Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, has said that a planned stockpile of 7,000 cruise missiles would be one of the most consequential improvements in UK defence capability outlined in the latest Strategic Defence Review.
Speaking before the House of Commons Defence Committee, Admiral Radakin described the acquisition as a critical step in increasing the UK’s conventional lethality and reinforcing deterrence at a time of growing global instability.
“We are not as lethal as we want to be,” he told MPs. “If you go up the scale, you get to Storm Shadow and Tomahawk, and then you have a big leap before you get to a nuclear weapon.”
“If you are in a position like mine and you are trying to advise the Prime Minister, you want to have as many rungs on the ladder as possible before you get to the nuclear rung. The ability to have at least 7,000 cruise missiles and to launch them is on a different scale to what we currently have.”
Radakin described the cruise missile expansion as a “crystallised example” of practical changes needed “very quickly” under the Government’s defence reform plans.
Pressed by Labour MP Derek Twigg on which aspects of the Strategic Defence Review would make the most practical difference on the ground, Radakin singled out the cruise missile procurement as the top priority.
The Strategic Defence Review published earlier this year includes major shifts in UK force posture, missile stockpiles, and command structures. These reforms are intended to meet the challenges posed by near-peer adversaries such as Russia and emerging threats in the Indo-Pacific.
In a later exchange, Labour MP Fred Thomas asked Radakin whether the UK’s NATO-first posture could relieve some of the pressure on a stretched armed forces. He cited high levels of commitment across multiple theatres and longstanding issues with retention.
Radakin acknowledged these pressures but said that restructuring how exercises are delivered could offer some relief.
“There are not many things that we are going to stop doing. We will make some adjustments. For some of the smaller unit-level exercises, we will try to push those together to be part of bigger NATO exercises,” he said.
He pointed to recent large-scale activities such as Steadfast Dart and Steadfast Defender, which involved 16,000 personnel, as examples of how the Army is scaling operations while aligning with NATO’s deterrence posture.
However, he admitted that operational planning had too often failed to give personnel predictable deployments or recovery periods.
“The piece for me is when we did not give you notice that you might be going away again or promised that you would come back from deployment and would have four months to recover. We need to get those right and maybe deny some opportunities, but get a bit of a steadier approach. It feels like we have to do that.”
The 7,000 cruise missiles are expected to include new UK-manufactured long-range strike systems as well as expanded stocks of existing missiles such as Storm Shadow and Tomahawk. Further announcements on delivery timelines and integration with Royal Navy and Royal Air Force platforms are expected later this year.
Well a nice idea but where is the money coming from to pay for that many missiles. The cost would be insane.
Stormshadow is cheaper than tomahawks but your still talking a million a shot, so £7b, that’s a whole lot of cash.
That’s why the defence review was conducted on a budget reaching 3% of GDP in 5 years or so.
£7 billion is not alot of money in that context.
When you are ordering that many missiles produced to a commercial timeframe then costs will fall substantially.
Agreed. They certainly should cost far less for a substantial number. We need a fairly automated production line which can produce these missilles and for many years to come. Combined with cheaper methods of bringing down mass drone attacks this should do nicely. It is important to ensure we can place a protective shield around whatever we need and do so for a prolonged period of time.
We’re not starting from zero, at least. I’d assume 7,000 is the total number, so would include however many Storm Shadows, Tomahawks etc we currently have in our inventory.
It’s also going to take several years to get to the state of being where we have 7,000 missiles in our arsenal, so the cost will be spread out over those years. Say if it’s £5-7 billion total, spread out over a decade, then it’ll be more affordable, and the defence budget is increasing so I assume at least some of it will be allocated towards that.
Presumably RN NSMs are included in this figure. Also worth noting that Anduril have been developing a cheaper cruise missile with the intent to provide the numbers if not the range and technology of more expensive options.
You are joking of course.
Christmas in six months. I’ll ask Santa.
7,000 cruise missiles WILLL NOT deter russia
We dont need to deter Russia, they arent going to attack the UK.
James, they deployed in Salisbury and they can take out key UK installations with drones hidden in a Transit van operated by mercenaries. No amount of missiles can stop such actions. Putin may not be in a good place right now as Ukraine continues to hit key targets well inside Russia and the population is getting nervous, according to some new agencies. If there is a 360 change in Russia’s foreign policy, much of the spark of the UK SDR will begin to lose impetus, it’s inevitable.
