In a speech in Paris earlier this week, Eric Béranger, the chief executive of MBDA, a leading missile maker, proposed that European nations “work together” on the development of laser weapon systems.
Britain, France, Germany and Italy are each pursuing their own military directed energy weapon capabilities.
Béranger entertained the possibility of eventual government-level cohesion: “I am convinced that at some point in time those nations will decide to cooperate. But today is not the case.”
Strategists are finding opportunities that the nascent technology can address in the modern battlespace: laser systems are principally used to counter uncrewed air systems (C-UAS) and drone-swarming tactics.
Likewise, firing laser systems costs far less than the endless consumption of conventional munitions, the supply of which Ukraine’s armed forces are struggling to maintain against invading Russian forces in a costly war of attrition.
The British DragonFire system, which the previous Conservative government pledged to integrate on Royal Navy warships by 2027, costs £10 ($12.93) per shot.
“At the moment we are on 50-100kw,” a laser weapons expert at MBDA Germany told this reporter in late 2023. But this “could eventually surpass the level of megawatts, whereas now we are on kilowatts.”
MBDA to lead the way in lasers
“MBDA is trying to be the channel [among] each of these nations so that when they decide to cooperate, we stand a chance to make it easier and made in a more clever way,” Béranger said.
Currently, the pan-European defence group has a finger in every pie, from DragonFire in the UK alongside QinetiQ and Leonardo; a German demonstrator it developed with Rheinmetall; acquiring a stake in CILAS, the manufacturer of France’s HELMA-P solution; as well as delivering Italy’s Fire Unit Directed Energy Weapon.
The group is positioned well to direct the industrial cooperation behind any collective effort in the future.
During his speech, the MBDA chief recalled that cooperation “is in our DNA,” as MBDA was formed from of an Anglo-French effort to develop the Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missile.
“The advantage is that those teams didn’t need to learn again how to create a cooperation for the following cooperations – cooperation is not easy.”
Right now, MBDA is the only European supplier that can feasibly deliver sovereign systems at a time when US security guarantees are waning. In fact, Béranger intimated that “every time our customers want us to be desensitised [from the American supply chain], we can do that.”
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