Posted on 04/15/2024 4:49:50 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
A new high-tech laser weapon developed by the UK that is capable of shooting down enemy drones and missiles could be sent to Ukraine.
The weapon, dubbed DragonFire, was originally slated for deployment by 2027, but Grant Shapps, the UK defense secretary, said he hoped to "speed up" production so it could be put to use on Ukraine's front line.
Speaking to journalists on a visit to the Porton Down military research hub in Salisbury, England, Shapps said he would look to see if the pace can be increased even further "in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it."
"I've come down to speed up the production of the DragonFire laser system because I think given that there's two big conflicts on, one sea-based, one in Europe, this could have huge ramifications to have a weapon capable particularly of taking down drones," Shapps said.
Video of Dragonfire in action.
.....
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Use the force Luke
It would be an excellent test for the weapon system, but it might get blown up quickly. Russia will attack the location of the weapon incessantly because once it is up and running it will be much harder to target anything.
What if the Rooskies start painting their drones with reflective silver paint, or hiring Siths to counter the Jedi. LOL.
The problem is that the laser’s going to be super cumbersome and need a large charge of electricity to do any damage. Russia attacks surrounding power stations and then blows up the laser. It is a weapon of the future, but they need decades of working on amplification and such to make it portable and useable.
They worked well on Maui.
They’d have to set it up QT, with backup and dummy locations to throw them off.
Hope is not a plan
Hope is not a plan
Hope is not a strategy. Schapps has been in the news of late:
"Shapps had been onboard the submerged submarine at the time. "Trident missile misfired and crashed into ocean during rare test launch
Sky News, 21 February 2024 "
New Defence Secretary Grant Shapps blunders by saying RAF operates Britain's aircraft carriers and doesn't know how many ranks the army has - as he insists he won't give up posting on TikTok despite security fears Daily Mail, 6 September 2023.
Grant Shapps plane's GPS signal 'jammed' near Russia's Kaliningrad BBC, 14 March 2024
If it can’t shoot and scoot, it’s an expensive liability.
“War is the health of the State.”
Randolph Bourne
Israel announced a month or so ago that it had one such almost ready to deploy and the US, especially the Navy probably has a usable one now but won’t deploy it for combat use until one of the other countries goes first to keep the Russians and China guessing, I guess. I was hoping briefly that Israel would take out whatever Iran was sending over with such a weapon. The US has been cagy about it. O’Bama announced early in his regime that all such exotic weapons development was being discontinued but it wasn’t, actually. I wonder if the ongoing work was kept from Supreme Leader Hussein as the military seems to have run a couple of other operations like bombing Syrian positions at a critical point when Obama was trying to shut it all down.
>If it can’t shoot and scoot, it’s an expensive liability.
Yeah, it’s a pipe dream that they’d put a prototype out in east Ukraine, because Russia would blow it up, surge to it, and then bring it back for reverse engineering.
Literally giving the enemy materiel just like they did with the Bradleys and Leopards.
NATO has fed all its weapons system into Ukraine at just the right pace for Russia to, one-by-one, learn all of their capabilities and develop countermeasures, without changing the outcome of the war in the slightest.
The outcome of the war was changed when they didn’t just invade via the airport, take over Kiev and shoot Zelensky in the first day or two, and Zelensky didn’t just skedaddle to avoid getting shot. Nobody expected it to go on for two years and counting.
For Brandon, however, dragging it out forever is a good thing. You’re right that Brandon is slow-walking aid, probably with the intent of familiarizing Russia with weapons systems, among other things. But UK is a different matter, and this dragon thingy seems to be just what Ukraine needs right now.
how many shots can it get off in a minute?
weapons like that mount their own power source ... you do NOT plug them into a wall receptacle ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.