Rare Dragon Fire Laser Weapon Melts Enemy Weapons to Slag
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- Summer 2027. In the heat of the Middle Eastern afternoon, a British Type 45 destroyer vigilantly patrols the volatile waters of the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Yemen. Cutting through the waves on its bold mission to protect friendly merchant ships from vicious attacks by Houthi Islamist insurgents, this Royal Navy vessel has a brand new state-of-the-art secret weapon on board: the DragonFire laser directed-energy system. Like something from a science fiction movie, this futuristic device is said to be able to eliminate tiny targets at great distances, not using bullets or shells but instead a highly focused stream of photons.
Suddenly, an alert rings out over the destroyer’s decks as its radar starts going wild. It can only mean one thing - an Iranian-built Houthi attack drone is hurtling toward the area at high speed, destined to wreak havoc on a nearby American bulk carrier.
Yet, DragonFire has other ideas. Springing to life, its turret smoothly rotates to track the incoming drone before shooting out powerful invisible beams of high-energy light across the sky. The destroyer’s crew watch in awe through their monitors as DragonFire, living up to its name, burns through the drone’s outer casing with ease, frying its electronics and leaving a gaping hole in its fuselage. Completely destroyed, the drone plunges into the sea below, leaving the bulk carrier to safely continue its voyage. With more drones on the horizon, the DragonFire hasn’t breathed its last…
The Russian one is a bit different. It only makes vodka disappear
The flight crews of the TU-22 bombers used to do the same thing. The cooling system used pure ethanol as the refrigerant. The flight/ground crews were notorious for drinking all of it. You can imagine the resulting disciplinary problems.
And it attracts Ukrainian drones...
Bravo, sir! 😂
This is what the Gov is willing to show you..? Now imagine what they are actually using or testing
How much popcorn can this pop in a single shot?😊
it will carburize it you'll get two carbon atoms and a hydrogen,possibly acetylene gas because it should have enough energy to break everything down to a gas then re-bind it
The laser is reportedly in the 50 kW class and is designed to defend land and maritime targets from threats such as missiles and mortar rounds. The weapon is scalable!! Awesome stuff!! I can hear it now...Admiral issues command...."Weapon Officer...set phasers to maximum yield, Sierra formation and fire at will" Weapon officer instantly responds, "11 target acquisitions complete, targets have been neutralized sir." Admiral: "Com, satellite uplink relay, ready...energize orbital laser canon to 1 megawatt and wait for command."
But cloud, fog, rain and smoke tend to degrade the beam to worthlessness. And those occur quite often at sea...
@@ChadLuciano It’s highly defeatable with reflective coatings or meta materials. And it can’t be pointed without a radar, which can be defeated with EW.
@jag5316 but who really has useful ew
@@matthewotis3594 Russia!!
I think you meant too say "Exterminatus" 😉
Remember when the decks of ships kept catching on fire in Iran
2027? that's a long time for something we need now ah well.
50kW is a little soft too.
2027? It means we already have it online, ready to use.
10 years for a fully weaponised system is pretty fast. Look how long it took previous High End military tech to be researched and field ready.
The big question is how fast can it track and accurately hit the target well enough to damage it. I mean if it can track and destroy a missile then it's a lot more useful than if it can track and destroy a drone.
The text said it can take out a 155mm round.
There are significant disadvantages too: In bad wheather-conditions, Lasers can not be used. As a SHORAD-System, it's range is limited to a couple of miles. Furthermore, it can be saturated, since every target requires about 5…15 seconds to be cooked sufficiently.
That’s why the boat also has air defence missiles. Even saving a few missiles is worth it. Look at the prices. One shot of dragon fire £1 - £5. One sea viper air defence missile is 1 to 2 million so up to 4 million saved for 2 air defence missiles. The laser will pay for its self eventually.
How difficult would it be to create drones with highly reflective surfaces? Is the beam too powerful to deflect? It would melt through even a mirrored surface? Obviously this concern must have been considered and it would be interesting to see whatever test results were gathered through experimentation with such counter measures. Or even ceramic.. if the drones were made of some lightweight ceramic material would it still have the power to destroy it?
