back to article Giant frikkin' British laser turret to start zapping stuff next year

The Dragonfire laser cannon consortium has unveiled a fullsize mockup of its shipborne blaster at the Defence and Security Exhibition International arms fair in London. The Dragonfire laser turret mockup at DSEI 2017. Pic: MBDA The £30m Dragonfire laser turret mockup at DSEI 2017 The £30m turret-mounted laser cannon is …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    pew pew, go laser sharks, run free. Soon Hollywood will recognise you and make the ultimate film "Sharks on a Train"

    The trailer is amazing.

    1. theblackhand

      Re:Potential movie options

      Shirley you mean rebooting Sharknado (1-5) as LaserSharknado? Or SharkLaserNado

      I guarantee the trailer will be at least as amazing as the movie. Probably more so...

    2. Tom 7

      On a train

      they are called carriages not trailers.

  2. Korev Silver badge
    Boffin

    Almost there

    We have the laser and the sharks shouldn't be too hard to find; how's the sea bass mutation coming on?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Almost there

      It's struggling as it can't find sea drum.

      1. Tom 7

        Re: Almost there

        Theres shit loads of them - Sciaenidae

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Almost there

      The mutation is coming along swimmingly. The problem is that they are not yet ill-tempered.

    3. Chris G

      Re: Almost there

      If they can produce a double bass mutation will it have double lasers?

  3. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    LDEW?

    Surely Laser Powered Energy Weapon would be better. El Pew for short.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: LDEW?

      Yeah, that's okay, my original though was Laser Energy Weapon (Directed), or LEWD.

      1. Poltroon

        Re: LDEW?

        Ships to make serious use of lasers, especially the higher-powered ones that will follow this model, will obviously require substantial capacity to generate electricity while remaining underway. This could also be used in railguns, which will have an over-the-horizon capacity that lasers lack. Navies will need to work out and wargame the correct mix of these systems.

        But without any experience of naval warfare, I can be sure that the ships bearing this potent combination of electrical weaponry into battle must be called Laser And Railgun Dreadnoughts.

  4. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    Public demonstration

    a public demo will take place in 2019

    When I read that, the first thing that popped into my head was the scene in Star Wars where Alderaan gets the good news from the Death Star

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Public demonstration

      Somali pirates could've made a nice live target, but I believe their numbers have diminished significantly in recent times.

      1. annodomini2

        Re: Public demonstration

        "Somali pirates could've made a nice live target, but I believe their numbers have diminished significantly in recent times."

        Nah they just scare easily, but they'll be back and in greater numbers!

    2. tokamaktech

      Re: Public demonstration

      Oh MoD, you're far too trusting... Rockall is too remote for an effective demonstration, but we will deal with your Greenpeace friends soon enough. Continue with the operation, you may pew when ready.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

    Who's he kidding? I can't think of ANYTHING procured by MoD that meets all three, and it is possible to argue that almost all MoD projects didn't meet a single one of those criteria.

    Them again, I'm being harsh. I suppose it was "innovative" of MoD to lease C-17s for more than the purchase cost. The QE carriers have certainly been effective in buying votes in Labour strongholds. Affordable, now that's a bit more difficult.

    1. SkippyBing

      Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

      Sea King Mk7, although to be fair they did ignore a lot of the procurement rules for that one...

    2. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

      Going back a while, but there was the STEN gun....although that did have a habit of sometimes being more effective against the person firing it than it was against the person being fired at.

      1. Tim99 Silver badge

        Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

        One major difference though, the original STEN cost <£150 and came down to about £10 in today's money. I have seen some of the early STEN versions; apparently if you were behind whoever was carrying it, and they pointed the weapon down/forward for safety, it was OK. In spite of its reputation, it was a very effective weapon out to about 40 yards, and described as a "room clearer".

      2. Milton

        Re: Sten

        Ah, good old Sten - competing with the M3 for the "looks like it came from the plumbing aisle of a hardware store" title. But as someone pointed out, it *was* cheap, unlike today's eyewateringly expensive laser wheeze.

        I'm curious about the "all weathers" spec ... And will it work as well on shiny, beautifully polished and reflective targets? And those with ablative coatings? And those designed to spin in flight? Or indeed, *any* targets using the obvious, cheap, easy countermeasures?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sten

          Ah, good old Sten - competing with the M3 for the "looks like it came from the plumbing aisle of a hardware store" title

          It wasn't known as "The Plumber's Abortion" for nothing

        2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. fredj

        Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

        Before my time but I was told the trick was to jump out of a truck and accidentally hit the but on the ground. This would knock out the safety pin and prime the mechanism to fire a bullet upwards though your chin.

        The secret of these guns was that they could be made by village blacksmiths. Now there is a tip for our defense procurement costings! OOps, village blacksmiths are long gone.

    3. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      "Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions. Who's he kidding?"

