Britain shows off a laser weapon that could take out drones for as little as $13
- The UK has showcased its new laser weapon, DragonFire.
- The weapon is highly accurate and cheap, the Ministry of Defence said, costing just $13 a shot.
The UK's Ministry of Defence has released new footage of its laser weapon DragonFire being tested.
The video showed the laser-directed energy weapon, or LDEW, system successfully shooting an aerial target in tests off the coast of Scotland in January.
The weapon "has proven itself in testing and has the very real potential for it to transform the UK's Defence capability," the MOD said in a statement.
In a statement in January, the defense ministry said the weapon was so accurate it could hit a small coin at a range of 1 kilometer (0.6 miles), but its maximum range remains classified.
And compared to other air defense systems it's cheap, with the DragonFire costing around $13 a shot, the MOD said, compared to air defense missiles that can cost millions of dollars each.
The MOD released an animation sequence showing a hypothetical scenario where a Royal Navy ship used the DragonFire to take out a small enemy ship and then three drones — one by blowing it up and two by disabling their control systems in precision strikes.
The weapon delivers "significant operational advantage by delivering enhanced air defence capabilities to the frontline, while reducing expendable ammunition costs and reducing risks of collateral damage," the MOD said on the release of the new footage.
The UK isn't the only country developing laser weapons systems, with the US, China, and Israel working on models of their own.
The weapons could be particularly effective in countering drone attacks, with drones being used increasingly to attack and surveil enemy positions in the conflict in Ukraine, and by militants in the Middle East to attack cargo ships.
But there are also shortcomings, analysts say. It's unclear how effectively lasers work in conditions where there's heavy cloud cover.
They also require a lot of energy to sustain the power to burn through targets, and need extensive cooling systems, Iain Boyd, director of the Center for National Security Initiatives at the University of Colorado, wrote in The Conversation.