The Government has indicated that further detail on the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Bastion concept will depend on the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan, following a series of parliamentary questions on the programme’s scope and timeline.
On 23 February, Conservative MP James Cartlidge asked the Ministry of Defence when the experimental phase of Atlantic Bastion would conclude, whether it has a target delivery date, which individual capabilities form part of the initiative, whether all elements must reach full operating capability, and how many of those capabilities are new versus already in service.
Responding on behalf of the department, Al Carns described Atlantic Bastion as a concept that “combines the latest autonomous and AI technologies with world-class warships and aircraft to create a highly advanced hybrid fighting force that will see ships, submarines, aircraft and uncrewed vessels connected.”
He added that “the scope of the capability enhancements delivered through Atlantic Bastion remains dependent on the Defence Investment Plan.” No additional information was provided on delivery milestones, timelines or the specific systems involved, however.
Atlantic Bastion is a drive to integrate autonomous and AI-enabled systems with existing crewed platforms across the maritime and air domains, particularly in the North Atlantic. However, concrete details on how that ambition will come to be still remain tied to funding and prioritisation decisions yet to be confirmed.
Grr.
They’ve even dropped off the ‘as soon as possible’ from the standard DIP ending. It’s probably out of their hands and part of a scuffle between Healey, the PM and the Treasury now.
Maybe the budget for words in a press release is now limited until DIP is dumped on defence?
The best way to get Atlantic bastion is to buy small amounts of innovative systems on a continuous basis and combine those with high end legacy systems like Sonar 2087, Merlin and P8.
Sea gliders are probably the most promising technology and we are already well on the way to fielding them.
USV and UUV are probably expensive dead ends for such a capability.
Power is always going to be a problem for such systems and the more power you give them the bigger they get and the bigger they get the more expensive they get. Drones have a habit of going off the rails occasionally and do you want your large multi million pound drones in the Atlantic suiciding or being boarded by Russians.
Priority should be getting the T26s and T31s into service asap, get all their mk41s filled with actual missile stocks and new ammo for 3 new guns, 5″, 57mm and 40mm, assuming 30mm is covered? And if there’s spare money why not an extra 1-2 of each ship? They might be of greater use alongside drones. Get the RN fleet to 20+ new destroyer/frigate ships.
And putting a light weight towed array on the T31s.. we will have 3 type 31 by 2031 giving them a modular thin line array, something like a KraitSense would be huge… especially since they can take a Merlin which could compete the kill chain…. Personally I think they should stop pissing around thinking about large autonomous vessels which don’t even exist yet and get Babcock to build a very lean crewed version of the T31 ( say get it to 50) as a batch 2 build 10 and equip it only for the bastion.. so light weight towed array… small ship flight and tribe of drones to control as well as self protection in the form of its guns and a few CAMM.. because in the Atlantic all it’s going to do is hunt subs.. essentially a traditional old style cheap ass RN ASW frigate in numbers but updated for the 21c.
That would give 6 high end AAW and 8 high end ASW for key asset escort.. 5 batch 1 type 31s with a focus on surface strike for individual patrol ( Indian Ocean and South Atlantic etc) then 10 cheap as low crewed low capability ASW frigates for chasing Ivan around the Atlantic bastion.. then if and when large drones mature the ten cheap ass batch 2s can act as mother ships and tenders to the drone fleet..
I’d certainly agree that more T31 is the way to go here as it is a real GP ship.
Whilst T26 will be elite ASW, as you say, a GP with a good towed array will be a lot more use than nothing.
My feet here is that RN is going down a toxic combo of a perfectionist pathway rather than an 80-20 pathway coupled with a drone fantasy PowerPoint pathway. I fear this could take an incredible time to come good.
The type 31 has been designed to be able to take a captas towed and variable depth sonar. Along with at least 24 sea ceptors, l think this would be the most important addition.
When will this spineless and inept govt get its finger out and get on with building our services rather than running it down to a 2nd rate power.
rmj, senior US officers and politicians considered we had lost our Tier 1 status (a US term but the meaning is fairly obvious) when the regular army dropped from 95k to 82k. Its now at 73k established posts.
Then publish it…genuinely, what’s going on in government? Has Starmer forgotten that he can tell the Treasury to find the money?
