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British Military Laser Death Ray Cannon Contract Still Awarded, MoD Confirms

posted by on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the for-defense-only dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

The Ministry of Defence has today re-announced for the third time that it has awarded a £30m contract to build a [large] laser cannon for zapping the Queen's enemies.

Originally awarded in July 2016 to the Dragonfire consortium, the Laser Directed Energy Weapons (LDEW) contract immediately stalled after a challenge to the contract award by an unknown number of losing companies.

The MoD eventually settled the contract dispute last September, stating at the time that the deal had gone through.

While exciting, in the way that setting about an old shed with a sledgehammer and a couple of gallons of petrol is exciting, the LDEW project is certainly not new.

The Dragonfire consortium – made up of BAE Systems, Leonardo (formerly known as Finmeccanica, parent company of infamous British helicopter firm AgustaWestland), Cambridge-based Marshall Defence and Aerospace, and Hampshire-based defence research company Qinetiq – is charged with building the demonstrator weapon, and a working prototype is hoped for by 2019.

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Pax on Sunday January 08 2017, @03:44PM

    by Pax (5056) on Sunday January 08 2017, @03:44PM (#451048)

    A working prototype of a "laser death ray cannon" in just three years? Seems a bit optimistic for a government contract. They tend to be milked to the last pound - and £30m is probably not the end of the road for a laser cannon.

    well yeah but if you actually READ it.... you'll see that the 30 million is for the working prototype

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