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The British military has tested the DragonFire long-range laser-guided energy weapon. Prior to that, the ability of lasers to track a target and hit it was tested by a team of specialists from the developer company. The new tests included hitting targets at various distances.
On November 8, the Government of the United Kingdom claimed that the trial on the DragonFire long range laser directed energy weapon (LDEW) was hosted by the MOD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) at Porton Down.
The DragonFire demonstrator fired at a number of targets over a number of ranges, demanding pinpoint accuracy from the beam director.
“These tests improve the UK’s understanding of how high-energy lasers and their associated technologies can operate over distance and defeat representative targets. The ability to deliver high levels of laser power with sufficient accuracy are two of the major areas that need to be demonstrated in order to provide confidence in the performance and viability of LDEW systems.” the report reads.
DragonFire was first unveiled to the public in 2017 at the DSEI conference in London and is being developed by UK Dragonfire, a consortium consisting of MBDA UK, Leonardo UK, Qinetiq and Dstl. Its combat tower is used to generate a laser beam with a QinetiQ emitter. The fiber laser has a 50 kW output according to the 2019 tests. Laser will put a focused beam the size of an English penny 5 km away and will possibly be equipped onto warships, ground vehicles and probably future combat aircraft.
Initially, it was stated that the tests of the new weapon should be completed by 2019.
The project was funded by significant joint investment by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) and industry over a number of years totalling around £100 million.
