Defence Minister Luke Pollard has confirmed that the future of the British Army is being shaped around greater lethality, operational mass, and battlefield effect, as part of the ongoing Strategic Defence Review (SDR).
Responding to a series of written parliamentary questions from Conservative MP James Cartlidge (South Suffolk), Pollard repeatedly stressed that the SDR is assessing how the Army can modernise to meet 21st-century threats—through rapid tech integration, closer industry collaboration, and a renewed focus on multi-domain operations.
“The Review has been considering all aspects of Defence, such as the opportunities for modernisation and transformation, including through the rapid and consistent application of new technologies,” Pollard said.
While declining to confirm the Army’s submission in full, Pollard acknowledged that themes of resilience, prosperity, and strategic independence are all under review. “The Review has been considering the state of the defence technological and industrial base, and the contribution of Defence to the Government’s Growth Mission,” he added.
On the Army’s role in NATO, Pollard reiterated: “NATO will remain the cornerstone of UK Defence,” and that the SDR is “looking at enhancing the UK’s contribution to the Alliance, while protecting vital UK sovereign requirements and strategic reach.”
Asked whether the Army’s future design will emphasise land power as an enabler for multi-domain operations alongside partners, Pollard said: “The Review has been considering all aspects of Defence, including the major features of the force structure needed to create the necessary integrated multi-domain Defence capability of the future.”
People will remain at the heart of the transformation, he added, with reforms looking at how Defence can better recruit, train, and retain personnel across the military, civil service and industry.
“This includes Regular, Reserve, Civil Service, and industry and how Service life can be improved for those who commit to serve their country in uniform,” he said.
The SDR is due to conclude later this year and is expected to reshape UK Defence policy across all domains—land, sea, air, cyber and space—for the decade ahead.
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As always.
Yep. I read it twice to see if I had missed something. No, nothing there at all. Not worth reporting.
Quite. Words are cheap. Action matters – but I suspect these words will translate into a small number of lasers and drones. Pathetic.
‘The SDR is due to conclude later this year…’
I thought it was due out in the spring?
Well…. We shall wait and see. All those 3 items get my obvious approval. Let’s see if it’s just sound bites or actual hard power and reality.
SDSR needs to publish but the Orange Messiah’s coming in the USA has likely made the review particularly troublesome on the back of decades of defence cuts.
My guess is that the govt will wait until Trump has finalised his Ukraine ‘deal’ and the outcome of any defence pact with the EU before publishing. I think I read somewhere that parliament will get a redacted version of the SDR which is on Starmer’s desk. I suspect what will happen is that the govt will be selective and fund initiatives which dovetail and (look best ) into the political situation. Meanwhile a few tidbits will be leaked to whet our appetite. They want to make sure they can justify their choices.
That is a good point, the world is turning in a profoundly unpredictable way and we have no idea how that coin will fall… very little point having a NATO first SDR if NATO died the day before it was published..or an SDR that has the US as a core ally and how we will support them in the pacific if we walk away from the pacific and our ties with the US falter.
The problem is should the defence review be linked with the Geo political winds in that moment..because in reality those winds can change in a moment and SDR should be built around what our armed forces, security services, strategic industries and civilian infrastructure and civil defence need to look like to manage any possible threat or change in the geopolitical weather.
Point taken on Geo winds. All above my pay grade but what you could do is use the quality function development technique designers use when associating capabilities with requirements. Rank your requirements in priority and assess the degree to which various capabilities contribute strongly / weakly to one / many requirements. Problem is thats why you get all cars looking the same 😂
I think you might be right Mr. Bell. I read elsewhere that the SDR authors couldn’t ‘square the whole’ for anything less than 2.75% GDP. They were subsequently told to go back and rewrite to make it fit 2.5%.
If true, this surely defeats the whole point of the SDR to begin with (like so many SDRs before it!).
Spot on.
More sugar coating 🙄
Is this linked to CGS’ vision of doubling, then tripling army lethality? There is no mention of that in the piece.
This is all so meaningless – just a word salad.
Getting any reliable info out of HMG beyond this sort of thing is getting harder.
Speak loudly while carrying a little stick.
It’s getting that way, John, while pulling the wool over.
We do still have some pretty big sticks, but overall the sticks never been smaller.
It’s the same spin every time. ‘ More lethal, more agile, triple lethality etc ‘. They remind me of The Black Knight in Monty Python, giving it large when his arms and legs are cut off.
Hi m8 I have been scratching my head since the Spring Statement and the conclusion I’ve come to isn’t entirely good. She stated that 10% of reg future equipment budget have to be in innovative and emergent technology.
Which sounds fine and Dandy till you realise that can only come from cuts to the rest of the equipment budget, the uplift to 2.5% doesn’t give headroom for ring fence without doing so.
Strange times we live in, on the one hand we see a massive increase in small but highly lethal drones and on the other renewed importance of artillery, trenches and physical barrier defences.