Wow! "This sh*t looks like something you'd use too Exterminatus a helpless Island"
Without kilowatt ratings and beam dispersion profile over range, there is to way to know if a laser's theoretical ZTOF tracking ease is sufficient to engage high speed inbound ASCM/ASBM in the seconds available to effect a diversion or destruct sequence.
Drones are LSS at under 200 knots. Mortar rounds are typically subsonic (660 knots). Increasingly, ASCM like the P-800 and Brahmos and YJ-12 or YJ-18 are supersonic which means, if you have a 2-3km engagement range with a 60kw laser, and a five second dwell, the missile will hit the hull before the effector can tumble or explode it. Now, you can stack up turrets and you ca even additively slave multiple hulls worth of effector, using simple, TISL, level hot-dot tracking. With say 300kw on three hulls with two turrets, you may get something like what they showed with the Iron Beam 'sweep through the bearing', instantaneous, destruction. But coordination, especially in rough seas, will still have to be millisecond tight and the turrets will need to have dual heads to allow for cool down while engaging multiple inbound threats.
You will need stacked capacitor arrays to delivery massive jolts of conditioned power and you will have to protect those optics from the 'salty air' of some very nasty marine atmospherics, acting to absorb and scatter huge amounts of energy as the beam tries to cut a propagation line through the muck.
I know we're getting pretty close on this because LAWS has been in testing on various ships since the mid-oughts.
But even so, ODIN and HELIOS/NLWS Increment 1 are only pushing about 60-90kw. That's why they call them dazzlers (i.e. soft kill) not effectors (hard kill). And it won't be until HELIOS Increment 2 (HELCAP) that we get to 300kw. Which is still at least 100kw off what you need to engage at 7-10nm and kill two targets which have broken through the ESSM/RIM mid/innerzone layer.
If the SSL-TM transitions to scaleable production architecture via HELSI, as NFLoS in a bigger, dedicated, turret, we will get there.
If it doesn't, we will be stuck with low end shelter mounts that simply don't have the power or the cooling to be useful against the kinds of threats which surface ships will face in the 2040s. All high speed. All Swarming capable with AI ATC
and penetration tactics strategies.
We need a 500kw HELCAP Inc.2 to be a complete, standalone, system so that we can customize turret installations with belowdeck power and cooling because the Burke is just about out of volume and the Constellation is going to be another massive disappointment while we burn daylight, pretending that we can go cheap with a 3-4,000 ton micro-hull in a world where we need another 10-15,000 ton class hull to replace Tico and begin to prepare for end of life phaseout on early ABFl-I/II.
Not smaller/cheaper but rather BIGGER and more comprehensive in their mission systems and survivability packages. Both in defensive AAW/MD loads and secondary strike carriage for when the Carriers prove to be uncrewable or affordable. You design the ships services and particularly electrical and volume before you start pushing individual weapons system mounts and we are going the exact bass-ackwads direction if we are serious about making 'light ship' DEW MD happen.
Congress will make the wrong choice and we will be stuck having to mix and match network smaller effectors while failing to ditch the worthless CSG concept for overland power projection, headed back the other way.
There is also a MAJOR inertia coming the other way: as the airpower branches are terrified of systems which can kill them at 15-20,000ft, above the SHORADS layer. And desperately worried about the longevity of both stealth and their massive inventories of Glide Weapons and free fall PGMs which are 300 knots and Mach 1.3 (800 knots) respectively.
Easy to hit for a laser.
For them, the rise of DEWS is the end of conventional airpower and so they don't want success in defeating high speed ASCM, let alone the (likely unstoppable) ASBM in the Mach 3 to Mach 10 range.
Because the next step is land based with a semi-tractor sized power pack and a 100cm mirror, like a range tracking camera.
As a result, the whole area of Directed Energy Weapons Systems is mired in the stench of service interest politics while our frontal forces (AFV, Infantry) are increasingly unable to defend themselves, even against FPV/LSS threats of 150 knots and without something like DE MSHORAD, we may not be able to provide umbrella air defense against either drone or CRAM threats such as are devastating the Ukrainians.
