According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), acquisition reforms introduced this month with the start of 2024-25 financial year mean that a minimum deployable capability can now be rolled at much faster pace than before. It had previously been anticipated that LDEW weapons would not come into frontline service with the UK armed forces until 2032.
Contracted through the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), DragonFire is a LDEW demonstrator developed by an MBDA UK-led team also including Leonardo and QinetiQ. The 50 kW-class system – which has been built to prove key LDEW technologies at a weapon system level, demonstrate the ability to acquire, track, engage and defeat relevant targets, and establish a credible sovereign UK capability – has completed a series of tracking and firing trials on MoD ranges since late 2021.
As leader of the UK DragonFire consortium, MBDA UK has taken overall system responsibility as well as developing command and control and image processing capabilities; Leonardo has built the beam director, which enables the LDEW system to point and track on moving targets with millimetric accuracy; while QinetiQ has provided the laser source, and developed coherent beam-combining technology designed to enhance power density and increase engagement range. Combined MoD/industry investment to dates aggregates to more than £100 million.
The DragonFire programme is being held up as a flagship example of the UK government’s new Integrated Procurement Model, which is designed to reform defence procurement and drive increased pace in the delivery of military capability. Announcing the decision to accelerate the LDEW programme, UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said that DragonFire will now rapidly evolve from a demonstration programme to an operational capability for the Royal Navy.
The next stages of this development will include further live firings and the manufacture and installation of weapon systems onto ship platforms. No details of contract awards, or detailed schedules, have been released.
The Royal Navy sees the DragonFire LDEW system as a potential low-cost alternative to self-defence missiles against certain threat sets (such as unmanned aerial vehicles and fast inshore attack craft). Information has yet to be released on planned ship fits, although it is understood that the planned investment will see installations across multiple vessels. The Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers are seen as likely candidates.
To meet the aggressive schedule laid out by the MoD, it is anticipated the ‘productionised’ DragonFire LDEW system will be closely derived from the demonstrator system, with significant redesign not anticipated. The system will have minimal integration to allow for rapid deployment, and is likely to have its own power storage system that can be charged by the ship’s main power. Final decisions will be made in the development phase.
Earlier this year the three UK DragonFire industry partners confirmed to Naval News that they were working to engineer ‘productised’ LDEW designs based on the modular architecture of the demonstrator system. This included work to scale up or down power, and also activity required to ‘harden’ the system to make it suitable for fielding.