A whole lot crap dressed up to say nothing, like most rubbish from the MOD and the CDS/CGS. No numbers, no orders just words a plenty. How will these things be done, paid for, when will they be ordered never is the answer its more lies and half truths which be made to look as it happened by fiddling the figures and bluffing about more ammo with out buying any.
These guys would not know the truth if slapped them in the face.
The question is… Whats the plan?
We need a straight answer, because its always the same old sound bites
The three Bs, blather, bullshit and buzzwords! Just nonsense words coming from nonsense politicians with no subject matter knowledge! They have to rely on CGS and his head sheds, but as recent history has shown, some of these have also suffered the three B disease!
Well, no artillery, obsolescent tanks, no IFV, retiring Typhoons, F-35 stuck without wps evolution. I think it is very difficult to make it worse.
Ohhh it could be.
If Corbyn had gotten in we would have given up Trident as well.
I wonder, well hope that challenger 3 is going to be used as a stop gap for either a challenger 4 new build or buying an off the shelf tank in greater numbers. Can always hope.
With precision indirect fires a tank only is a luxury. It needs to evolve to b able to fire indirectly.
The Chally 2 with its HESH shell, does have a modicum of indirect fire capability. However, the HESH overly relies on the concussion wave to damage objects. It has very little fragmentary effects, due to the nature of how HESW works. With the new L55A1 smoothbore gun. The tank will now have the ability to use variable time and proximity fuzed high explosive shells, that have a significantly better fragmentary effects on a target. Though the inability of the tank to elevate the gun past +20 degrees, will hamper its indirect fire effectiveness.
We have kit that can deliver indirect fire – artillery and mortars.
I think Alex is look at merging the roles of SPG and MBT. Though if equipped with a 155, the thing is going to be huge, especially if it has a decent armour package.
N/Ally,
‘I wonder, well hope that challenger 3 is going to be used as a stop gap for either a challenger 4 new build or buying an off the shelf tank in greater numbers’.
CR3 was called CR2 LEP, and that reflects that it is a CR2 upgrade. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary. I think it is therefore fair to see it as something of a stop gap and its service life may be short (CR1 only had a 15-ish year service life, so there is precedent). I do not however see how we could justify building CR4 in very much greater numbers than the 148 of CR3. If FS is enacted then we go down to just two armoured regiments.
Yeah, yeah.
Blah-de-blah-blah-blah.
More useless word salad cr*p
“Operational mass” while reducing numbers ? Right.
Well upping Challenger 3 from 148 to around 200 would be a good start. Also Skyranger 30 turrets for Boxer & also Cockerill 105 turrets for Boxer. Won’t happen as all this boasted extra defence money is already spent.
I don’t know why people are moaning. We all know that nothing of any great significance is going to be announced until the SDR is published. So there you have it.
I,m only waiting more cuts , nothing more, the number of tanks is so ridiculous the same as the number of aircraft and escorts but of course always is possible to reduce it even more, I wait nothing good from next SDR.
The lads are already getting thrashed to run 5 minute miles with the top line new SCA green pass being 6.10 for a mile how much more “lethality” do you expect to get out of them?
You are getting sub olympians for peanuts, I’d like to see Keir Starmer and John Healey put in 5 minute miles on a weekly basis and see how long their kneecaps last.
The bigwigs as always haven’t got a clue and can’t define a permanent role for the lads to save their life.
I bet the poor bastards sat in trenches in Ukraine getting droned aren’t thinking “ohhh if only my SCR and RFT times were faster”
Your info is massively wrong
140 C3 tanks is a joke they won’t last two minutes in a full blown war.
Mike, of those 148 tanks, some 116 are in the two armoured regiments. Why wouldn’t they last 2 minutes? AFAIK only one or two CR2s have been taken out by Russia.
Hi Graham, according to Oryx, it’s now 4. Though none so far have been lost in a tank on tank engagement. So far it’s been mines, drones and ATGM. The latest were all lost in the Kursk saliant leading the charge. One was deliberately destroyed by the Ukrainians, as it had lost a track and was behind Russian lines. The Ukrainians favour it over both the Abrams and Leos for leading the charge. Though they do complain about how weedy the engine is compared to the Leo.
Davey, thanks. How reliable is Oryx? Even if it is 4, that is not bad out of 14 deployed in a very intensive war, over an extended period of time.
‘Weedy engine’ is a bit overplayed and only one part of the mobility story – due to CR2s far superior suspension it can motor cross-country at the same speed as Leo2, and is only 6 mph slower on roads and very well surfaced tracks.
If quantity as a quality all of its own then what happens if you don’t have quantity? What attribute does scarcity create?
With 116 MBTs it only takes your single deployed brigade to lose the initiative on one wet mid week day and suddenly your out of the armour business.
Cog, those 116 tanks are split between two armoured brigades.
Just asking… do those words actually mean anything to anyone?