For the first time, British Army regular troops have operated a high-powered laser weapon mounted on an armored combat vehicle. Soldiers from 16 Royal Artillery in Wales used a laser installed on a Wolfhound combat vehicle to engage multiple aerial targets.
The new laser weapon, which is being developed as part of the Ministry of Defence's Land Laser Directed Energy Weapon (LDEW) demonstrator program, reflects Britain's commitment to fast-tracking the creation of practical lasers that can be mounted on ships and ground vehicles.
Britain's armed forces have shrunk to historic lows. The Army is now smaller than at any time since after the Napoleonic wars, and three major warships – including the only two amphibious assault craft – have recently been pulled from service in the face of budget cuts.
Such reductions have been a regular occurrence ever since the end of the Second World War. However, the current geopolitical situation and lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine means that this reduction must be met with maintaining or even improving the capabilities of each individual British asset. This "gold plating" means that, for example, after every surface ship is cut from service, every future ship must be much more advanced and capable to the point of one new ship out matching two old ones.
Whatever the merits or problems of such a policy, it means that the Ministry of Defence is very interested in laser weapons as a force multiplier. Laser weapons have a number of advantages, especially when dealing with threats like drone swarms. Lasers travel at the speed of light, ammunition is virtually unlimited, each round (outside of equipment costs) is famously a dollar a pop, and they can engage multiple targets.
During the recent exercises at Radnor Range in mid-Wales, soldiers operated a Raytheon High Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) while they tracked and destroyed a series of drone targets using the weapon's sensors and tracking systems, locking onto the targets in real time.
"Every engagement we’ve done has removed a drone from the sky. While we’ve been testing a variety of distances, speeds and altitudes, one thing has remained – how quick a drone can be taken out," said Warrant Officer Matthew Anderson, trials manager for the British Army’s Mounted Close Combat Trials and Development Group. "It’s definitely a capability that could be added to the arsenal of weapons that we use on the battlefield."
Source: Ministry of Defence
