Dragonfire
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Search complete. 5 mentions across 4 episodes found for "Dragonfire".
Oct 30, 2026
BettyHOST
A laser shot costs a few dollars of electricity.
BettyHOST
The UK tested one called Dragonfire, and the Ministry of Defense said a shot runs under 10 pounds.
BiffHOST
Under 10 pounds? That's cheaper than a pint in London.
BiffHOST
Okay, so the trend line goes ship, truck, armored car, backpack, hand.
Patrick SandersHOST
I mean, as you say, I can't talk about classified UK systems.
Patrick SandersHOST
The one thing we do have... that we can speak about is a high-energy laser that's associated with air defence that's called Dragonfire.
Tom Newton DunnHOST
On Royal Navy destroyers? Well, yeah,
Patrick SandersHOST
I mean, that's the idea.
Dominic NichollsHOST
And, and just, just on that, where's your, where would you put your money? There's a lot of...
Dominic NichollsHOST
Are we still in the hard kill, an actual munition hitting these, these drones? There's a lot of talk of laser capabilities, DragonFire, for example, being a capability here in the UK, some, you know, electro- electromagnetic phenomena, other types of ways of, of bringing down drones.
Dominic NichollsHOST
But, I mean, are they, technology may be proven, but are they scalable? Are we, are we really talking about hard kill options here for drones?
Michael BohnertGUEST
Well, this gets into kind of your cost is in the eye of the beholder for a lot of these systems.
Greg BagwellGUEST
Um, but I think if we're now shooting each other's nuclear missiles out of the sky, we're in Armageddon territory.
Kate GerbeauHOST
Yeah, and O- Ollie also points to the DragonFire laser system, which we're rolling out on Royal Navy ships and says, "We need these at each critical national infrastructure site.
Kate GerbeauHOST
We know it's definitely cheaper to use, doesn't run out of ammunition, but can we rely on it, Matthew?"
Matthew SavillGUEST
So, uh, directed energy is, is still being developed, or we've been looking at this for some time, so we've frankly been a bit slow.
Matthew SavillGUEST
So intercepting ballistic missiles is fiendishly difficult.
Matthew SavillGUEST
You're not doing it with directed energy, and in most cases, what you want to do is say, uh, "If it looks like you're attacking us with nuclear weapons, then we'll nuke you." [laughs] Um, basically.
Matthew SavillGUEST
DragonFire would be great against slower-moving targets, drones, some cruise missiles because you can keep the beam on it.
Kate GerbeauHOST
And of course, the, the other variable is where we choose to defend.