Well said, Well spoken 🫡💯
If Russia’s population is getting nervous is launching attacks on a Nuclear powered nation going to settle that, no its the last thing they are going to do.
Salisbury was a hit on one of Putin’s cronies he was not happy with, it was an attack on UK soil yes but it was not an attack on the UK itself. Some sloppy work of spies is a different situation.
Definitely they could take out installations with drones, thats the reality of war now which we are not prepared for. If they can do it to us we can easily do it to them, goes both ways. Look at the hassle of Heathrow without a power substation, was that an accident? Then Spain with a power outage, accident? Debatable.
“It was not an attack on the UK itself.”
Yeah that’s not how that works tovaritsch, you unleash chemical weapons on the territory of another state, even if it’s primary target is one of your citizens, that’s an attack on that country, regardless of whom it hits.
But that of course is irrelevant because they also hopsitalised multiple British citizens.
Can they?
Do you honestly think we’re going to just let a bunch of Wagner Group or similar into the country and set this up? That we don’t have intelligence services who’d find out about such a plan and wouldn’t work with Border Force or Immigration to intercept them?
Even if they managed it, it would be an act of war and we would invoke Article 5. All of NATO then goes to war and Russia is f*cked! Their continued presence in Ukraine would be measured in weeks at most. This is basically poking a tiger and pissing it off. It’s not going to end well.
And they’ll be hard-pressed to do this during war against us/NATO, because our borders would rapidly be closed to any Russian citizens. They could try to sneak in by boat but a) it’s a big risk as the Channel is monitored and b) how are they going to get all those drones across the Channel as well? Enough drones to do anything more than a bee sting?
Deterrent is all about have the capability to inflict very significant pain at a strategic level on a nation.. the available to deliver 7000 Cruise missiles into Russian infrastructure is probably the biggest conventional deterrent you could bring to the table. Deterrent is all about pain..because you win wars by inflicting more pain on a nation than it’s willing to take.
Exactly.
7,000 accurate missiles a few of which might get shot down.
And they will be @ 90% FtK so 6,300 targets gone.
The point is to be able to volley say 500 in a first hit which will pulverise their ability to do anything as it will be all their C2, weapons dumps, fuel dumps, rail heads and key bridges gone in one go.
Yep and then volley again and again 14 times hit them every week month in month out for a quarter of a year..with the industrial capacity to build a new volley of 500 every month.. no nation on earth is going to war against that or risking that.
No, but they will degrade the ability of the Russian Army to maintain any sort of advance into Europe.
Ummm yes it really really will.
I would expect, for example, if there was 7000 tier 1 strike weapons, there would by various factors, many more tier 2 and 3 etc weapons like those presently employed in Ukraine.
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The deterrence aspect also comes from the being resolute too. By this, I mean a step-change in the when weapons are employed. No more inches should be given. You (i.e. the enemy…and lets face it russia and china here) move towards (e.g. mobilise) or onto (i.e. invade by even a millimetre – sorry for the change in imperial to metric!) then give no quarter.
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Some say, russia china respect strength, this is not true. Replace respect with fear. Fear where they may loose. Loose in battle. In war. In control. Life. History shows, this is a slipper slope.
THere’s not much point in having 7000 missiles sitting around vulnerable to a first strike, so how about doing some air defences first? I know it may come as news to HMG, but I’m not sure six Sky Sabre systems are enough to protect all critical military and industrial sites in the country.
Russia has very limited ability to undertake a first strike on the UK.. it may be able to surge a couple of SSGN/SSN into the North Sea ( within 500kms ) and fire maybe 50 cruises missiles ( Maybe.. at risks of losing those platforms). If it tried to use its long range strategic strike aircraft against the UK it would loss them.. it may have a handful of intermediate range ballistic missiles it could use..
But how does it target mobile platforms ?
In reality the UK has better delivery platforms than Russia, if that is joined by a 2000km + missile russsia would be hard pressed to keep fighting the UK..
Essentially you have to remember any UK Russian conflict would essentially go down to sea control, air control and who can fling more strategic conventional weapons at the other.
