Armed Forces Minister Alistair Carns has used a speech at the London Defence Conference to argue that the UK must move faster in adapting to modern warfare, warning that failure to do so would increase the risk of future conflict.
Speaking after visits to Cyprus and Ukraine, Carns said both theatres pointed to the same conclusion: that the nature of war has changed, and that resilience can no longer be treated as something that can be improvised in a crisis.
He said Ukraine had shown how quickly conflict now evolves, with drones, compressed kill chains and constant attacks on infrastructure reshaping the battlefield. He also argued that Russia was not simply fighting in Ukraine, but learning from the war and passing on what it learns to others, including Iran.
“If we did not change at pace, we would fall behind,” Carns said.
A central theme of the speech was the economics of modern war, with Carns arguing that cheap, mass-produced uncrewed systems are now changing not just battlefield tactics but the wider industrial and logistical model behind them.
He said drone warfare now accounts for the overwhelming majority of casualties in Ukraine and claimed that one drone can deliver the equivalent battlefield effect of multiple artillery rounds, dramatically reducing the logistics burden behind sustained combat.
“The economics of warfare matter, and we must learn and act now and act together,” he said. “The consequences of ignoring these lessons will be grievous.”
Carns rejected the idea that Western militaries could simply assume future wars would be fought differently, saying the answer was not a choice between traditional high-end capability and cheaper autonomous systems, but a blend of both.
“It’s not either or. It’s a blend. It’s a high, low mix,” he said.
He tied those lessons directly to current UK defence policy, pointing to investment in uncrewed systems, integrated targeting networks and closer cooperation with Ukraine. He said readiness now depends not only on what is bought, but on how quickly lessons are absorbed and capability is scaled.
The minister also broadened the argument beyond the armed forces themselves, saying national resilience rests on the health of the economy, public services, energy security and workforce skills as much as on ships, aircraft and munitions. “You can spend billions on defence, but if families are struggling and the economy is under strain, you’re kidding yourself about how strong this country really is,” he said.
Carns argued that resilience must be built before crisis hits, rather than assumed to appear under pressure, and said the UK should not simply assume it would show the same staying power as Ukraine without doing that groundwork in advance.
On alliances, he said the UK response remains rooted in NATO but extends beyond it, including cooperation with European allies and the Joint Expeditionary Force. He also sought to play down doubts over the UK-US relationship, saying it was grounded in long-standing operational and industrial integration rather than short-term political commentary. “Friends can disagree,” he said. “The reality is our cooperation is continuous.”
He ended by returning to the question of people, arguing that pay, housing and family support are essential to sustaining a ready force, and linking improved recruitment and reduced outflow to that wider approach.
“If we get this wrong, if we fail, we increase the chances of war,” Carns said. “We increase the chances of conflict by not being ready.”
He is effectively supporting my view that basing our armed forces on a defence strategy that is only refreshed every 5 years or so is crazy. It’s like relying on your car sat nav in a rapidly rapidly growing town, but only updating the map every 5 years. We need a rolling plan that is updated (not rewritten) every 24 months or so to reflect political, strategic, military and technological changes. Of course the UK hasn’t help itself by taking 12 months to develop SDR2025 and then another 12 months figuring out how to implement it – 2 years where rather than “adapting fast”, our armed forces and industrial base have effectively been in stasis, all but frozen.
I think we need a new strategy refresh every five years however I think that should not be equated with a new equipment plan. The strategic defence review should focus on who we are going to fight not how we are going to fight them.
RB has a point Jim
The UK has to adapt much faster than 5 year strategies and certainly there is absolutely no correlation between battlefield innovation 5 year plans and the length of the UK Parliament.
We are at the point where Defence spending needs to be taken away from the Treasury and given to grown ups – the only problem being that we have few grown ups in Defence spending given the atrocious record of Braid, DSEI and the MoD.
How about investing and expanding the UK forces NOW before its too late.
Don’t not be silly.. that would mean a labour government not handing over ridiculous amounts of money to the work shy to invest in the defence of the realm.. which I’m meant to believe is the first priority of government
True but it all started with Camrons cuts , Reform are too close ties with the Russians. the Torys now are talking the talk but I doubt they
will get in the next elections.
Please let us know what ties Reform has with Russia, and please don’t trot out the Farage admires Putin story as an example.
Reform UK has faced scrutiny over potential ties to Russia, particularly after former leader Nathan Gill was jailed for taking bribes for pro-Russia speeches.
Perhaps you would like to correct your post. Gill was never a former leader of Reform. He was leader of the Welsh Reform party, and that for only two months. He was also a member of the Welsh assembly, so do they face scrutiny also.Now that the May elections are getting nearer other major political parties are trying their very utmost to dig up any dirt they can on Reform. Let us see what the general public decide in the forthcoming elections shall we.
