HMS St Albans demonstrated its ability to counter aerial threats during a demanding Sharpshooter gunnery exercise, facing over 100 simulated drone attacks off the Welsh coast.
The exercise, which incorporated lessons from recent Red Sea incidents, marked the first time aerial drones were included in the Royal Navy’s Sharpshooter training.
The training, designed to test the frigate’s gunnery and operations room teams, involved a mix of traditional remote-controlled boat threats and dynamic aerial drones.
Run in collaboration with QinetiQ and Fleet Operational Standards and Training (FOST), the exercise featured Banshee Whirlwind drones launched from the Aberporth Range.
These drones, small and fast with a top speed of 200 knots, flew low over the waves to simulate challenging attack profiles. HMS St Albans engaged these threats with precision, utilising medium-calibre weapons and small arms under the direction of its operations room team.
Commander Matthew Teare, HMS St Albans’ Commanding Officer, highlighted the value of the exercise: “The quality of training has been better than I have ever seen. It has been a career highlight thanks to the realism of the scenario. A fantastic experience and one which has been hugely beneficial to my ship’s company.”
Sharpshooter exercises have evolved since their inception in 2019 to keep pace with modern warfare. Recent operational experiences, including drone engagements by HMS Diamond and HMS Richmond, have shaped the exercise’s scenarios.
Simon Galt, Managing Director Air at QinetiQ, described the training as “invaluable”: “Our aim with Sharpshooter is to ensure as immersive, comprehensive and dynamic a training experience as possible, preparing the ship’s crew for the very current evolving threat landscape.”
The success of HMS St Albans in fending off over 100 drone attacks underscores the importance of such exercises. The next Sharpshooter trial is scheduled for spring.
No hint as to extent Dragonfly may have been involved in the exercise. Pretty sure it was slated for trials on a T23 at some point after the success of the Hebrides trials.
Do you mean Dragon Fire?
dragonfire is becoming a myth. millions of£ for years and still nothing to show for it the taxpayer is getting ripped off while the MOD recklessly wastes the budget on wacky fly by night fantasies Proteus? Stirling castle. dragonfire and it’s embarrassing and must be stopped and those responsible must be replaced
Let’s see how long it takes you to manufacture and test a brand new highly sophisticated weapons system that can do its job and do it right
When you need to know then you may be informed until then don’t fret ..the MOD does not have a contract to say it divulges everything to members of the public ,,secrets act and all that are there to protect not inject..
I think DEWs are a red herring..in the end it’s a lover idea if you’re enemy is willing to send their drone swarm in peicemeal, so you have time to melt them one drone at a time…in reality they will throw a shit ton at the same time and the only thing that could respond is a number of medium cal guns sending out a few hundred guided and or programmed fuse rounds.
We haven’t yet seen a genuine swarm attack successfully made on a warship. Even the Red Sea stuff was 10-15 drones sent over the course of at least an hour, so plenty of time for a DEW to take down each one in turn. The problem with swarm attacks is the number of launchers needed. A Shahed container has 6 drones and needs a single lorry to carry them. To get a swarm coordinated, you have to launch all of the drones from one place or have a very efficient targeting and planning system, because the ship will move unpredictability… Read more »
Yes indeed … auto – correct kicked in. Cheers
Well done I did like very much
How did they do it? Details?
Key info is missed out. How many drones were ‘shot down’ and how many got through the defences.
Well they aren’t going to release that information. They also didn’t mention underwater drones which Iran apparently been trying to test recently. They also didn’t mention if it was a combination of slow, medium an high speed drone, missile attacks, with boat’s an submarines drone’s.
No point on informing the Russians.
It’s very interesting..the old saying what comes around goes around is so very true. The age of the drone in warfare has essentially returned the concepts of mass low end attrition to navel conflict and the need to manage that that through very cheap lower end mass ASuW and AAW capabilities ( AKA lots of guns). We are also see that starting to creep into the sub surface as well, which mean not only will the sub surface threat have the rarer high end SSN and electric boat threat, but it will have lots of sup surface drones. Also played… Read more »
I won’t bitch if you say the FREMM Evos look like they’ll be very good ships. They do indeed and with room for capability growth in them too. Also reasonably priced for a high end frigate (around £625m).
