UK MoD announces fully funded plan to mount DragonFire LDEW on Type 45 destroyers by 2027

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced that a fully funded plan is in place to mount the developmental DragonFire laser-directed energy weapon (LDEW) on four of the UK Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers.

The plan was outlined by UK Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard on 26 March 2025 and has been facilitated by an announcement by UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves, made on the same day, that an additional GBP 2.2 billion (EUR 2.64 billion) will be made available to the MoD in the next financial year as a further down-payment on the UK government’s plan to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2027.

At this stage it is not yet known which Type 45 destroyers will receive the DragonFire installations, but Pollard indicated that the plan is to have them in place by 2027.

The UK MoD had announced on 12 April 2024 that the UK DragonFire LDEW – developed by MBDA in conjunction with Leonardo UK, QinetiQ and the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) – would be installed on Royal Navy warships. At the time, however, the plan was only to install the DragonFire systems from 2027 onwards.

The MoD announced on 19 January 2024 that a DragonFire LDEW demonstrator had successfully conducted firing trials against aerial targets at a range in the Hebrides.

The UK DragonFire programme leverages MBDA’s decades of weapon system manufacturing expertise, Leonardo’s position as a world-leading authority in laser technology, electro-optics and advanced targeting, and QinetiQ’s experience as the only UK company to successfully develop and safely operate high-energy laser sources in the UK along with coherent beam-combining technology.

DragonFire has been developed through a GBP 100 million joint investment by industry and the UK MoD, working with Dstl. The system has the potential to be a long-term, low-cost alternative to certain tasks missiles currently carry out. It uses a 50 kW-class laser to deliver its effect, with its performance said by the development team to be ‘equivalent to hitting a GBP 1 coin from kilometres away’, all while the target is moving at speed –with the platform possibly also moving – and while delivering enough dwell time on the targeted point to deliver an effect.

On 11 December 2024 Raytheon UK announced that its High-Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) had completed a successful live-firing with the British Army directed against moving aerial targets. This system was mounted on a Wolfhound 6×6 protected patrol vehicle.

The vehicle-mounted laser trials were part of a joint programme between Raytheon UK and Team Hersa: the joint LDEW enterprise between Dstl and the UK MoD’s Defence Equipment and Support organisation.