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Drones and a hybrid Navy: how the UK’s Armed Forces will change
Military experts have raised doubts about new plan for ‘cutting-edge capabilities’
“Equipping our forces, defending our future” – that’s the government’s core promise in its long-delayed defence investment plan.
The “game-changing” plan, finally published by the Ministry of Defence, will “strengthen our Armed Forces on land, at sea and in the air”, said Keir Starmer. The £15 billion of extra spending will provide “cutting-edge capabilities” to deter “evolving threats and keep the British people safe”.
But in among the rhetoric, there is concern over how much of a gamble the move to a “hybrid Navy” – with a greater focus on drone warfare – might turn out to be.
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The Royal Navy will move to a “hybrid” approach after the UK cancelled the planned purchase of expensive Type 83 destroyers in favour of “at least six” common combat vessels, which are earmarked to act as a “control hub” for a fleet of aerial, surface and underwater drones.
So “rather than concentrating capability in a small number of large, expensive ships”, the “hybrid Navy” will “mix crewed and uncrewed capabilities” and be “more suited to the pace and nature of modern warfare”, said the Ministry of Defence. This shift is among those that’s “likely to make the most waves”, said Breaking Defense.
With a hybrid Navy, “we’re absolutely taking both feet off the ground and leaping into the unknown”, retired Royal Navy commodore Steve Prest told BFBS Forces News. It’s “hugely risky” because “a lot of the technologies” haven’t been “put together in this way previously”, nor has it been proved they can “deliver this overall capability” in the way it is now required.
The hybrid approach is “being sold as a radical departure in British defence policy”, said Edward Stringer, a retired RAF officer, on The New Statesman, but the Royal Navy “has been here before”. As far back as the 1860s, HMS Warrior was a “hybrid ship” and the era “gave rise to its own hybrids” – vessels “with a steam engine, but with masts and sails just in case” and an “old-fashioned gun deck and trainable turrets”.
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What’s happening in the air?
For the Royal Air Force, the government announced a “new, national Collaborative Combat Air programme”. This would involve the development of “new autonomous fighter jets which will fly alongside crewed jets, to defend the UK’s skies”. It’s hoped this will begin by 2030.
Funds will be spent on a collaborative project with Italy and Japan to build the next generation of RAF stealth jets, but more than 30 Wildcat and Chinook helicopters will be axed. Storm Shadow cruise missiles will also be phased out.
Although some £790 million will go to protect the UK and its overseas bases from enemy missiles and drones, this is “a fraction of the sums of money that experts say would be required for a credible air defence system, like Israel’s Iron Dome”, said Sky News.
What about drones?
More than £5 billion is being invested in a “drone transformation” of the Armed Forces, which is “driven by lessons from Ukraine”, said the MoD. The UK military will be given inexpensive attack drones, which were hailed by a commander in the Ukrainian army as their “saviour” in the country’s war against Russia, said the BBC.
There will also be uncrewed ground vehicles, plus new armoured vehicles, with AI-enabled digital targeting. The plan states that these developments will increase “lethality” by a factor of 10.
Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.
