The UK has taken delivery of more than 8,000 uncrewed systems since July 2024 as part of a £450 million investment in drones and related technologies, according to Defence Minister Luke Pollard.
Responding to a series of written parliamentary questions from Conservative MP James Cartlidge, Pollard said the spending does not include support to Ukraine and is focused on UK capability.
“The Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) spend of over £450 million on drones does not include spend in support of Ukraine,” he said, adding that “over £300 million of the total spend was on uncrewed systems research and development, and the remaining spent on uncrewed system procurement.”
Pollard confirmed that “the MOD has had delivery of over 8,000 uncrewed systems since July 2024,” but declined to provide a detailed breakdown of platforms or roles.
“Due to operational security considerations, it is important to guard against the threat of adversary data aggregation regarding the specific detailed breakdown of UK military capability, including platform numbers and types, so it would be inappropriate to comment further,” he said.
The refusal covers multiple areas raised in the questions, including the number of drones procured by category such as reconnaissance, logistics, FPV and long-range one-way attack systems, as well as the number of contracts signed and the proportion of spending directed towards UK industry.
Pollard did confirm that the Ministry of Defence is working with a broad industrial base, stating that “the MOD works with over 60 companies to deliver drones for defence, 17 of which are British companies,” but added that the department was “unable to provide a figure of total drone contracts at this time.”
Good stuff. We probably have no idea how prepared we are for a war because all the things people want are possibly for fighting a style of war that doesn’t exist any more. Cyber and autonomous are the new way. We also have GCAP, new frigates, new subs on the way. It’s never enough obviously but when has any country ever been prepared for a war in reality? Seems that most people just want more assets and counts to use to argue with others in comment sections. I’m glad we are an island nation. We can learn a lot from Ukraine but no one is rolling a load of tanks over our borders. And the Daily Mail crowd can stay terrified of the made up numbers of small boats but as soon as they mention it, they have given away their susceptibility to bullshit fear mongering propaganda.
Nice rose tinted glasses you have there bud.
It’s not about arguing in comments sections, people are genuinely concerned and frustrated at the lack of any defence movement. Look at the answers once again provided in Parliament above, obfuscation and misdirection whilst hiding behind the cloak of operational security so they don’t actually have to be held to account. 8,000 sounds great, but compare it to the almost 250,000 that we’ve supplied to Ukraine and that it’s around 1 days worth of drone usage over there.
Yes the government should be forced to tell everyone on the internet exactly how many drones we have and of which type.
This will help boost our nation’s security. Secrecy sucks and does not help anyone sell anymore news papers.
In the interim let’s all assume that no one in the military knows what they are doing and that we are all doomed 😀
I am pleased to see sarcasm isn’t dead 🙂
I suspect you know full well I don’t mean listing off our inventory for all to see, and also that it’s not about the media. There needs to be some accountability. It’s an increasing trend in Parliament that operational security is used as an excuse to hide behind when answering questions about capabilities, it helps nobody when used as a shield against criticism.
I’d argue that in some future world where DIP is published and we’ve made some substantial drone orders, if Pollard et al stood up and announced we have procured 100k FPV drones it would have somewhat of a deterrent effect, especially if coupled with a coherent expansive policy to reform and rearm the armed forces as a whole.
It sort of depends.. deterrence requires communication of capabilities to an extent you have to put your wares on display, to put it crudely say “ come on if you think you’re hard enough “…
It’s possible when they say un-crewed systems they are talking about larger things than Shahed drones so that’s probably not a reasonable comparison to make with the 250k you mentioned. Also as you said, we supplied them with that 250k so we have that capability. As Jim has mentioned, secrecy is important here. One thing history has shown is that no one is ever prepared for a war that might not come, it’s not economically viable to fully prepare for war. As much as we all love fast jets and warships, we realistically can’t afford to have a US style military or anything close. We also don’t need it. Any war we fight will be with NATO, at least the European part of it.
Appreciate the reply mate, and apologies for my rose tinted comment, it was made before a cuppa and as we all know, that comes first 🙂
You are of course correct, they could be referring to larger systems but I suspect it’s probably more the case that every single thing they can think of to include to bump the numbers up to 8,000 is being added. That is the pessimist in me talking, but over he last few years he’s probably closer to the mark.
Nobody is prepared for war as you say, even when they’re the aggressor, look at Russia, but there are things you can do to be as ready as possible and I don’t think it’s unfair to say the UK is unprepared with only the Royal Navy seeing any upward trajectory (T26 x 1, T31 maybe x 4) in this Parliament.
What about block 4 Typhoon & the F35bs.. The RAF is doing ok even if we need an extra squadron of the 35s.
Secrecy does not deter… you don’t hide your ballistic missile submarines.. you make sure everyone knows they are out there and loaded..
Deterrent requires communication, if you keep your capabilities secret then an aggressive enemy will not be deterred and will start a war thinking you are weak..
It all depends on what you want to accomplish, if you are planning to go to war then you hide your strength.. this is the present Chinese paradigm because they are planning a war.. it’s why most people think china does not have a blue water navy… ( the PLAN market that).
