{"id":1542,"date":"2017-01-11T22:35:02","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T22:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2017-01-11T22:35:02","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T22:35:02","slug":"whitehall-invests-30m-in-laser-weapon-to-protect-ships-from-attack-by-air-and-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/2017\/01\/11\/whitehall-invests-30m-in-laser-weapon-to-protect-ships-from-attack-by-air-and-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"WHITEHALL INVESTS \u00a330m IN LASER WEAPON TO PROTECT SHIPS FROM ATTACK BY AIR AND SEA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LASER<\/a><\/p>\n

Industry has been given two years to design, build and then test a laser directed energy weapon at sea and on land.<\/p>\n

The weapon is intended to down \u2013 or disrupt \u2013 drones or missiles , fast attack boats and even incoming mortar rounds courtesy of a high-power, concentrated laser beam.<\/p>\n

The US Navy already has a laser weapon fitted to the support ship USS Ponce in the Gulf , where it has shot down a drone, set fast attack craft on fire and \u2018blinded\u2019 sensors and instruments on weapons systems.<\/p>\n

\"UK-DRAGONFIRE-artwork-MBDA\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the UK, a consortium \u2013 Dragonfire \u2013 comprising a mix of major defence firms such as MBDA and BAE, plus science firms like Qinetiq has formed to produce a similar weapon.<\/p>\n

The \u00a330m injection from the MOD will assess how the system can pick up and track targets at various ranges \u2013 and in varied weather conditions \u2013 over land and sea when it demonstrated in 2019.<\/p>\n

If Dragonfire proves successful, the first defensive laser weapons could be fitted to RN vessels in the middle of the next decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Industry has been given two years to design, build and then test a laser directed energy weapon at sea and on land. The weapon is intended to down \u2013 or disrupt \u2013 drones or missiles , fast attack boats and even incoming mortar rounds courtesy of a high-power, concentrated laser beam. The US Navy already… Continue reading WHITEHALL INVESTS \u00a330m IN LASER WEAPON TO PROTECT SHIPS FROM ATTACK BY AIR AND SEA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13],"tags":[118,1215,1214,268,362,1216,49],"class_list":["post-1542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-industry","category-on-watch","tag-bae","tag-dragonfire","tag-laser-directed-energy-weapon","tag-mbda","tag-qinetiq","tag-rn","tag-uk","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1545,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions\/1545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.plymouth.ac.uk\/dcss\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}