Thats nonsense. Reform have zero ties with Russia.
If you want to talk about Russian ties look at the Tories. It wasn’t Reform that made Lebedev a Lord! Lebedevs father was KGB!!!!!
The Tories and the whole city have been up to their necks in Russia money for decades.
I know, it gets tiresome. Just another mud sling to get the mud to stick.
So Daniele can you explain Reform UK has faced scrutiny over potential ties to Russia, particularly after former leader Nathan Gill was jailed for taking bribes for pro-Russia speeches.
This minister talking drivel and quite disgraceful to attach defence spending to gdp. He clearly has no idea what a govt priority is with regards for defence of the realm . Just towing the current paraphrase that labour is using to linkbdefence to gdp which is an excuse not to spend any money . Where as Neville Chamberlain ramped up defence spending before ww2 to something closer to 10 percent . Much better to spend 10 percent than to be conquered by an enemy .
Mr Carns is confusing war fighting capability with deterrence. They are not the same thing at all. Of course we need both…but what we really need, right now, is a conventional deterrent…you know…the one that we are committed to providing to NATO.
As a consequence of the dereliction of all three major parties, Britain is and has been for some time in breach of security assurances that we have given to Ukraine, to NATO and of our obligations as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.
Shameful! What an utter disgrace!
Very true, more vague political speak, whilst promising nothing…
The government should have injected emergency funding into the armed forces on coming into power. That should initially have been used to increase armed forces pay, faster improvement to living conditions, spares and munitions stocks and to remove the deliberate drip feed bottle necks, regarding on going programmes.
An additional 10 to 12 billion a year I would say.
Certainly a few billion wisely spent on on pay increases, bonuses, perhaps increasing the Armed forces tax threshold to £20,000, more generous pensions, more selective engagement options etc, could reduce the numbers leaving annually. If it reduced that number by 30%, we would stop the rot and start building back.
It would also encourage recruitment and start pushing total personnel numbers steadily in the right direction.
That’s low hanging fruit the government could have immediately enacted as soon as they took power.
The SDSR should have been written with 3.5% in mind a rapid year on year increase to that amount.
They found ‘many’ billions for their pet projects in their first budget, paying their Union paymasters off etc, and did absolutely fu#k all about defence of the relm, something they are still happily doing fu#k all about 2 years later while the spector of war looms ever closer.
Spot on!
Anyone who has bothered to do a five minute search online will know that the evidential basis for net zero relies upon deeply flawed modelling incapable of recreating even the climate of the recent documented past.
Consequently there are resources available that could be deployed immediately to restore this country’s conventional deterrent.
The only thing we lack appears to be the political will.
Mr Carns has had a distinguished military career. The charitable view must be that, no doubt, he is doing his best…
Mr Carns has had a distinguished military career. The charitable view must be that a distinguished military career is no proof of strategic thinking.
The first point of the armed forces is deterrent, showing the enemy you have the ability to hurt them in unacceptable ways..and that really means hurting… with offence being the core.
If russia thinks NATO political will is weakening it will end up pushing the Uk if the UK is not able to show it can hurt Russia.
Monro, I am sure you have looked up Al Carns bio. Colonel Alistair Carns, DSO, OBE, MC is a former regular Royal Marines officer (25 years service) and a current reserve officer, who turned down promotion to Brigadier to move into politics. He is most unlikely not to know the difference between warfighting and deterrence. Of course the two are linked; Deterrence = Warfighting capability + Intention to use it + communication of that to a potential enemy.
The disconnect here is, as others have also said, that we need to adapt faster yet HMG show no signs of doing so. Carns is saying the right thing but he is not at the level to really get things moving. Starmer needs to direct Reeves to come up with more Defence money faster – that would be a start.
Completely agree with this, Graham. Carns is not the first Defence minister to say the right words to no ultimate effect, and it will take someone at the top to really push things along. Ben Wallace was spoken of as a possible Prime Minister, but he declined to throw his hat into the ring. Al Carns is also being whispered about as a future PM and he’s only been in parliament five minutes. I suspect he will be less reticent should his time come. However, do we have the time to wait for poltical wheels to turn? I don’t think so. We have Keir Starmer and that’s who we have to work with. It’s been a while since I last pestered my MP. I feel it’s time for another letter.
Deterrence = verifiably credible warfighting capability etc
‘Armed Forces Minister Alistair Carns has used a speech at the London Defence Conference to argue that the UK must move faster in adapting to modern warfare, warning that failure to do so would increase the risk of future conflict.’
That seems to me to be either confused or, more likely, a political fudge.