But if you are trying to prevent war.. it’s the opposite you show your strength infact as much as is wise you overplay your strength and only hide your weakness…
A classic example is the opium wars.. and why did China not realise it started a war with an unstoppable superpower, no nation starts a war of choice it has no chance of winning. Essentially for various reasons there was no effective deterrence towards China, so China had no idea of the a monster the RN was, if on the other hand you look at the US, throughout the 19c the US knew exactly how powerful the RN was and what would happen if it tried for Canada.Because the RN was there at all times as a reminder and even through the US was constantly essentially at war and aggressively expanding during the 19c due to the manifest destiny paradigm after the 1812 war the US never went for Canada again.
“Due to operational security considerations, it is important to guard against the threat of adversary data aggregation regarding the specific detailed breakdown of UK military capability, including platform numbers and types, so it would be inappropriate to comment further,” he said.
How convenient eh when questions are posed in regard to our readiness and capability.
I agree RR, if you read the crap the main stream media reports that many internet commentators lap up, you would think that British forces are really stupid and somehow spend £60 billion a year on nothing.
The same group seemed genuinely shocked that the MoD had not deemed to inform the internet that we had the RAF regiment operating a completely undisclosed air defence system in the gulf because “all RAF bases are defenceless”
I’m amazed how some people who claim to be patriots instantly jump to the worst case scenario when thinking about their own country and the forces guarding it.
Take surface ships as an example, I’m all for more frigates and clearly the current fleet is too small, however after seeing what is on offer this week in terms of private sector drones I’m genuinely considering that the projected number of 19 surface combatants may be sufficient.
If Hormuz has shown us anything it is that large warships are impotent close to shore and now struggle at the basic job of keeping sea lanes open.
The MoD has had access to this information for several years before we are getting it and it’s now very easy to see why Atlantic bastion is being prioritised and why maybe we don’t see an order for a dozen more frigates because SDR 98 sid we need 32 and this must still be the case.
I think the much criticised batch 2 River OPV design was the right direction; large flat working area + crane. It just needs to be bigger. Like a large oil rig platform supply vessel. The fixed part of the Bastion sensor network will be like North Sea production platforms. They need periodic servicing. Can double up as MCM mothership and OPV. 12 off.
Jim unfortunately i think your view of the subject is overly optimistic and too binary for the complexity of the situation.
Yes we have an air defense system in the middle east that is capable of taking down drones (with missiles 50 times the price of the drones) and aircraft or subsonic missiles. The problem is that in the layering of air defence that is needed today we are only really capable of dealing with the lower-mid end of the missile spectrum. We can counter planes, drones, subsonic (below Mach 1) and some supersonic missiles (between Mach 1-3). Our ballistic missile (such as the ones Iran is using to target Israeli and US bases) and hypersonic missile defense is non-existent unfortunately and despite our current ongoing efforts to upgrade the ASTER missiles to counter ballistic threats we still will not have an answer for hypersonic missiles.
So in a scenario where we fight a near peer adversary we would not be able to stop them from either hitting our aircraft carriers if they are in range of hypersonic missiles or even defend London from ballistic missile attack.
Fundamentally true sadly, though I think that there is a range of passive and destructive Shaheed drone defence systems in the Gulf that don’t fire extremely expensive missiles that aren’t detailed but are the result of experience in Ukraine. Not enough mind which is why the Ukranians are taking advantage with defence deals there. But then they are the specialists now.
To know how prepared we are for war this is what Lord Robinson said Speaking in Salisbury, he said: “We are under-prepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack. We are not safe… Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.” and this is a labour lord and former NATO chief. Not sure where you’re getting your info from.
Not enough… probably by a factor of 10! That’s one thing the Ukraine war is showing us!
Good thing we aren’t at war and don’t have any land borders with hostile countries to defend. Russian drones have a long way to go to get to us. Ukraine can teach us a lot but anyone comparing our situations like for like is incredibly naive.
On this I tend to agree, we don’t need a massive stock of drones sitting around, we need a sufficient stock and importantly the capability to generate many, thousands ramped up quickly. Drones produced now may well be ineffective even in a year or two without updates and mods so having a 100 thousand sitting around will be like having a thousand Fairey Battles in hangers in 1939. One of the good news items in my view is that we have/are producing that capacity and in wartime for example our F1 sector and electronic businesses more generally would be brought in to generate all manner of capable upgradable platforms pretty quickly to add to the mix.
What really matters is
1) how well practiced are our forces in fighting in a drone saturated environment
2) what is our production ramp for tactical drones.. Russia our enemy produces 35-40k per month.
3) can our UK air defence stand off the scale of attack Russia can now undertake with strategic drones and cruise missiles.. that’s 5000-6000 drone a month and 100-200 cruise missiles a month attacking the UK
4) how many tactical systems can we produce in a month to fire back at Russia and what is the industrial output ramp.
Having 8000 drones is to be honest nothing.. their only purpose is to practice doctrine.. Russia and Ukraine burn more than 8000 drones in a week..
I’m not sure it’s completely sunk in fully but if your enemy can throw 5000 strategic drones at your country a month and you don’t have the 1000s of effectors to shoot them down every month and if you cannot throw back many thousands of strategic drones you are going to loss the war… it will take a long time but in the end you lose.