is basically an unlimited amount of available power. Ballistic missiles have a protective shield on leading edges, there are targetable surfaces on those weapons, depending on it's angle of flight relative to the Laser.
Exactly 👊
You're worst nightmare.
Musk and MTG colluding.
And getting married 😮
And expecting 😢
While being stalked by Amber Heard and her experimental slaughter bots ( yes the ones Elon made to eliminate JD?) 9:02
Shhhh.
Name any US nuclear naval vessel that has a laser weapon mounted to it; I say you are incorrect. Only a few gas turbine ships have experimental systems on them.
I just pray that we are not heading for 3rd world war. God help us!
Will be able to get off Amazon for £89 in a few years.
here is one thing Lasers have weakness to and that is Reflective materials. They can replace the body of the drone with a Reflective material Like aluminium or dangle a pie tin under the drone to reflect the laster away from the drone. While no metal is completely immune to Lasers some are more resistant than others. Mark Rober did a Video i found interesting was on Vortex cannons if they can be compacted down in size they seem to be highly effective at taking out Swarms of drones at short ranges.
We can and do cut those metals in factories using lasers. What makes you think we couldn't do the same while they are flying?
Check out the guy who talks about crowd control weapons ( urban) and his ideas for shields
@@Pooua But you notice they are used fairly close to the metal. Lasers get weaker as the Distance increases because the Area of the beam increases making it less intense.
@@thegreatcanadianlumberjack5307 This is true, but not a showstopper. Lasers beams can be powerful enough to destroy missiles in flight from dozens of miles distant, even if the missiles are reflective. The 1% of energy that shiny missiles absorb is more than enough to melt through the metal in a few seconds. For a rapidly flying missile, that might be too slow, but a slow-flying drone is just right.
Often new technology is not nearly as effective as later versions. One doesn't get to later versions without the first. Amazing how many people in the comments are so dismissive based upon the first.
Most of them would be Russian bots taking some serious copium.
They think it should immediately be able to cut anything in half while not being affected by humidity or anything else in the air. They aren't powerful enough for that....yet. wait until it's 10 or 20 megawatts people but it takes time. They could bring down drones for now.
People are so impatient.
@@richhead1999 the entire point is that they could use it against the shahed drones which are slow and easy to take down. The liklihood is that since they have already been dissected they have a very good idea that it will be effective. They can then save the more sophisticated weapons to use against ballistic and cruise missiles.
Could it help. I think if they had the weapon in sufficient quantity then yes
@@pgpython I believe I said they could take down drones so, I got the point.
AGREE !!!
The issue is a continuous beam cannot be simple increased in power as you hit a barrier where the air starts to create gas plasms between the gun and target. So the laser has to be pulsed to get round that plasma limit. If you create a plasm at the target . . . That would be very interesting.
The Lazer I use for work can blind a person if one looks directly at its beam and that's only powered by 3 triple a batterys🔋
they should miniaturize it and build more and network them in a grid. allow the system to fire more than a few emitters to compensate for the miniaturization and dump more power into the closer emitter for more efficiency. align the grid around the area you want to defend. miniaturization allows for ease of transport which will be a plus for defense if you need to rotate between firing locations. You can also use the diesel engine in the truck to generate electricity to trickle charge the capacitors in more remote locations.
except when each drone has its own force shield field that defeats the laser beams.
It always comes back around to issues of energy. You have to keep capacitors charged, batteries cooled, and a massive generator for these solutions to work.
If you have a programmable 20mm fragmenting, explosive round, you are in better shape. A radar controlled 20mm gun will make short work of multiple incoming dromes or cruise missiles. Having to stay locked on a target until it fries means you will easily be overwhelmed.
Not necessarily. A light beam can jump between numerous targets. The issue is having enough power to do damage with a one second or shorter burst. Capacitors are good for energy release but only about 50% of the power is usable. Batteries can deliver less peak power but they keep going and output 90% of what was put in.
when each rounds costs more than a million, the power infrastructure is cheap. Apparently even Patriots required their own generators.
Cuts like a light sabre.......
Thank you for video, very informative
It'll be sharks with frickin' laser beams before long
Fish and Ships ! 👍😊
Only if Trump is reelected. Then the sharknado is inevitable.
As used to simulate or start wildfires before land grabs?
Imagine such a weapon unleashed on drones, what it doesn’t burn, it blinds.
