Asked by what date DragonFire will be fitted to Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers, ministers pointed back to a July answer which says the department is exploring how the weapon could be used across a range of operational environments, according to an answer given in Parliament.
Stuart Anderson, the Conservative member for South Shropshire, put the question to the Ministry of Defence, and Luke Pollard, Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry, said “I refer the hon. Member to the response to Question 17420.”
That earlier answer, given on 20 July to the same member, who had asked whether DragonFire would be fitted on Type 45 destroyers from and by 2027, said: “As announced in the Defence Investment Plan, the MOD will invest £490 million in Directed Energy Weapons, including DragonFire. With the transition to a Hybrid Navy and modernisation of our Armed Forces we are exploring how DragonFire could be utilised in a range of operational environments, taking lessons from the recent conflict in the Middle East.”
Ministers had put the 2027 date on the record repeatedly before that, starting in April last year, when Maria Eagle, then Minister of State for Defence, told James Cartlidge that “our DragonFire Laser Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) will be fitted to four Royal Navy ships starting from 2027” and that “Type 45 destroyers are being explored as the most suitable platform”, as this publication reported at the time.
By December, answering Cartlidge again, Pollard narrowed that to a single hull, saying the department “plans to install the first DragonFire system on a Royal Navy vessel in 2027”, with further installations to follow “in accordance with the Defence Investment Plan”. That answer was covered here in December.
In March this year, in answer to a question from Cartlidge about when the demonstration and evaluation phase would conclude, Pollard said the department was “on track to install this capability on a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer in 2027”, describing a minimum deployable capability that would be improved afterwards through spiral development.
DragonFire is a laser directed energy weapon developed by MBDA, Leonardo and QinetiQ with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. It engaged aerial targets in a trial at the Hebrides range in January 2024, and was selected for acceleration into service after that demonstrator work.
The bell of disinterest keeps tolling.
That will be “not for a very long time,” then?
At this rate it’ll not be “a Royal Navy destroyer” but “the Royal Navy destroyer”