It’s also worth noting there are A LOT of NATO targets for Russia to aim ordinance at in Europe, and a limited amount of Russian ordinance.
Complacency is rife in the MOD and on this site – Russia could simply park a container ship or 2 off the coast of Norfolk, Lossie and the Humber containing a few hundred drones each and they can remove our MARPAT, OCA/ DCA in one swift action.
RU has the capability for a first strike – it’s not difficult
Could.. would.. maybe.. that’s why you have intelligence services.. essentially Pakistan could first strike with this method.. hell even the DRC could give it a go… we also have the capability to first strike and if we have 7000 cruise missiles that would utterly devastating.. what would you prefer we learn Russian ?
Also drones are generally very very sensitive to soft kill.. and that specific game has now been played by Ukraine,.. everyone is going to be planning to prevent that.
And yet they haven’t done that to Ukraine. Which indicates to me that either they’re not as capable of doing it as you say or they didn’t think of it.
Ukraine played that card brilliantly but it’s going to be extremely difficult to pull off again and every military around the world is already looking at ways to counter that.
In time of war do you honestly think that we’re going to just allow Russia to park a container ship off our coasts? Absolutely not. Either a frigate, submarine, or jet with missiles will sink those ships faster than you can say “Moskva!”
If you mean as an opening salvo then that’s an act of war. We’d declare Article 5 and all of NATO goes to war. Putin knows that and even he’s not so stupid as to risk that.
I agree Steve – not sure they’ve thought about it – the concept is easily applicable to maritime. In a scenario where we have the loss of assets and crews at Lossie, Marham and Con and the US under Trump pulling back from NATO I’m not sure what the response would/ could be. GBAD is needed at these bases.
After the question was asked, MP Twigg realised he was barking up the wrong tree, there will not be the money for a new branch of missile defence unless we get to the root of the problem. It’ll be spring before we see any shoots of new growth and that’s only if no one in Radakins department, leaves.
However, at least the seed was sowed.
Look, it’s hard to do this stuff all the time, Buy me a coffee?
After the question was asked, MP Twigg realised he was barking up the wrong tree, there will not be the money for a new branch of missile defence unless we get to the root of the problem. It’ll be spring before we see any shoots of new growth and that’s only if no one in Radakins department, leaves.
However, at least the seed was sowed.
Well that was odd.
“We type in strange times”.
Time to branch out?
Time to Log off more like !
Building a 2000Km Storm shadow that can be launched from a truck launcher is a piece of piss. We should just start this now. Combine that with some dumber cheaper cruise missiles and job done.
For this reason it won’t happen. The MOD will Fanny about as always because someone in the army, navy or airforce will think they can’t get a few more quid for what ever personal project they have.
Yep as it will get the GUCCI treatment
We need a Hi Low mix.
Mass produced Storm Shadow + variants old established tech so cheaper….
Then smaller number of the new super duper hyper/super sonic Anglo French missiles.
Sounds simple
If only we could find the right acronym 🤔😀
SS+?
Cruise missiles, great but you need to deploy them and assets across all 3 services are stretch with OOD kit needing replacing or upgrading to accommodate the launch and targeting systems. With that in mind, new kit needs to be advanced such as DD/FF/SSN and Typhoon replacements, we can’t wait until 2036/2040!!
NATO first is cobblers.
We’ve been NATO first for how many decades?
Relieving pressure on a stretched armed forces?
Let’s take the east:
A Gurkha Battalion, School, and Flight in Brueni.
British Gurkhas Nepal.
2 OPV.
Kipion in gulf with what few MCMV remain.
Base infrastructure at JLB Singapore, Diego Garcia ( tiny )
And sites in Oman and the Gulf.
Been there long before the often criticised “tilt to the Pacific”
No savings of note to be had withdrawing.
Beyond that, our minimal force level in the south Atlantic, and training areas in Canada, Belize, Kenya.
The MP, as so often,is clueless.
Withdrawals won’t alleviate stretch.
Recruiting more people across all 3 services will.
This is interesting, because although the defence posture is nato first, this statement and programme is not really nato first.. it’s useful to NATO but it’s not nato first..
