The British Army’s 3rd Division has demonstrated how it intends to fight in the near future at an Armoured Expo event on Salisbury Plain, showing how autonomous ground vehicles, drones and soldiers will operate together as an integrated force across land, air, sea, space and cyberspace, according to the Army.
The event brought to life the vision set out by Chief of the General Staff General Sir Roly Walker for an Army that will be more lethal and harder to defeat by changing the way it uses weapons and vehicles. Under that vision, 20 per cent of the Army’s fighting power will come from tough armoured vehicles designed to carry soldiers and survive on the battlefield, 40 per cent from uncrewed robots and drones that are cheaper to produce and replaceable if destroyed, and 40 per cent from simple, low-cost drones and missiles designed to be used once and discarded, produced in large numbers to generate mass on the battlefield.
Major General Olly Brown, General Officer Commanding 3rd Division, told industry partners the Army faced “a demanding challenge to be ready to fight, pick apart, and destroy a Russian warfighting enterprise” and was clear that it could not do so alone, saying “we cannot do that alone; we must do it with our mission partners” and adding that the Army would not generate the capability needed to thrive on the battlefield “without you.”
The event included immersive experiences designed to put guests directly into a simulated fight with the enemy, making clear the progress made by the Iron Division and its industry partners, alongside a live demonstration of how autonomous armoured ground vehicles, drones and soldiers will work together. Industry partners also ran workshops giving a preview of innovative equipment in development, with soldiers testing kit and providing feedback to help refine capabilities in the months ahead.
Closing the event, Brown said he was “immensely grateful for our mission partners’ openness, challenge, and creativity” and that when joined with the imagination, professional skill and discipline of soldiers, it generated “an unbeatable battle-winning team.”
This has been repeated for years.
When is the order for tens of thousands of assorted UGV taking place?
The Mission Master has been trialled for years, then seemingly discarded?
Vital as Drones now are, I worry this 20% lark is a ready made excuse to not buy artillery, armoured vehicles, and other standard kit.
Yep it’s all very well saying 20 40 40 but they need to actually practice and develop their doctrine..
That means buying and using a huge number of drone for each battalion battle group.
You do have to wonder if this 20 40 40 approach needs a complete redesign of the brigade battle groups and battalion battle groups..
If 20% of the power of a battle group is traditional combined arms formations then it’s an utter rethink..
will a heavy brigade be deployed as a whole ( 1 MBT regiment 2 heavy Mec battalions) ?s
Or will a formation in a drone saturated battlefield be squadron sized MBT formation backing up by Mec infantry companies and cavalry as the 20%…
Infact is the light cavalry and light Mec now the formations you need in that 20,40,40 mix and MBTs and armoured infantry because very niche capabilities.. to big, to obvious and to expensive in a world full of drones.
It’s all bollocks, the blokes just hoping that when the shit hits the fan he will be elsewhere… The only truth is we can’t do it alone… For me that is sick…
Im thinking the move to drones will actually save our bacon now. Our light role infantry would really struggle on the battlefield, lets be honest. However, if they are absolutely stacked with drones and one way effectors they could be very relevant. Ukraines drone wall is doing a great job and their infantry is very thin on a 1000km front.