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
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 over the flight time of the drones.
If you get enough drone launchers in one place to overwhelm a warship by producing a “drone rate” faster than the kill rate of a DEW, they are sure to be noticed and targeted themselves if the Navy gets their land attack together over the next few years.
Hence why, short of a China war, enormous drone swarms are unlikely to overwhelm a warship’s defences over the coming years. The difficulties in producing such an attack nearly outweigh the difficulties in defending against them.
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 onto that increasingly large mass attritional threat are the increase high end missile threat with both stealth missiles and hypersonic missiles as well as the now proven ballistic missile threat.
So the modern escort now has threats from
1) sub sonic air and sea launches stealthy sea skimming missiles, which need very good sensors that are high up as well as some form of high mobility missile with a close engagement AKA CAMM, as well as a radar controlled last ditch defence gun. Other AAW guns have some use.
2) high altitude hypersonic missiles, these really need a fast long range area defence missile as well as a closer short range missile. Essentially guns and CIWS are useless against these targets ( even if you kill it you will be clobbered by mass and kinetic energy).
3) ballistic missiles. Need a radar that can look up and a multi stage long range AAW missile, Aster 30 or better…if your looking at longer range ABM ( not a proven threat to ships as yet) you would need a low orbital booster with an exoatmospheric kill vehicle ( SM6)
4) mass air drone attack..missiles will be less effective due to potential numbers and the simple cost vs cost ratios that means you burn more resources than your enemy..so many guns of all calibres are needed for this..with guided rounds as a gold standard
5) surface drones. Again AsuW missiles will have the issue of mass and cost vs cost. So guns again especially medium guns
6) sub surface drones..traditional ASW is going to struggle against something that is essentially attritional and has mass. If this areas sees proliferation ( it will) every surface combatant will need a reasonable set of sonar sensors with some from of offensive/defence that is not just linked to a small ship flight and can manage some mass. Theses are weapons not really yet seen on modern escorts ( small depth bombs and ASW rockets, what goes around comes around).
I suspect modern escorts will need a bit of a rethink..48 high end AAW missiles will not cut it as will only having a limited small cal AAW gun fit and no sonar or sub surface defence.
Infact if you look at it ( and people are going to bitch at me) the new Italian FREMMs on order will be the perfect blend. Good gun fit ( 2 76mm with guided rounds, and 2 25 mm), high end missiles that can manage all high end threats up to ballistic missiles, anti submarine missiles as well as a good load of light weight torpedoes. Good sonar fit as well as good radar fit….they are not able to do prolonged high end AAW as would a T45, but they will still have their 76mm guided rounds well after the T45 has run out of missiles..for the low end mass threats, they can detect and manage any sub surface threat including managing mass… in the world of mass air surface and sub surface drones, we may need escorts that can manage a bit of everything well and keep on managing mass wave after mass wave.
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 is coming in say 100km from land.
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 and ASuW against air and surface drones…and with kingfisher rounds developed could give some self defence capability against sup surface drones ( because if you were going to try and kill a type t45 or T31 you would use a sub surface drone ).
To be honest I think the way things are going with surface, airborne and subsurface drones a min large surface combatant fit for swarm warfare may end up needing to be.
1) a bow mounted meduim cal gun, preferably a Five inch main gun with guided rounds as well as kingfisher ASW rounds,
2) a stern mounted 57-76mm with guided and programmable fused rounds
3) 2 40mm bofors with programmable fuse to lay a curtain of tungsten.
4) 2-4 12.7mm machine gun on remotely operated anti drone mounts
I personally thing DEWs are at present a bit of a red herring..lovely if someone decided to attack you one drone at a time. But you’re buggered if they attack with a swam..you’re dead by the time you have melted one or two. For a swarm you need a number of medium cal guns that can put a lot of preferably precision guided shells in the air in one go.
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 who either have to use CAMM or wait until targets are within 30mm range).
Another option could be RapidRanger, basically every ship outside of the T31s lack the capability to engage drones without either using very expensive missiles or letting targets get withing 20mm/30mm range, which is too close for comfort.
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.