British Army Tries Out Drone-Destroying Laser
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
The British Army has successfully destroyed flying drones for the first time using a high-energy laser mounted onan armoredvehicle. If perfected, the technology could form an effective counter-measure against drone attacks.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that soldiers from 16 Royal Artillery had conducted tests against flying targets - although the word it used was "hovering" - at the Radnor Range in mid-Wales.
This latest development follows the first firing of the laser weapon from a British Army combat vehicle at a Porton Down firing range, operated by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), earlier this year.
In that instance, the 15-kilowatt infrared laser was found to be capable of "neutralizing" targets at distances greater than 1 km. In both tests, the weapon was mounted on a Wolfhound, a six-wheel armored truck operated by the army as part of its Tactical Support Vehicles (TSV) group.
According to defense contractor Raytheon, which is part of the trials, this was the latest stage of the MoD's Laser Directed Energy Weapon (LDEW) demonstrator program involving its High-Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS), and soldiers successfully tracked and neutralized - that word again - moving aerial targets.
[...] The army isn't the only part of UK military trying to get in on the laser action. The Royal Navy has its own DragonFire program to develop a laser for its upcoming Type 26 frigates sometime in the early 2030s to protect against threats such as drones.
The Royal Air Force has also tested a laser self-protection system with the intention of fitting it to aircraft such as the A400M Atlas transport, and there has also been talk about the future Tempest fighter being equipped with lasers.
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