Given how expensive airpower is and how close we are to basic AI, low rent, UCAVs, capable of ISR and boosted weapon salvos, I know which side needs to be sacrificed but there is still a minimum 20-30 billion needed to rapidly transition DEWS to service and you can bet there are a LOT of sacred cows mooing forlornly, off in the (F-35, NGAD) near-distance.
We lose the Dollar as GRC and we won't be able to afford them.
We wont no other cou try can handle the volume of trade we can. Thats why the dollar is king
50 KW is a minimal power level. However the advanced targeting capability does allow the system to maintain the target spot for long enough to successfully bring down smaller weapons. These systems will really become more generally useful when power levels reach 1 megawatt. In the meantime, multiple less powerful lasers could be aimed at the same small spot.
Dang i thought i just woke up in 2024 lol i even replay it. Made me think i'm in the matrix with that summer 2027
50 kw really is the minimum strength. It would be far more useful being 200-300 kw
I'm not entirely sure disabling vehicles with high energy weapons is really less lethal considering most of them still run off combustible fuel or batteries which would probably react badly to a sudden spike in temperature....
Lethal refers to people. No people on drones.
@@jamesfowley4114The comment referred to stopping vehicles at borders and checkpoints they do carry people that's kind of the point. For taking out drones or vehicles where you don't mind inflicting casualties great just think the video was stretching a bit at that point.
@@eldridgep2 "Stopping vehicles" You would be targeting the engine, or tired etc. There is no blast radius. You hit what you aim at. So if a passenger was hit its because thats what was being aimed at.
Interesting is also the effect on squishy hoo-mans.
Sorry commander, it was raining really heavy and the laser could not penetrate the water droplets. We just lost a ship. DID THEY THINK OF BAD WEATHER.
That's where the asters and sea ceptors come into play.
In full on war they will seed clouds miles around the fleet if they have to. Smoke bombs though...
I have a suggestion for smaller applications.
Most drones use visual guided attack. What if we use a lower power laser that with high accuracy tracking to just dazzle the camera on the drone and blind the operator. Smaller systems can be placed to protect Frontline troops and logistics that need to move fast
Actually, that's a capital idea. Even a very bright search light would work. A low power laser, even a pointing laser, shined into the camera's lens, would cause the CMOS to burn out- blinding the operator. Brilliant- in more ways than one.
@@ZombieGrandpa - If it’s a kamakazi or other armed drone, then just target the ordnance on the drone and detonate it. The bad guy puts the weapon on the bird we can use to destroy it.
@@navret1707 In theory, yes. But you have to see it with something like radar first. And if an enemy drone flies like a bird, weaves like a bird and returns a signal like a bird, you won't bother attacking it.
But by the time the enemy drone flying like a bird is in visual range, assuming you would even see it before it was right on top of you, you would have less than a minute to do something about it.
Can you whip your laser out like a western 6 gun quick draw artist? I doubt it.
And missile systems, assuming you could even lock it in that short a period of time, have minimum ranges. The drone would easily be inside that range.
But you are right about a kinetic or laser weapon. Striking the warhead will likely detonate it. But we still have the problem of fog and dust limiting both the effects of the laser and of confirming the drone is not a bird by visual means.
Ah, but that's what missiles are for, right? Let's say we use regular old SM2's or whatever the Navy calls them these days.
But radar is not sure if this oncoming target is a bird or a drone behaving like a bird.
You going to post a no bid fly zone around every ship? And are you going to fire on every target that flies like a bird? Even the US Navy can't afford to do that.
So you begin to see my point that this is asymmetrical warfare at its finest. AI, lasers and big ticket missile systems might work under ideal conditions- but nature and the enemy never allow work under ideal conditions.
And if I stormed a missile cruiser with 100 drones all at once and they shot down every single drone with 100% accuracy- that cruiser is now out of AA missiles. Now I can launch any ship killing missile I want- and nearly guarantee a hit.
True, there are other naval assets in this mix, but you get the idea.
Even if my enemy never lands a shot with a drone or an anti ship missile- I still bankrupted the Navy for using million dollar missiles on 100 dollar drones.
That truly is the definition of asymmetrical warfare right there.