The SDR very much did put home defence at the very top, with it being listed number 1 clearly for a reason. Evidence for this is the big ticket items.. massive investment in home integrated air defence, protection of the Atlantic and 7000 long range missiles and 12 SSNs, that is all UK first 1) for an island the ability to inflict large amounts of long range pain on any prospective enemy is very much a key to home defence…2) being able to defend against long range attack with home air defence is UK first, 3) being able to keep the Atlantic open is UK first 4) SSNs are the cold hand of death at sea and a must for an island nation to both destroy any sea based risks and strangle any nation that attacks it… pure nato first would be more armoured brigades delivered into Europe, more deployable front line tactical air. Amphibious forces to re enforce tha northern flank etc.
The focus on integrated air defence linked to this 7000 cruise missile idea + SSNs + keeping the Atlantic open is very much part of a home first paradigm and sort of indicates that at the very back of peoples mind is how does the UK fight Russia if NATO is not fully committed..or possibly how does the UK make sure Russia does not try and single out the UK for undue harm.
Because the reality is Russia would probably not want to engage in a long range strategic exchange conventional weapons against a nation that has pretty much an unlimited arsenal of conventional strategic weapons and that is what 7000 would represent.
7000 long range (essentially strategic) cruise missiles is an insanely large arsenal by even superpower standards..
To put this into perspective china is aiming a Sunday punch at the US western pacific military power that includes 400 ground launches cruise missiles, 900 short range ballistic missiles, 1300 medium range, 500 intermediate range missiles probably around 2000 air launched cruise missiles but these have a range of around 200km only.
Russia has a total air, ground and sea launched long range missile stocks of no more than 1000 in total.. and they are all generally 500-600km range wespons..
7000 cruise missiles is a catastrophe for any nation, no national infrastructure would survive that intact.. .and it’s a profound statement if it happens. But not only that the manufacturing requirements to make that happen would also be a profound deterrent.. Russia can manage about 75-100 long range missiles per month best effort so 7000 is the equivalent of about 7 years of Russian production at a wartime rate…
The concern would be how do you deliver this
SSNs realistically an astute can only launch 24 tomahawks. So two asutes would give you 50 missiles.. but they could launch those tomahawks deep into Russia from the safety of the North Sea and be back home within a day for reloading.
Having the carrier with 3 squadrons of F35 in the Norwegian Sea area would essentially give the UK air dominance and allow it attack using typhoon squadrons as well as surface combatants the ability to attack as well
Land based very long range cruise missiles 2000km+ ( you would want 2500km )
I agree, it’s pretty obvious NATO massively over matches Russia in any regard. Many of these aspects are about allowing Britain to defend itself and strike back with capabilities that just so happen to be useful to NATO.
That’s why the missiles are so long ranged. We can fire from the UK with no need for forward basing. If we need over flight permission it’s only from JEF countries but we can take out the entire Russian northern fleet from the comfort of Scotland.
Big question will be how many we can fire at a time. It needs to be several hundred at a time if not a thousand.
I like your rationale.
It sounds great, the GIUK UKAD bastion.
Except it doesn’t exist.
When we order GBAD missiles, the Atlantic Bastion and 7000 cruise missiles I’ll be encouraged.
Till then they keep talking, where is the doing regards this?
Even more clarity along the lines of, 1,000 will be FCSAW, 3000 will be the UK German and will launch from this vehicle, and will be ordered in X would help.
It is all kept vague and plans change once the headline is out
I agree it’s all mouth and no trousers at present.. but what it does do is hopefully show where they plan to get to.. I would say they have about 3-4 years after the war in Ukraine ends before Russia does something..
My biggest worry is if they don’t do something and if the UK is not in a position to truely hurt Russia at home I do wonder if russia may just pick a fight with the UK.. push and push sub war, political warfare until the UK responds.. it’s one of the ways they could test NATO cohesion.. we are after all on the periphery.. not a land danger ( which is what E NATO is obsessed about) and a long way from the US.. what if Russia could give some NATO nations the excuse that we struck kinetically first and they are just responding but “no invading any NATO nation” think it’s unlikely, but I could see the Russia and the UK fighting a limited campaign, with NATO standing around wringing its hands.. but I see so many ways Russia could possibly shatter NATO politically and I like to find risk..and it would only take a handful of NATO nations to take an excuse pull away at the crunch time and NATO is done ( Spain, Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia ).
