Britain’s destroyers to get laser weapons

I reckon it’s because this is early days and 4 is a good number to give a serious test to the platform and gain experience while not over committing to one that no co t has plenty of upgrading to follow towards gen 2. I reckon there is room to update the number along the way and start adding to T-26 if, as and when it proves fruitful to do so as 2027 and beyond approaches. I also think your assumption is probably correct too.

Yes, they did the same for harpoon sets on T45, only had four for six ships so I suspect there may be some cross decking.

if it is good enough, it should be rolled out to ALL of the front line RN SHIPS. the waiting for this has seemed to be never ending. if thU.K is serious about increasing the capability of the armed forces then only commuting to a small number of platforms. makes me wonder why not at all of the fleet?

Would tend to agree that this statement of intent is interwoven w/ T-45 refit schedule. Confidently predict the adoption of Dragofire by rest of RN escort fleet will be closely correlated w/ degree of success of system in a real world environment.

Maybe it’s just to do with refit timetable as there is a lot going on with the T45s maybe the last two will simply be in refit and not available until after 2027.. it’s only 2 years away

No, it will be all 6 in time, they’ve just accelerated the rollout from 1 destroyer by end -2027 to now 4 destroyers using the extra announced funds. Presumably the other two would be fitted with Dragonfire in 2028, along with HMS Glasgow.

No but if that is the case they still have the other CIWS and missiles and the 30mm to fall back on assuming they don’t remove the 30mm to be able to fit the LDEW.

Most places a T45 is likely to encounter a drone swarm in will tend to be very dry and clear. Drones swarms are probably far more affected by bad weather than this ships laser.

Wheeled vehicles don’t work so well in boggy ground. Helicopters don’t work so well at high altitudes. Optical sights don’t work so well in the dark. Elephants don’t work that well going over mountain ranges.

What’s your point?

It depends.

If it is a still mist then it will burn through and the burn path will be maintained by dispersion. Sure it looses a bit of power but once it is 50kW+ things have to be really bad for it to halve the power output.

Rain is only an issue when it is quite heavy. If it is rain drops crossing the laser it will effectively pulse it. So yes, it will be degraded by the rain drop interruptions to the beam but in most reasonable path durations and intensities it won’t make it totally ineffective.

Think about how far you can still see with the Mk1 eyeball even in medium rain conditions….

So this adds to a supply of inexhaustible war shots for various functions on the threat table. You still have other kinetic effectors that the CMS will throw in if the laser fails to interdict.

This is expandable technology and power levels will only increase and effectiveness also as hardware and software are tweaked.

oops sorry was meant as answer williams comment above

Why don’t you tell us as you clearly have a well founded and deep understanding of both systems or you really wouldn’t have bothered to make the comment would you?

Valid comment and, you would need to see the cost vs benefits of both, in the end the DEW is all about cost per shot vs being highly effective. After all you still cannot beat the energy density of a chemical explosive.

In the end what does the DEW give you

1) very cheap shots per kill
2) a very clean low risk way of engaging in a crowded sea way.

So if you are considering the cheap low end attrition drone in say a crowded sea where you have to consider where you high explosive or ordnance with high kinetic energy ends up a DEW is brilliant.

If on the other hand you are considering being swarmed with a load of low end attrition drones or even faster clever small networked missiles ( say a spear three analog) then the DEW is not very useful.. in that case what you want is a rapid fire naval gun with guided munitions such as the 76mm super rapid with dart ammunition.. which can fire very large numbers of DART munitions out to 8km.

What you actually need is a layered approach

1) area defence missiles.. allowing the ship to engage high flying targets out to the 100NM range ( lower numbers)
2) local area defence missiles allowing the ship to defend against targets that pop up in the radar horizon out to about 20NM a fair number of these
3) Meduim gun or two with guided rounds to engage multiple targets out to 5-8NM
4) DEW able to hit lower end threats our to 1-2NM
5) CIWS able to engage lots of fast moving targets out to 1-2NM.

I actually think the key questions around this are now a little more complicated than before and or easer to answer and also harder to answer.

As of last year the fundamentals around this were more did china think in a long war it could force the US and its pacific and European allies to the negotiating table..due to causing extreme pain before it got isolated and collapsed.. essentially it thought the US would win all the battles but china would win the long game..because the U.S. cannot and will not take even a small amount of pain over time.

Now after the last few months and on the other hand there are two more questions.

1) would the US even bother to fight ?
2) and even if the U.S. did fight and china inevitably started to attack the US mainland ( to cause that pain) would Europe bother to do more than send a strongly worded letter.
3) with the US as flaky as it would it’s western pacific allies support the US in a war and risk being hung out to dry and end up fighting a superpower that’s only 500 hundred miles away on their own… essentially could Japan contemplate a situation in which it went to war with china and six months later the U.S. unilaterally pulled the plug and withdrew support from the western Pacific.

The one question this all makes easer is from chinas point of view, is it more likely to political break any western liberal democratic alliance against it and so win the war ? The answer is probably now a resounding yes and means china invaded Taiwan is now to my mind essentially inevitable..what I’m now far less sure about is will that invasion be contagious and cause WW3. I now think that’s less likely.