No. Drones can use means other than optical to lock onto their targets and highly reflective surface finishes render lasers far lree effective.
I wonder if you can use something like this from space against an island town?
Very accurately??!!
Sounds good. I'll believe it when I see it.
Dragonfire is a good name for it.
Dracarys!
Excellent explanation
I am surprised that lasers are not used to dazzle, or permanently blind soldiers on the field of battle now. If you had a pulse laser firing at a high refresh rate mounted on an automated carriage that was programmed to effectively sweep every point on the near horizon it could saturate an entire battlefront with enough energy to blind all soldiers on the recieving end. I suppose laser rated glasses would end it's usefulness pretty quick but short term against an unprepared foe you could remove maybe thousands a day with hit and run tactics that allthough effective, are non-lethal. Any such device would use a divided beam to saturate targets with pulses reaching the target distance spaced about one or two inches apart, and creating a pattern array of say one by ten meters with the intent that any single beam pulse would blind enemy soldiers perhaps permanently as this would remove them fully from any future combat rediness. Also to be considered are those frequencies not visible to the human eye such that the enemy would be unaware they were under any attack until symptoms were severe enough to offer any warning. I have seen a young man on youtube that built some damned effective laser devices from old medical equipment or items off amazon. Imagine if just the act of pointing your rifle at a target before firing makes it nearly impossible for that target to site, and fire back at you. One glance that encompasses the business end of your rifle and any potential enemy loses the ability to sight his rifle at you or anybody else either temporarily, or permanently. Again you would want a shotgun pattern of intermittant bursts that rotate, or shift rapidly back and forth such that every square inch of intended area recieves an injurious single pulse in rapid sucession less than human reaction to such would permit.
Well, this explains a lot, judging by the spontaneous wildfires in the last few year's, I'd say it's been well field tested .....
🎯 Maui!??? California? Many other ‘natural‘disasters. They have mobile units ( planes, vehicles, satellites…. ) besides the fixed location weapons.
They have been out a decade.
Sounds great except the ways to mitigate a laser are around already, from coatings to thickening the head of the missile with certain metails or graphites
Yes. This fact is rarely mentioined.
Very interesting, thank you.
The US has a 50Kwh system able to be mounted on an armored car. already deployed.
In municipalities??!!
A really good description of the dragonfly was on "Ukraine the latest" last week !
Ukraine provides perfect real-world testing conditions. Slava Ukraini!
😂
Exactly!
A game changer
Slava Ukraine
yet another game changer 😆
This weapon is junk. I am American and for me to say that...
Yeah, like all the other game changers sent to ukraine 😂😂
You must have not listened to the guy well enough if you think so.
My cat will need this for sure
don't use high power lasers with cats. only red small ones
I suspect there is a far better version that has yet to be publicly demonstrated. Bye, bye ICBMs.
I think that is going to be the case... and maybe already is. When North Korea tested their ICBMs the first two suffered explosive failure in the boost phase, while the third did not fail. That is exactly what we would expect from a real-world test of a ship-borne anti-ICBM laser on any of our ships off the coast of NK.
good show , keep the Peace ✌🏻
Would the beam be rendered ineffective if the missiles were coated in mirrors?
Less effective, but it is a two-edged sword.
Silver mirrors, for example, are about 95% reflective. That would last as long as it would take the other 5% of the beam to oxidize the surface... a few milliseconds. Silver oxide is dark brown and would make the target even more vulnerable to the laser than it was initially.
Also handy for starting fires to declare a state of emergency
Atmospheric scatering is a bane of directed energy weapons. We now even have plasma throwers - they lob chunks of ionized, sefl contained plasma a few meter but interaction with air slows their spin, crippling containment EM feild, and dissipates heat.
In space though, those chunks are isolated kineticly and thermaly and on impact can charge or melt hull of spacecraft.
Lasers in space scatter less and depandant on focusing optics.
Max economically viable laser weoponry in atmosphere is 1-2 km with current electricity storage tech and using other energy storage and extraction tech, like chemical, brings you full circle to kinetics...
Britain has developed lenses to negate the scattering effect of the atmosphere, they fire a low energy pulse measuring the feedback and compensate accordingly. I think that's why this system is so successful. The laser would be focused to avoid the beam being divergent over distance and losing too much power.
