Britain confirms its plans for deploying newest laser weapons on its military ships in 2027, as noted by the country's defense department — this involves the DragonFire laser system project.
The UK government is committed to accelerating development, testing, production and installation of DragonFire high-energy laser system, noted country's Ministry of Defence representative Lord Coaker, whose words UK Defence Journal cites.
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They emphasize this effectively involves confirming previously announced plans for deploying DragonFire laser system on Royal Navy ships, rather than announcing some new timelines, as the 2027 deployment deadline was known three years ago, and that the British shortened these timelines by as many as five years, as it was initially planned for deployment in 2032, was also known earlier.
Meanwhile, Britain may become the first European NATO member country to deploy laser weapons in forces, late last year several DragonFire tests were conducted which confirmed system readiness for operational use. During one test, this laser shot down a drone faster than jet-powered Shahed. Also recall last year MBDA received contract for producing these laser systems for Type 45 destroyers, with the project overall ongoing since 2017.
At the same time, naturally for Ukraine most interesting here is that back in 2024 then-Defence Minister Grant Shapps stated they were ready for combat experiment to transfer DragonFire laser system prototype to Ukraine, even if it would not be 100% ready, and that Ukraine could receive it earlier than it would be deployed in British military.
The idea appeared genuinely interesting, especially as this is already quite widespread experience when various companies test their weapons directly in Ukraine. However, as of today it remains unknown whether we ultimately received DragonFire for testing — at least this was not reported officially, nor were there photos or videos that would confirm deployment of this weapon in Ukraine.
Possible, naturally, is the variant that Britain abandoned such idea but again, decided not to report this officially. One can also consider the variant when actually in testing DragonFire showed worse results than publicly reported, and so on.
Ultimately, laser weapons today have not yet gained wide adoption, while various defense giants sometimes face significant problems in creating genuinely powerful systems.
Regarding DragonFire, it should also be mentioned that although laser weapons are promoted as cheap way to literally shoot down aerial targets for mere dollars, the system itself cannot be called cheap, as one DragonFire laser system sample costs over $160 million, and operational costs should also be added here, which can be quite substantial.
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