The treasury doesn’t think it can find the money. Borrowing is cut off, taxes are already high. Pensions are the only thing that hasn’t been cut.
Jm, I don’t think the NHS, Education and the Welfare budget have been cut!
Perhaps if every dept had to publish an investment plan as defence does we might actually get to see where money is going!
Translation: we are not funding this
So they are now saying their previous, much celebrated announcement on AB is subject to their own review?
Dependebt on the Defence Investment Plan. I am shocked, shocked!
I have it on good authority that the DIP will be announced on February 29th, year to be decided
No April the 1st
HMG, HM forces greatest enemy.
Nothing ever changes.
That’s a “we don’t have a f…..g clue” reply if ever I saw one.
It’s as if the MOD has given up on the DIP.
It’s a simple decision, will the UK government boost defence spending or will we be on NATO’s (and Trump’s) naughty step as yet another round of defence cuts are implemented? Personally, as an IT consultant, I’m a bit dubious about Bastion Atlantic – it still seems technology over reach. I would lean towards simpler unmanned sensor platforms with a few more P-8As to help provide quick reaction kill assets.
Naive question-what happens to drones if Mother ship is damaged or sunk?
Ahh, they have to go look for their biological fathers.
😆 🤣
THat is funny halfwit, but serious question- you target one ship and if you score a hit then you disable maybe six assets!! Sounds like a fatal flaw to me.
The forthcoming defence investment plan. Is that the one tentatively scheduled for release in 2029?
The Defence Investment Plan will be superseded by the Investment Plan for Defence, re-scoped to horizontally integrate all warfighting domains leveraging synergies to deliver greater purpose, lethality and effect through a new capital investment strategy. It will be delivered by the end of a parliament.
Love your comment
It could have been Humphrey Appleton from Yes Minister / Yes Prime Minister which I think you might have had in mind
🙂 I learnt from the best on here
I was going to give a long MOD doublespeak load of bull but could not trump you
Oh dear – Trump has so many bad smells sounds and meanings
Appleby
And it will be “agile”.
Office of Budget respondibility Spring forecast published March 3rd. My take is that then Reeves will decide how much money to release.
Italian Destroyer leaving Portsmouth now, if anyone’s interested.
Of course it depends on another plan. It’s the standard excuse for ‘we know what we have to do, we’re just not going to do it’.
I have some very serious doubts about Atlantic Bastion, especially in it’s current satellite enabled form.
Who remembers that ASAT weapon that Russia ‘tested’ against one of it’s own dead satellites? There was outrage because of the risk of a cascade effect in which shrapnel from the destroyed satellite as well as the missile hitting other space craft triggering more shrapnel and so on. According to google AI there were 1700+ trackable pieces created in Low Earth Orbit and while many have decayed there are still a small number of high orbit pieces in orbit. The test subsequently cause 2.5+ million near miss warnings with many satellites and the International Space Station having to manoeuvre out of harms way.
Another dead Russian satellite broke up more recently creating 118+ trackable objects. While this was thought to be accidental it does suggest that Russia has plenty of options for LEO denial if they so chose. Given the kind of calculus that Putin uses it is not beyond imagining to think that he could decide that LEO is more valuable to the West in certain circumstances so knocking out a few of his own dead satellites to trigger a cascade and denying LEO to his enemies would generate sufficient military disadvantage to his enemies to make it worthwhile.
What value then for a satellite enabled Atlantic Bastion?
Of Course he would probably need to carry out such ‘tests’ prior to any hostilities so we might get a few months or a couple of years warning, but with those timescales would be remember..?
The physics of high bandwidth communications mean you either need satellites or line of sight. Given Atlantic Bastion is intended to operate in the high north (there have been suggestions lately that the concept should be pushed up into the Arctic Circle) any satellite system will likely need to utilise polar orbit which is a Low Earth Orbit so possibly at risk to ASAT’s and cascade effects. Line of sight will require more frigates and if they need to be operating in the high north they will like need to be pretty big if only to with stand the weather up there, plus they will be closer to Russian airbases and have little or no early satellite based warning. So big radars and plenty of SAM’s…
Cheers CR
None, it’s just a maginot line seized on by HMG.