@@carl48uk ok, maybe they've done some shenanigans with autoadjust of the lens, but the bulk of the problem still persists - air have non homogenous refraction property. No matter how much you adjust at the source, if there are multiple refraction areas on a path of a laser then you still loose coherency.
As I said previously, 1-2 km range is ok, but over this you'll have to brute force the beem to be unfocused and still do the damage.
That was precisely what US did with one and only prototype of anti ballistic missile Laser/Early warning radar, put on Boeing 747. Most of the space took 2 MW chem laser...
Well, I highly doubt 2MW claim, prolly was propaganda and counterintelligence, but the programm was scrapped anyways.
Air Defence should be layered defence.
DragonFire is a Close-In Weapon System (CIWS). It will complement other CIWS.
“Dazzles the senses,” I like that.
This sounds very encouraging. Would they be effective against glide bombs?
does it work in the rain?
They seem to be easy to spot though.
Maybe just produce some 155mm artillery before space lasers.
I doubt that it could reliably have a range beyond 50 miles depending on the atmospheric conditions
The speed of light is faster than any missile
They just need to make it pocket size to satisfy Captain Kirk
The question is , can light travel faster than light through the scissor effect ?
Phased plasma rifle in da 40 watt range
Only what you see buddy.
How much do they cost?
Where you going to put the wind turbine or solar panels on the ship?
Above the nuclear reactor.
Hope the uk will massproduce these for both self defence and for aiding allies ❤
Will lasers still work if the opposition uses an outer mirror or reflective skin?
but does it work in the rain...
Can the dragon fire engage up to 3 targets simultaneously? If not definitely wanna develop this capability to prevent the system from being overwhelmed 👌🏾👁️
It only needs about 0.001 second to destroy a target then move to the next one so it can probably handle 20 targets per second
You're allowed to have more than one.
@@Chris-zu4es wrong it take few sec to cause damage
@@jetli740 according to Wikipedia it is 50 kilowatts that's enough to pierce a hole in whatever in a milli second
@@olirc lol
Warfare has advanced greatly and everyone should be prepared as we go forward. Whatever we can do to address these threats should be brought to the table. Laser weapons are a step in the right direction. They are not perfect but nothing really is at first, you have to keep advancing on their development to constantly make them better.
this is 40+ year old tech. you wouldn't believe how much farther they are.
Testing is currently underway in Ukraine, we'll see.
I seriously doubt the UK would risk having this tech in Ukraine. Would love to see it happen though it is precisely the new tech they need.
@@axelamps1279 why not it will show if further investment worth it or not. There are plenty of places where it could be tested with relative safety
@@Ayvengo21
Rioters
@@axelamps1279 Hes Ukrainian and i belive him over you!
Can we expect drones to be made of heat resistant ceramics in the future with features to direct cooling across surfaces. Maybe insulative foams or gels around important electronics. Materials that turn reflective when subject to high heat.
This game is going to continue indefinitely.
They don't need to turn reflective. Highly reflective surface finishes are straightforward to implement and are always on.
@@rogerphelps9939 Except it also increases visibility, especially at night where reflections from moonlight, street lights etc. will enable it to be seen much more clearly. Ideally you want the reflectivity to quickly increase when the outer skin receives intense light or heats up, the opposite of how reactive sunglasses darken with sunlight.
Won't be much good in the field - off axis energy - mirror finish on targets - moisture in the air and you would need thousands of them plus trained teams to operate on a wide front line.
Could it pop a rubber dingy from 20 miles? Asking for a friend.
oh the irony. Great Britain being conquered by third world illiterates in rubber dinghys swamping the welfare system. Two aircraft carriers yet to be deployable, now one singular high energy weapon. Methinks the defense industry isn't really interested in defense.
Anyway, the real issue is manpower.
It is a start, but we have a lot of catching up to do with this tech...
these will really come in handy. 10 years ago. *slow clap*
Can't see it being practical how is it powered?
I want one for my astronomy, so I can point it at stars :)
Buy a laser pen for 10 euros very good for point at celestial objects
Are they any good against ICBM’s and Nukes..?? Just curious.
Where's the power coming from, Windmills or solar panels?
Could the lasers be mounted on killer sharks ...
Now put them in orbit, what a weapon?!
Is this what they used to set fire to Hawaii and Texas
And California?
How high are you?
@@PK-pp3lu he isn't. He simply knows what you don't.
@@PK-pp3luhow SLOW are you?