And we have no surefire way of detecting and destroying drones, especially swarms of drones. You have to have powerful and VERY expensive assets on land, sea and air working perfectly- the same way as if you were up against a near peer air force.
But your enemy is forcing all this expense for mills of a cent to your dollars. He wastes no fuel, pays no soldiers, has no supply expenses- but you do. And if you let your guard down -or something breaks- that's when your enemy will launch his drone army.
And this is what's keeping defense analyst up at night right now. Their burning question is, "How do I protect my multi million dollar assets with out using up all my multi million dollar assets!?!?!"
Would it not be possible to combine satellites with this Dragonfire lasers so that an exceptionally clear overhead vision of the actual target can be ascertained before it is then fired upon from above?
@@brotherowl Though no one will admit it, I suspect the US has had laser weapons in space for quite some time. Both experimentally and for offense.
Satellite on satellite is far more effective than sending a beam down to ground level. Light travels perfectly through a vacuum.
But when firing from space, the lensing effect of the atmosphere makes the scatter pretty bad. But your point about a satellite tasked with discovering the difference between birds and drones pretending to be birds, is a valid one. This is one of the advantages of being part of the "Five Eyes" group has. They all share intelligence. And it is why the Dragon Fire system may just work. But heaven help any ship that does not know in advance of the approach of a drone swarm.
When I was a kid, GIJoe would say, "Now we know- and knowing is half the battle."
50 kW isn't turning anything to slag fast enough to be effective, especially if you're dealing with a swarm. Clouds and rain are also a massive obstacle. We've been chasing DEWs for decades and still have no idea how to get it right.
What I'm really curious about is the US program developing lasers that utilize quantum entangled photons.
Still don't see the time to kill working out when the ablatives come in to disrupt the laser. Chaff also appears to be a viable defence.
Ok, I looser. But the energy source what is it. I'd think you'd need hundreds of megawatts if not a gigawatt. See those holes burnt through that metal? That's a significant accomplishment.
Would it not be possible to combine satellites with this Dragonfire laser so that an exceptionally clear overhead vision of the actual target can be ascertained before it is then fired upon from above?
How fast would this slice through a human torso? Could it wipe out a platoon or battalion from afar?
Any use of lasers against a human (combatant or not) is a violation of the Geneva conventions and other international laws, and so .. a war crime.
So what happens when you have smoke or clouds in the way ?
It’s not perfect but, should be perfected over time. The US will probably adopt it, perfect it and then sell it back to us.
Don't be daft.. the USA will be given the tech as the UK is part of NATO. The usa will exchange tech with UK.
Well... there are some limitations to when and where you can use this. And there are some defenses against it. First, drones can be made to pulse their engines and control surfaces, meaning they jerk about in the air. The beam can then be spread over a larger surface area or even miss completely. Second, a drone can fly at very low levels, much like a cruise missile, giving the laser less time to react. This is not an issue with one drone- but 100? 1,000? Third, there are materials and ways to use them that make lasers less effective.
Lastly, there is the weather. This laser needs to see the target in order to hit it- direct line of sight is required. Smoke released from the shore or natural fog would scatter the photons quite effectively and limit the range of sight to practically nothing if the cloud is dense enough. Being the Middle East, the bad guys just need to wait for a sandstorm to cut the laser's range to nearly nil.
And even though this laser will be another arrow in the quiver, and I am glad to see that, it won't be a cure all against drones- especially drone swarms.
The asymmetrical nature of cheap, off the shelf, available everywhere drones makes them the equivalent of a flying Molotov cocktail. Anybody can build one with a kit from Amazon and they are already flight stabilized. Your grandma could be taught to fly one. I don't speak of the high end FPV racer drones, but their tamer cousins.
No coding needed and just an Allen wrench to put it together. I know, I have built one. And even with my horrid flying skills, I can get it off the ground and fly it without crashing... 90% of the time. And this drone can carry a payload of up to two pounds. Which is all Islamic aggressors would need to take out lasers and radars- leaving the ship now vulnerable to larger weapons. It's a real issue and a real potential that no one has an answer for.
And if just one of these cheap drones gets through and smacks that laser... well there are a LOT of delicate parts in there.