      Well I don't see the name of BAe Systems* here, so maybe it is

      *Who I rahter suspect were the "losing bidder" referred to in the article.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Holmes

      Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

      Based on the picture, looks like it will double as a full-body MRI device when it's not in use blasting North Korean ICBMs out of the sky.

      So it's affordable because NHS is going to foot 90% of the bill. That is, as long as it's hooked up to a proper Windows XP Home Edition installation with a minimum of 500MB of ram.

    5. streaky

      Re: Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

      Innovative, effective and affordable solutions

      Obviously you're not looking hard enough or your have impossibly high bar definitions of those words. Storm Shadow was that, SAMPSON is that.. Brimstone.. the list is endless.

      Side note something being expensive doesn't mean it isn't affordable, take for example the F-35...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A likely (west side) story

    The way that the Lightning II is going, the Navy stand more chance of getting Sharks than they do of getting Jets

    1. Andy The Hat Silver badge

      Re: A likely (west side) story

      The way the navy are going it'd be more effective to steer the ship close then lob very hungry sharks at the enemy with a rubber catapult.

      Or, going high tech, perhaps a battery of Vector ® Squid Guns ... (should that be a kalamari of Squid Guns?)

      Or just smack Kim-J-Whatsit across the hairstyle with a wet cod until he gets really annoyed ...

  7. Mystic Megabyte
    Unhappy

    Logo

    I wonder how much MBDA paid their artistic designer to choose the matching carpet, chair and ropes?

    Also, where is the slot to put your shilling in?

    1. Rich 11

      Re: Logo

      Also, where is the slot to put your shilling in?

      Just be careful which lens you put your eye to.

  8. Robin Bradshaw

    I have a plan to uparmour my drone to defeat this using easily and cheaply produced ablative carbon foam tiles¹ to whom sould I apply for an opportunity to test this armour against the laser? Perhaps the special projects bureau could get this tested for us, expensive laser Vs £1 worth of diy carbon foam? :P

    ¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wex_yKfrTo4

  9. JetSetJim
    Coat

    > The laser reportedly drew 10kW during its 2010 trials, with MBDA claiming 50kW would be possible with extra funding.

    By charging another £10M and just changing the fuse to a higher rating?

    1. Paul Herber Silver badge

      > The laser reportedly drew 10kW during its 2010 trials, with MBDA claiming 50kW would be possible with extra funding.

      'By charging another £10M and just changing the fuse to a higher rating?

      All they need is a new knob, one that goes up to 11.

      1. LewisRage

        You'd need it to go to 50 really or you've got a really weird scale there, 1-10 = 1MW to 10MW, 10-11 10MW to 50MW.

        In fact I think you'd find the manufacturers of my electric shower temperature control already have a version of that technology.

        1. IanRS

          Use a log scale

          So the knob only has to go to about 13.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        All they need is a new knob

        Why? For the arms industry, I'd suggest that the existing collection of complete knobs in the MoD are doing a sterling job.

      3. hplasm
        Happy

        All they need is a new knob...

        What, more changes in the boardroom?

    2. ElReg!comments!Pierre

      Not only the fuse

      You'd presumably need a 5x higher resistor in the amplification circuit too, so make that £20M

      1. Chris G

        Re: Not only the fuse

        If you're going to change the fuse AND the resistor you are going to need a sparks, so you had better add another million for callout and maybe an extra half a million for the sharp intake of breath when he gets there, looks at the job and says he has to go back to the van to get a different screwdriver.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Charge another £10M and add a dummy load.

      The continuous power *output* of the laser would be a more interesting measure.

  10. Matthew Smith

    Bindun

    The Royal Navy had laser weapons in the Falklands conflict. They did their job to harass the Argentine pilots. They pulled a blinder, you might say.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bindun

      The Royal Navy had laser weapons in the Falklands conflict.

      Tell that rubbish to the Welsh Guards, mate.

      1. SkippyBing

        Re: Bindun

        Would that be the Welsh Guards who were told not to offload personnel and ammo on the same landing craft in a war zone?

    2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: Bindun

      "They pulled a blinder ... "

      They actually pulled a dazzler and thus remained within the Laws of War.

  11. James 51
    Black Helicopters

    Laser directed energy weapon. If it is directed by the laser, what's the weapon part? Or is there a laser for targeting and another for the pew pew part?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Probably better described using normal military syntax, e.g. "Weapon, Directed Energy, Laser"

    2. Nick Ryan Silver badge

      I believe that there are one, possibly more, lasers for targetting with the high power laser only being used when the target laser, or lasers, are on target. I could be totally wrong, but that's my memory of how it works and it makes sense to ensure that the calibration is working.

  12. ukgnome

    Pah

    This will be useless when Cthulhu rises from his slumber.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Pah

      What about an Ultimate Laser Fighting Contest with Gort?

      I'd pay to watch that.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Next step :

    The enemy will create ordnance with a shiny refelctive coating...

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