@@Gotprivacy-noyoudont Not so slow to think lasers caused a fire in Hawaii 🤣🤣😂
I have developed a projectile weapon that is very cheap to produce and operate, cannot be electronically jammed, is invisible to radar, infra red sensors and is virtually silent. Ammunition is very cheap and can be made in low tech environments. The weapon has a small collateral damage footprint, particularly when used by a trained individual and there is no pollution from the use of the warhead, I call it the bow and arrow.
And it's also a directed energy weapon. Kinetic energy.
The west: creates missile technology
The west: destroys missile technology with lasers
It is very likely that a smooth mirror finish on drones etc would render such laser weapons far less effective. It is straightforward to have a finish that reflects over 99% of incident light.
With the other 1% being absorbed, such a mirror would not last long enough to be useful.... a couple hundred milliseconds at best.
All this effort goinf into making lazer weapons. Wont take long for them to create a coating to completely make them obsolete
Two HEMT one with the portable airfield generator and one to carry the laser would be pretty mobile and pretty self contained
No need for a generator trailer - like virtually all military lasers it is chemically powered.
Actually, I’ve already heard officials say the laser can be mounted on trucks.
is this what was used in hawaii
No. The Chinese lasers from space are used for study of the atmosphere. These lasers here are defensive weapons!
@@nicolasolton sheep are so easy to fool 🤣🤣
@@ebikeoutdoors Indeed. Are you a shepherd?
@@nicolasolton no I'm not the shepherd if people don't know how corrupt and evil the powers that be really are by now then there's probably no helping them just look what happened with the covid vaccine saying it was safe but now we know its not and never was and that is just the tip of the iceberg
What a great future we have in store... 🤔( "Green Fire", geoff nelson hill, IngramSpark UK ) 🌈🦉
Ya but does it intersepet multiple targets
In succession, yes. Nothing in reports about cycle time or acquisition time.
Does Laser work against a mirror covered object?
Yes
Freekin Laser Beams!
And guess how they will manage target acquisition? Will they call it SkyNet? Or maybe Where's Daddy
😂😂😂
The germans have already an aa weapongsystem called skynet!
Gee wonder if it starts fires ….
A long time ago I read an article in Popular Mechanics that Russia was working on a laser weapon (20-30 years)
Their solution to the extreme power needs was a nuclear power generator (very small obviously)
Anyway I wonder how they did with that
Obviously that was USSR time which means that the technology might have been lost or disrupted in the government change
Hopefully the wests technology is considerably more advanced and very likely it is 😊
What about on a cloudy day?
Thank you uk for supporting Ukraine, come to uganda too and help remove dictator museveni
But it shows the enemy exactly where its position is. So it can easily been destroid after its first shot. So it needs one cheap drone and one artillery shot to be old metal.
The artillery round is an easy target.
Even Turkey has had a similar system operational at least since 3 years ago - I remember its reported use in Lybia against drones over there back then. I was wondering why those systems are not being used in Ukr. Russia obviously must have had something like that also for some time. Likely they did not want to escalate before they must. That "unsurmountable western technological superiority" is not exactly that.
Dragonfire would be a lot more effective if it employed my system to enhance it.
I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up
So long as they are not space based, I am all for it. But space should never, EVER, be militarized with weapons.
Already happened
The Arms Control Association says: "The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans the stationing of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in outer space, prohibits military activities on celestial bodies, and details legally binding rules governing the peaceful exploration and use of space." Nothing in there about lasers.
yeah. this could be a nice penny saver !
They certainly wouldn't have ever used this in Hawaii so companies/government could buy up the land on the cheap.
No doubt Israeli space lasers, huh Marjorie? I'd have thought a box of matches would have been far simpler. Keep supping on that Kool-aid sunbeam.
So they will launch drones with clouded weather the Lazar might be less effective
It’s a chemical laser. The power consumption isn’t huge.
if you used 10 at the same time could it not shoot down the biggest missiles?
Blasters when?
For small drone swarms why not scale down something like the CIWS to 7.62x51 NATO and get them closer together to make a barrier against the smaller cheap drones? The technology is there just need the ballistic profile of the ammo to update the target acquisition and firing algorithm.. 🤷♂️
The German Gepard seems like a more effective tool against drones than lasers.
thank you . ( 2024 / May / 01 )
America has two units deployed and in the field. It won't be long. They are mounted on Bradley's