The Ministry of Defence continues to assess the most effective ways to deploy and integrate directed energy weapons across different environments and platforms, in response to a question asking whether lasers will be adapted for use on autonomous vehicles, according to a written answer published on Friday.
Luke Pollard, Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry, was responding to Andrew Rosindell, the Reform UK MP for Romford.
“Recent conflicts in the Middle East have highlighted the growing threat posed by low-cost, massed drone attacks. Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) have the potential to provide a highly effective and cost-effective response to these threats, which is why the Ministry of Defence is investing £490 million over the next four years to bring these capabilities into service.”
On where they might end up, Mr Pollard said: “DEW technologies have the potential to operate across a range of operational environments and roles. The Department continues to assess the most effective ways to deploy and integrate directed energy weapons across different environments and platforms to address threats and meet evolving military requirements.”
What makes lasers attractive against drones is the price of each engagement. A shot costs a few pounds in electricity, against a target that may cost a few thousand, which reverses an exchange that has troubled Western forces since Houthi attacks in the Red Sea saw multi-million pound missiles fired at aircraft worth a fraction of that.
The constraints that have held the technology back are power, cooling and weather, since a laser needs enough generating capacity to charge between shots and enough cooling to avoid damaging itself, which is why the systems have appeared first on ships, where both are available in quantity, and why fitting one to a vehicle is a harder engineering problem than fitting one to a warship.
