Bruce McPherson

Wreckage of a WING LOONG II reportedly shot down by a Turkish-made laser weapon in Libya in early Aug 19

Over the weekend I was intrigued to read a report posted by Army Recognition on 12 Aug entitled ‘Turkey uses laser weapon technology to shoot down Chinese UAV Wing Loong II in Libya,’ referring to an incident from 3 Aug 19. I tweeted about it, asking the question about why it had gone past largely unreported by mainstream commentators and traditional defence and aerospace press. It picked up quite a lot of interest over the weekend but nobody was able to add any further credibility to the initial source.

As this was of professional interest to me I did a little bit of reading to establish what was known about the reported engagement as this would represent the first use of a laser-based weapon to successfully shoot down an armed, unmanned combat ISR platform in combat. It was even more interesting due to the role-call of countries and actors directly or indirectly involved: Libya, GNA, LNA, UAE, Turkey, China - and not the usual major power proponents of military innovation.

It is reported that a UAE-operated, Chinese-manufactured MALE RPAS UCAV was engaged and shot down by a Turkish-built directed energy weapon, a vehicle-mounted laser, in Libya.

The USA and Russia may have more advanced directed energy weapons (DEW) programmes, however as the author of the Army Recognition article, Alexander Timokhin, points out: “ground-based combat vehicles with tactical-level lasers are not being built and used in Russia or the United States. This is done by the Turks.”

Libyan GNA forces had issued a statement and crash site photographs via Facebook on 3 Aug claiming they had shot down the RPAS near Misrata, reproduced here. It was also picked up by Akshita Aggarwal on Twitter the same day. But the incident has received very little mainstream commentary or analysis in the past fortnight in spite of, or perhaps due to, the involvement of non-traditionally dominant players in a complex theatre that attracts surprisingly little media coverage.

The US does not expect to install a production-standard laser-based weapon until 2021, on the destroyer USS Preble, although USS Ponce deployed to the Gulf in 2014 with AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System and was authorised to employ it defensively.

In the UK a contract for the so-called Dragonfire laser weapon demonstrator was awarded in 2017 to an industry grouping managed by dstl and including UK-based weapons heavyweights. This demonstration was limited to assessing viability of laser weapons technology from the perspective of SWAP and effectiveness and is due to deliver a prototype capability demonstrator before the end of 2019.

In parallel to the capability demonstration, MoD is moving ahead with a procurement programme for directed energy weapons including laser, but has yet to get as far as the demonstration phase, only releasing a Prior Information Notice in Jul 19 and not expecting to move to trials until 2023.

Turkish manufacturers Aselsan and Roketsan have both sold production-standard DEW C-UAS systems. iHLS comment that the Turkish system used in this 3 Aug engagement in Libya was mounted on an off-road armoured car chassis and equipped with a Turkish-made optoelectronic guidance system that allows accurate aimpoint selection and holds the laser energy to the same point throughout the engagement, employing a continuous radiation mode without long interruptions to the “pumping” of the laser. If the reports are credible, this incident marks the realisation of a new threat vector to MALE RPAS operations that we should anticipate to proliferate rapidly outside the control of the ITAR regime.

Philip J.

Senior ISR Expert at Inzpire Ltd | UK ISR Warfare School graduate | RAF Reserves Officer