The Defence Investment Plan commits almost £250m to Project PANTHEON to build a Hybrid Carrier Air Wing, with jet-powered drones trialled under Project VANQUISH to fly alongside the F-35B and an autonomous early warning system for the carriers.
The Royal Navy will spend almost £250 million developing autonomous aircraft to fly from its two aircraft carriers alongside the F-35B, building what it calls a Hybrid Carrier Air Wing under a programme named Project PANTHEON, the Defence Investment Plan said.
The plan set the money aside for Project PANTHEON, which it described as the development of autonomous systems to begin building the hybrid air wing, and for trials of jet-powered drones to work with the F-35B force under a linked effort called Project VANQUISH, saying that the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers would be “exploiting uncrewed systems, such as CCAs, to augment the F-35B force.” CCA stands for collaborative combat aircraft, the term for the autonomous machines, often called loyal wingmen, that are meant to fly with crewed jets and take on a share of their work.
The two projects sit in the Royal Navy’s wider Maritime Aviation Transformation effort, which aims to move the Fleet Air Arm towards a largely uncrewed force by around 2040, and they take the place of earlier carrier-drone studies known as Project VIXEN and Project ARK ROYAL, both of which leaned on fitting catapults and arrestor wires to the carriers and have since been shelved.
PANTHEON is intended as an umbrella for a family of autonomous platforms spanning surveillance, strike and resupply, while VANQUISH is the more specific demonstrator, a jet-powered, high-subsonic aircraft that has to launch and recover from a carrier without catapults or arrestor gear and that is designed to be attritable enough to be risked in places a crewed jet would not be sent.
Are the carriers still getting the deck launched strike missiles as outlined in the SDR?
Hopefully not 😂
Daftest bit of the SDR
…… so no more F-35Bs then I assume.
Not for 250m.
I think the 12 F-35As are it for the next four years or so. The immediate emphasis is going to be unmanned fighters for both the RN and RAF. I fear Tempest will be the next new manned fighter/bomber, though it’s rumoured that unmanned operations may be designed into the plane?
Yep tempest from very start was ment to be able to be crewless
F35 is covered elsewhere in the DIP. Still talks of the next batch which includes F35A. To me that says more b’s are expected though how many is anyone’s guess.
Good news but £250 million won’t touch the sides in this.
The Royal Navy will spend almost £250 million developing an autonomous erection more like.
If you like me are struggling to keep all these pieces in your head, I had Claude read the DIP and produce this summary for me:
Headline figures
£298bn total defence investment over four years; £15bn additional/new funding (£11.6bn genuinely new cash, rest from estate rationalisation, reprioritised spending, Treasury absorbing other costs)
Budget to reach 2.7% of GDP by 2029, on a path to NATO’s 3.5% target by 2035
£50bn Defence Export Facility (UK Export Finance) to support UK defence exporters
Surface fleet — Type 45 / Type 83 / Common Combat Vessels
Type 83 destroyer programme abandoned entirely; no successor design exists beyond early concept work
Replaced by at least six Common Combat Vessels (CCVs) — smaller, cheaper crewed “hub” ships coordinating uncrewed systems, delivery from early 2030s
Reporting is contradictory on Type 45: some sources say formal retirement from 2035 with money redirected to CCVs; others (and the logic of ongoing PIP/Sea Ceptor/Sea Viper Evolution upgrades, all completing ~2032) point toward informal extension into the early-mid 2040s — unresolved, needs primary DIP text
£1.3bn additional into the hybrid fleet to replace Type 45 capability
Type 32 frigate programme also dropped/folded into the CCV concept
New uncrewed naval platforms — Type 91/92/93/94
Type 91: uncrewed missile platform (“arsenal ship”), dispersed missile capacity
Type 92: uncrewed underwater sensing platform, ASW-focused
Type 93: Extra-Large Uncrewed Underwater Vehicle (XLUUV), developed from the Excalibur programme
Type 94: uncrewed sensor platform — likely needs to be the largest of the four to carry a radar with useful height/range; whether distributed sensing can replace a single tall mast (à la SAMPSON) is an open, untested question
DIP funding is for design work only (National Armaments Director Group) — no hulls yet, all concept-stage
Amphibious capability — MRSS
Original MRSS concept (up to six ships, 25-40,000t, possible Mk41 VLS) abandoned as too complex/unaffordable
UK now pursuing a joint amphibious fleet with the Netherlands, built around the Dutch-led Amphibious Transport Ship (ATS) programme
Genuinely unclear whether this means a shared fleet or just a common design with separately-owned hulls — 2023 MoU proposed joint design, 2024 reporting said that was dropped in favour of “interoperability and commonality” only, most recent (last few days) reporting uses “joint effort”/”combined fleet” language again — treat as unresolved