That assumes you can even identify the drone coming. A drone can be made to fly in erratic patterns, appearing to be a bird. A swarm can do the same thing and appear as a flock of harmless birds on radar- meaning you won't have any warning until they are in visual range. And what's that, maybe 300 meters? Good luck knocking them all down with lasers.
And what the manufacturer is not telling you is that it takes time to recharge the system. How long? Well that's classified- but I bet it would have a hard time knocking a drone swarm down that closed to within 300 yards unrecognized.
To be honest with you, I think the West is quaking in their boots at the asymmetrical nature of drone warfare- and scrambling to find a countermeasure. We have no way to counter the fact that a nation with just a small budget can destroy vehicles and sink ships costing into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Ukraine is showing us the new face of asymmetrical warfare. Improvise, adapt, overcome.
it says summer 2027 at the start? is this all just a sci fi show?
Watch the video and you'll understand.
It's already in use for trial purposes but not yet perfected for actual warfare use.
This could make tanks obsolete.
How well does it work on Infantry? Can it liquify the dirt on the front of a trench so it splashes on Infantry? Will wounds be open to infection or cauterized? OR, Can it just disable IFVs, tanks, BMPs, and be used in ways to convince Infantry to surrender, thereby saving lives? Humanity could be headed toward completely mechanized warfare soon after the first time that the largest problem for both armies is that total number of POWs are larger than the total number of troops left uncaptured on each side. Humor is the only shield from horror, and my thoughts are worthy of an Addams. LOL.
DEW’s work well. Have a look at what it did in Hawaii
Defeated by mirror counter measures. Game over.
Hahaha I wondered
Funny you should say that. There was a experiment done a while back to see if a mirror would reflect back a laser beam. It worked for a fraction of a second, then the mirror was destroyed!
Mirrors would deflect the laser but only for a little bit before being melted by the heat
Can Dragon Fire comes in Blue - Green color to hit undersea drones like the Manta Ray or hypersonic missiles. Just saying!!!
In theory, high energy weapons looks promising for ships on paper. During a prolong engagement where sea spray and waves are heavy, is it possible to keep the exterior optics clean enough to fire the weapon multiple times?
If optics get contaminated they melt instead of reflect.
Its the voice innit 😁
Authorative, serious, dramatic
@@blacklisted4885
Hyperbolic...
is this like that weapon that they have to de-cloak in order to fire the weapon due to the energy consumption?
China suddenly ramps up mirror production…
😆
China ramps up DEI so chinese 'workers' can force their way into foreign military jobs.
But, there're made in China so they only work half the time.
LoL, I was wondering about that:cover your drone with mirrors. But yeah, China suddenly ramps up mirror technology.
Silica microspheres could help, but they might be wavelength limited in their absorbing/ablating effects.
LASERS Nice. But uhm ceramic coating, And ceramic bodies would make the effectiveness of LASER interception pretty bad.
Great defense until drones are fitted with space re-entry panels.
What about the Israeli laser that's coming on line this year? It's done well in its first outing.
I wonder if mirror tiles or something similar would render this weapon useless.
The solar beam can melt mirrors, let alone high-energy lasers.
Would you be able to defend against this by lining the target with mirrors like a disco ball?
Displte what one would think, a mirror doesn’t really work well against a laser.
We have the Athena Project in the US
rumor said it's very powerful .
it can blow up a rubber balloon from 2 miles off in 10 seconds !
How fast can it puncture a dinghy?
“Feel the force”
It can burn and cause structural failure, but it can not vaporize entire targets. Kind like when you would burn ants with a magnifying glass using the sun's light. This is not Darth Vader's Death Star.
If they don't say dracarys when they fire this thing they are seriously doing it wrong
Only works on a clear day, and not through fog, clouds or heavy rain.
Depends on the wavelength.
Bad westher always plays a part in every aspect of war.. missiles , planes , boats all have to factor in fog, rain, storms etc
This is "Real Genius" if they could just put it on a B1
I get that reference.
Promising tech eh?
Ha ha just a thought about spontainios combustion.
From the depths moment
What’s the effectiveness with clouds, chaff and smoke counter-measures?
I hate it when that happens don't you?
little finger, are you?