Fingers crossed it’s finally sunk in that Russia is already attacking the Uk ( pretty much more than any other NATO nation) using political warfare and it’s going to likely keep stepping it up and pushing as they see the UK as the major anti Russian chearleader. So I hope they do what they say they will do a the realise that the end of the ukriane war will start a countdown..unless we are able to show Russia we can inflict extreme strategic pain and can fight them to a painful standstill that no one wins at all.
And we both know the 12 SSN headline grabber is just that.
They won’t be here for decades and plans can and will likely change, IKA reduced or cut.
Sadly the massive incompetence that was the ordering and funding of Astute will live with the UK until at least 2040..same with the destroyer and frigate debacles.
So the scenario/current threat is basically (and as per Sky’s “WAR GAME” podcast) that UK is made an example of by Russia as it is seen as being the most vocal anti-Russian nation – and yet is weak, and any limited conventional pre-emptive strike on the UK would be the mechanism by which Russia undoes NATO as a serious force, as member nations would fail to to support the UK’s invoking of Article 5 in the short-term (if ever). In order to prevent this from happening the UK needs to have some sort of credible conventional deterrent to prevent the need of having to go for the option of last resort.
IMHO, yes 7000 missiles is good. However, they must be a combination of ballistic and cruise, as well as many having extreme long-range (circa 3,000miles). These need to be both sea, sub-sea, air, and ground launched. In particular I would suggest a large-scale land-launched “barrage” capability. Air-launched could be from strategic bombers, or even ex-airlines converted to act as “arsenal” planes.
All of this needs protecting by a layered and comprehensive UK air-defence shield to include long-range and anti-ballistic exo-atmosphere capabilities. In particular vital assets need special protection: including Fylingdales, sub bases, Portsmouth, and key aerodromes. Moreover military assets should be dispersed – not concentrated into a few small areas or usual moorings etc.. There should be a program, starting now, of taking back former RAF/MoD bases, and putting them for use as such, possibly also housing ballistic missiles and land-based “barrage” missiles.
Else the UK will continue to be seen as weak, with no consequences to Russia as it continues the re-creation of the Soviet Union.
Essentially yes in a it shell.. and I think from the defence review that seems to be something that is recognised.
Unfortunately what seems to be our biggest weakness is now our reduced SSN fleet ( that does not have vertical launchers ). Lack of integrated air defence system, ( AEW, fast jet squadrons and ground based air defence), lack of surface combatants with land attack abilities. Lack of strategic air with long range land attack capability… essentially the UK gutted its ability to cause massive pain to a peer and defend our home island against massive pain or have the ability to take massive pain..
In war over years you must be able to
1) hurt the other nation more than it hurts you
2) defend you own nation from destruction
3) take the hurt delivered
Ok, but how many do think we have at the moment? and how many will ever get ordered? The defence review says s lot about what we need and should have . When will ever order or this kit, and how much of it will we get? As a nice review wish list or must have list never matches what we buy.
We procured 1000 cruise missiles last time roughly between storm shadow and TLAM.
No one knows how many we have in current inventory but it’s probably over 500.
It seems Storm Shadow is back in production as the BBC visited the factory a couple of weeks ago (the Sunday before the SDR was published) to report on what the SDR was likely to say and highlight what was already going on… Of course, there is a high probability that at least some of those missiles are going to Ukraine.
The other nugget that came out of the report was that Storm Shadow takes about a month to assemble just one as they are built by hand..! I suspect the same or similar can be said to TLAM, so 7000 thousand cruise missile ain’t going to turn up next week. There will need to be a significant increase in production capacity and much of that will be aimed at training people to put together and test (at each stage of the process) the missiles. IF there is a poor connection and you get into fault finding… Not sure how many MBDA are building a month but it will be way below what would be needed to make a meaningful contribution to a 7000 missile total and then there is the issue of how many can the US spare from their current production capacity for TLAM.!?
Cheers CR
That will be one of the main components of the deterrent.. a deep well for massive intial strikes then a strong ability to keep producing more.. Russia can build 75-100 missiles a month or about 1000 a year.. so we need the ability to do the same.