Laser weapons will be used to protect military sites and critical infrastructure from drone attacks under plans being drawn up by the Ministry of Defence.
The department is investigating how directed energy weapons could be used for homeland air defence as part of a £20 million investment in the technology, The Times has learnt.
The technology is similar to the Iron Beam system unveiled by Israel last week to bolster existing Iron Dome missile defences.
DragonFire, a powerful laser capable of burning through drones, mortar rounds and brick walls with a high-powered beam, will already be deployed on Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers from 2027 under a £300 million defence deal.
The system is designed to protect the warships from drone and subsonic missile attacks at a fraction of the price of conventional defences. It costs £10 per shot, whereas the Sea Viper missiles fired from the destroyers to blow up incoming threats are £1 million each.
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The MoD is investing £20 million to support the development of additional directed energy weapons to complement DragonFire. It is exploring how lower-power lasers could be utilised for homeland defence as a counter-drone tool.
These systems could be integrated into Britain’s existing air defences, which primarily consist of scrambling fighter jets, to potentially safeguard important infrastructure and military sites on land.
Suspected Russian drone activity has become increasingly common across Europe in recent months. Scores of suspicious drone incidents have been reported in at least 15 Nato countries, most frequently in Germany and Belgium. More than half were near airports and about a quarter over military installations, such as barracks, airbases and an ammunition depot.
On September 9, Polish radar screens lit up when 19 unmanned Russian aerial combat vehicles entered its airspace from Ukraine and Belarus. Polish, Swedish and Dutch fighter jets were scrambled to shoot them down.
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Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, described the incidents as a “coherent and escalating campaign” of hybrid warfare. Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, explicitly blamed Moscow for suspicious activity in his country.
In December Blaise Metreweli, the new chief of MI6, used her first speech in the role to point to instances of drones appearing over airports and airbases as examples of Russia’s so-called grey-zone tactics.
The MoD said: “Laser weapon technology offers significant potential across a wide range of defence and civil applications. We are actively exploring opportunities, particularly in counter-drone systems.
“We are further investing to complement DragonFire, ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of this technology into the future.”
Israel has announced the development of its own new laser system, Iron Beam, designed to intercept aerial threats such as drones, rockets, missiles and mortars.
Israel’s fully operational laser batteries were rolled out across the country on December 30 as an additional layer of defence to support the country’s Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells with missiles.
British military figures have called for similar systems to be adopted in the UK.
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former infantry battalion commanding officer, described the Iron Beam as a “game-changer”.
He said: “It is not only more effective than Iron Dome, especially against missile or drone swarms, but each shot is also much cheaper. It shifts the current balance of using hugely expensive interceptors against inexpensive drones.
“Britain should follow Israel’s example in developing laser defences as part of a multi-layer air defence system, which proved its worth in the last two years of war in the Middle East.
“With an ever-growing aerial threat to our country we are still worryingly exposed.”
British scientists at the Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory, better known as Porton Down, have spent years developing similar technology for DragonFire.
The concept involves disabling a target’s capabilities, either by causing it to fail structurally or destroying it entirely. Unlike a missile, which may not hit its target exactly but will still affect a large area, if the laser does not hit its target precisely then it fails completely. But researchers have been particularly pleased with the laser system’s ability to track fast-moving targets.
DragonFire can hit a £1 coin from a kilometre away, with recent tests proving it can destroy small unmanned aircraft travelling at up to 650 km/h. In video released by the MoD, the weapon hit a fixed-wing drone above the Hebrides, melting its airframe and causing it to tumble to the ground.
Phillip Lester, a retired RAF air vice-marshal and the former senior directing staff at Royal College of Defence Studies, said Britain was a significantly larger country than Israel, making it very difficult to defend every inch of UK airspace and effectively have an Iron Dome.
Protecting a warship, or a group of vessels, with laser systems is more “controllable and manageable”, he said, because the “footprint you are protecting is relatively small”.
However, Lester added: “Laser technology is exciting and I’m sure there is potentially utility for protecting the UK. It just needs to be integrated. The principle function of air defence in the UK through our fighter jets, as well as some other capabilities.
“Could this sit alongside that? Yes, absolutely. A realistic scenario, rather than having an Iron Beam that protected the whole of the UK, would be around point defence around key areas.
“There are key military sites and critical infrastructure that we might want to prioritise for protection in order to ensure national resilience and the preservation of national capability.”