ATS candidate designs include genuine through-deck/flat-top configurations (not just split well-deck/flight-deck like Albion/Bay) — would be a real flexibility gain if adopted; smaller than original MRSS ambition (Bay-class-ish size, not Albion-class)
Submarines — SSN-AUKUS and Dreadnought
£63bn over four years for the nuclear deterrent overall (Dreadnought-class, SSN-AUKUS, new warhead)
UK reconfirms “up to 12” SSN-AUKUS boats; steel to be cut on first boat at Barrow next year
Part of a 20-boat combined programme (UK 12 + Australia 8, separately owned, shared design, UK-sourced reactors under the Geelong Treaty) — would be the largest non-US submarine commitment in the world if delivered in full
Risk factors: no published total programme cost; reliance on an unproven 18-month build drumbeat at Barrow/Raynesway; current RN SSN fleet already strained (no boats at sea, several in low readiness as of late 2025); shared dependency with Dreadnought for yard capacity; Australian/US AUKUS politics
If delivered, would put the UK third in the world for SSN numbers, ahead of France, closing on China — described as a genuine “battleship-equivalent” capability uplift in modern naval terms
Infrastructure
£26bn over 10 years for Project Royal Oak — naval base upgrades at Faslane, Portsmouth, Devonport (biggest in 45+ years)
Programme EUSTON: three floating docks committed (one more than previously planned) — directly targets the dry-dock/lift bottleneck behind the submarine availability crisis
Aircraft
£8bn over four years for GCAP (next-gen stealth fighter with Japan/Italy)
12 F-35A aircraft to be purchased, joining NATO’s nuclear mission (separate from existing F-35B fleet)
Missiles / Air Defence / Mk41
~£11bn for stockpiles of long-range weapons, cruise missiles, one-way effectors; at least 6 new energetics factories by 2030
£790m over four years for homeland/overseas base air and missile defence — new defence ops centre, counter-drone systems, directed energy weapons, upgraded Type 45 missiles (Sea Viper-related)
Mk41 VLS integration onto Type 31 continues, alongside Naval Strike Missile and new gun ammunition for drone/surface defeat — pre-existing FADS spiral programme, reconfirmed rather than new
Sea Viper Evolution (Type 45 missile/radar upgrade) continuing, on track for ~2032 completion
Drones / digital / other
£5bn+ over four years for drone transformation tri-service; £650m specifically for cheap expendable autonomous systems (Army, Commando Force, Special Forces)
£500m+ for Commando Force modernisation (high-speed Joint Commando Craft, strike drones, High North/Arctic focus)
~£2bn for a new “Digital Targeting Web” (AI/software sensor-to-shooter integration)
£400m Multilateral Defence Mechanism (joint procurement with allies)
£500m Transformation Fund (workforce/AI productivity, reduced consultancy dependence)
£115m via DSIT for AI-related defence risk
Overall assessment
Genuine cash uplift at the budget level, but a real-terms reduction in committed crewed surface escort capability (T83, T32 gone; MRSS shrunk)
High-variance outcome: floor is a thinner surface fleet than today if execution falters (autonomy unproven, SSN-AUKUS build rate historically optimistic); ceiling is a navy with serious undersea offensive teeth, fixed infrastructure bottlenecks, and a genuinely novel hybrid surface concept — if everything lands without a hitch, the RN ends up in a materially better position than today, but that’s a bet on execution the UK doesn’t have a strong recent track record of winning
Nice one Levi/Claude.
I like simple lists, It’s easier to absorb In my Noggin !
You and me both! George and the team have written some fantastic articles today, but I was struggling to keep it all in my head
According to charts 2.7% starts from next year 2027 and flat for rest of the 2020s
There are some mistakes in that summary, though, so watch out.
For example, a 12 ship fleet would not put the UK in third position, it’d be fourth – the AI appears to have forgotten Russia.
True enough. If I had to guess, it skipped over Russia because their fleet size is impossible to verify, what’s a rusted out hulk and what limps on
Where did project Parthenon suddenly come from? Drone’s / loyal wingmen will accompany F35b’s. For £250 M project cost. Is this at all credible??
These CCAs might actually prove to be the fastest way to ‘add’ weapons we’re still waiting integration-of, such as the Meteor, to the F35. 😏
The Army gets kinda shafted as per usual outside of AD. Sky sabre doubling was already in the works but hopefully the 750m short range drone defense can have a chunk of “dual” use. Drone and short range AD. The one “new” item that I think sneaks in is a possible Patria buy. Under the Land Mobility Program there is a mention of a cost-effective versatile 6×6 armoured vehicle which all but says Patria to me.
The Patria looks very impressive.
Good to see “Continued investment in Typhoon as the core of the combat air capability into the 2040s”.
Also noting “Additional investment in new aircraft, crewed and uncrewed, to sustain and enhance
the UK’s combat air force”.