What if it could be mounted on an orbital platform and hit targets from space; but during the test flight some Cal-Tech students redirect the laser and fill their professors house with Popcorn.
What most people don't know is that each shot of that laser is around $10
How did they calculate that😂
Bros we got that pew pew.
How resistance is it too salt water
30 plus mi aquire target think 🤔
What is the realistic range in haze.
Tested in lahaina
you mention british pounds but showed dollars???
I've always loved the channel but are you trying to sell this to the american public..... it seems like it
Not working in fog
Phew, Phew, Phew.....
I wish we could trust the government and the politicians not to misuse this amazing technology. Power corrupts. I worry that we are headed for Orwellian dictatorship, and a weapon like this in the hands of a corrupt dictatorship would be horrible.
the lazer weapon is already been combat proven in isreal.
A 50kw Laserpointer 👍
So ....HONOLULU BASICALLY
Ridiculously hyped, exaggerated, and not even deployable yet.
HESA Shahed 136 aka by its Russian designation Geran-2 - Герань-2, or the 'Kaman-19' drone, sometimes called the "Kamikaze" drone, neither look anything like a US MQ-1 Predator or DJI Mavic
Thank you . ( 2024 / July / 02 )
Russias laser tech is Ivan with a pocket laser
Paleo Valley PRICE INCREASED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG huthi 2027 🤐
Laser directed bla blah. Its a Ray Gun
Before you watch ibet $5 you or we never see anything melt to slag. The amount of energy needed to heat 1 gallon of water 1 degree is a lot.
Ok, let watch these weapons turn to slag.
Most of these comments are the real ‘slag’!
what is your accent ?
So a speculation video...
Can’t believe I’m this early!
3 years early I guess...
SLAG
What is the damage caused by laser to human bodies, and could this weapon clear a whole troop of men, I am just interested in whether the Armed Forces would ever use this as an option. If I am asking, I am sure someone else is as well. ilii
It lit Maui on fire
50 KW going through a Meade 16" telescope? forming a real image of that burnt diameter at range? what a joke.
Pop smoke and it's useless😮
russia claims to have developed several weapon systems..... HAHAHAHAHA *SNORT* HAHAHAHAHA!
Laser weapons under 500 Kw on a frigate, are useless
A weapon that can be completely defeated by a micron thick mirror coating.
No.. It's not a cartoon lol. It would burn right through the mirror.
@@THE-X-Force so you say
@@jag5316 It's a scientific fact. You're on the internet .. figure it out.
by now you ancient your darpa have made handheld laser weapons
Or able to turn someone's phone into a laser while taking a call
Dragon Fire will be obsolete in 5 years. To counter this, one can go to 2 options, much thicker skins, Or mirror'd skins.
It would be great if you coordinated your images with your voice over. LASERs are short range and weak. There is still a long way to go.
You went from a history channel to a fantasy salesman for the MIC. Sad but done with your channel.
The brits as usual are making the battle field guess
- A 🇬🇧high-power laser weapon could be sent to 🇺🇦 to take down Russian drones, the defence secretary says. ..12/4/2024 …According to Grant Shapps
Let me guess, the Brits will finally retreat from doing the R&D and give the info to the Americans who will complete the task and the Brits will proclaim it was all their idea! lol
He did a video on countries who/operate lasers.
Like the spitfire becoming the p52 mustang.,or the vertical take off harrier becoming used by usa navy..or concorde being banned coz USA couldn't make one😅 and the Russian one concordsky crashing.😊or apple pie 🤔 learn your history before you stag of UK.
Use limited over event horizon hyper sonic missile ships can ass goodbye 👋
its rather SUS
Why does any video that has anything to do with military technology always attract all armchair expert naysayers. Just because you watch afew videos and play war thunder or world of warships, it doesn't make you an expert. Have they thought of rain, it takes 5-15 seconds, it should be more powerful. Yeah people who have been to college/ university and are paid more in one year than you will make in ten, Haven't thought of what you have came up with while sitting in your armchair/ moms basement.
Do everone a favour and keep your negative comments to yourself. 😊
If Lockheed-Martin isn't ready for deployment of a working prototype that is combat ready then its all still just a proof of concept.