Italian Navy is changing to 30mm secondary guns, so they will get 30mm Lionfish with air burst ammunition for the EVO . The cost will be 750M euros each ship. A novel thing is that it will have propose built anti drone radar besides the dual band search radars(8 fixed antenna). The anti drone radars will either be Fincantieri OMEGA 360 or Leonardo Tactical Multi Mission Radar (TMMR). Note that i think 2 76mm and 2 30mm guns insufficient for what is coming, still it is probably the better that exists. I have doubts that any ship can survive what… Read more »
I agree I think the gun armament of ships is going to have to be massively increased as the the risk from drone swarms will be huge. I suspect even ships will end up using drone swarms against other ships. The RN has a big 4.5inch hole in its escorts that needs dealing with, the T45s really do need to be getting a 5inch gun. I would even consider giving a five inch gun to the T31. At present the 4.5inch is essentially ballast against the new threat picture. The five inch would give good long range Gun based AAW… Read more »
I don’t think your point 4 would work if you are talking air drones. The 12.7mm needs a direct hit & it’s likely to only punch a neat hole which may not be enough to take down a drone big enough to threaten a ship even with multiple hits. I would suggest 30-35mm with airburst options which is where most land based systems are at, including specialist anti-drone RWS sets from the likes of EOS & Konsberg. Also consider the problem of nearby ships, something that has already been a problem with Phalanx.
There are a couple of 12.7mm anti drone systems being developed and I was working on looking at replacing what was already there, without causing issue with its metacentric hight and stability, so for the T45
Replacement of 4.5inch with 5inch
Replacement 30mm with 40mm
Replace 12.7mm manned with 12.7mm anti drone remote weapon stations.
The sounds great, but the cost of the 5″ is extortionate for low end escorts.
A T31 current fitout works well for the budget. I only wonder if 2 57mm guns fore and aft would be a better option, and leave the B position free for extra land attack missiles.
I relation to drone swarms might be a problem with 57mm cooling,since it is not water cooled like the 76mm. It suspect against a swarm will to be firing continuously for a long time.
The only issue is that great big ASW hole, which with the onset of military autonomous undersea vessels is a big problem. At present there are only around 285 military submarines in the world that the RN could ever likely be in conflict with 21 nations..so you could possibly get way with an escort without any ASW self defence..but with a proliferation of unmanned undersea vessels you’re going to need organic fast response ASW weapons and the 5in gun does that well.
No point on informing the Russians.
A scenario like this would be ideal for the 40mm and 57mm bofors. They fare outrange the DS30M MK2 and Phalanx CIWS, while being much, much cheaper than CAMM, let alone Aster. 3P ammunition isn’t cheap (I believe around £5k a go), but against large swarms of slow moving drones it gives the ability for 1 shot kills at safe ranges (especially with the 57mm). Perhaps we should re-evaluate fitting Martlet to the DS30M mount? It seems to have gone nowhere, but the added range could provide valuable defensive capabilities to ships with limited options (i.e. Rivers, but also T23s… Read more »
Could the Type 23/26/45 have several extra DS30M added? Like 3-4 per side for drone/small boat defence and secondary AA? Just thinking small calibre autocannons are gonna become a lot more common. Slapping 5″ everywhere won’t work, same for 76mm guns (cue the Italians crying) and machine guns don’t cut it.
You can engage with 76mm at 6km or even more (depends on ROE), spending 3-6 rounds.
Ray guns and laser beam technology should cancel out drones in a few years, fishing nets and a wet blanket can take down a drone, I can see ships surrounded by nets for protection in the future, simple and effective .
Pic is a minigun being manned, I thought they had been replaced by the .50 Browning, unless it’s a library pic.