The starting point is clear. Britain must, first off, clearly demonstrate that it can provide its firm commitment of a two division Army Corps to NATO. Arguments as to the exact composition of supporting arms within that Corps can continue to absorb the lessons from ongoing conflicts. The teeth arms must be there immediately in the required (and promised) mass.
The Government, ably advised by Mr Carns and others, must act to provide the necessary financial provision. Fine words butter no parsnips!
Action this day!
Monro, I completely agree. Our two NATO-assigned divisions for the ARRC are scarcely credible in many respects – we know what improvements they need.
We should also look at more forward basing of armour to show greater intent and to cut down deployment time for at least some of that force. Perhaps we should think about permanently stationing an armoured brigade in Germany (from which the Estonian eFP BG can roule from).
Graham Moore for Prime Minister! You heard it here first.
I agree with you Graham, but with one change, the Neo Cold War front linea are the Baltic States.
Perhaps we should be looking to permanently base a Brigade there. Geman and Polish re-armament will dwarf anything the British Army can muster most 2030, our Armoured Brigade won’t be adding much effect.
In the Baltic States however, we can plug a gap, hopefully very effectively as we modernise.
Please can we have edit back George!!!!
Ardennes 1940…A swift seizure of the Suwalki corridor, mining of the Baltic 2020s?
Yep, spot on, the Baltic States are the new inner German boarder….
Indeed, but we did not place 1(Br)Corps on the FRG IGB. We placed it in depth. Positioning anything other than a tripwire force within the Baltic States surely risks them being cut off from the rest of NATO by some kind of adventurist military or political coup?
Couldn’t agree more. Just more words from Labour. Respect Al Carns for his candidness but can he help the Joint Chiefs get what they need. George Robertson is telling some home truths today to the Starmer- Reeves- Healey triumvirate. Even when one of their own is telling them they will do the TALKING Heads routine. Shameful!!!
Less talk and more ordering tanks, fighter jets, and warships. This government will be the only one that doesn’t order a single one of them, and the previous ones were disastrous.
And add missiles to go with all that! Get the GBAD network happening. Additional Aster, CAMM and LMM for Land and Sea to backup anti drone tech and protect valuable assets, bases and people!
To be honest the most important thing is stuff that can hurt russia… if we can constantly plant long range drones and missiles on stuff Putin cares about he’s far less likely to push.. defence is important but defence does not deter.
If “everything is in range” as some posters here have indicated previously the UK mustn’t kid itself and neglect its home base and defence of its deterrence, assets, people, bases and alliances. I think it’s all mixed in together. What you actually have you can use and you need to defend the supply chain for both.
I do agree with this, numbers matter, that ability to harm matters and resilience matters.. the maths of peer war is not rocket science it never has been.. it’s a simple equation of harm vs resilience if you cause more harm that an nations resilience you win if they do that first they win.
Words and more words. Please Sir can we have some significant equipment orders.
Major European land war for almost 5 years… The UK has done nothing. The Navy is a disaster but the UK has done nothing. It might be time to get your s*** together. And your special partner is also realized that you need to get it together or you’re not going to be a special partner anymore
Well the US “Special Partner” is busy getting played by Russia, Iran and China not to mention Israel. So your observation is full of shit. Much like MAGA.
How come no one here on UKDJ is talking / celebrating about the gov. dropping the Chagos deal?
It’s getting to be ‘old’ news now.
“…Sir Keir was forced to shelve legislation to implement the Chagos Islands giveaway following opposition from Donald Trump.
Washington’s approval is needed to ratify the deal and give the strategic islands, home to the joint UK-US Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius. As such, ministers have run out of time to put the legislation through Parliament before the end of the current session and the King’s speech next month.” (The Telegraph).
Wasn’t aware. Thanks for the comment.
Just waiting to see what Starmer will spend the £30,000,000,000 saved on. 😁
So…..you’re back?
I thought he may have been Dimwit in disguise. Everyone needs a holiday now & then.
… sorry, you have to wait 99 years to use that line of ‘creative’ thinking. We will all have moved on by then!
Of course, the most exasperating thing about these political pronouncements from on high is that they achieve absolutely nothing; continue to promote the mission but not the means.
Most of the prognostications are made by highly intelligent individuals some of whom are, demonstrably, extremely capable…
And yet it takes but a five minute google (try googling Climate etc.) to establish that funding (that could and should be spent now on defence) is being frittered away at this very moment on a chimera; net zero:
‘One of the most striking features of Earth’s climate history is its rhythmic natural structure. Throughout the Holocene, we observe:
multidecadal oscillations (~60 years),
centennial fluctuations,
millennial‑scale cycles such as the Eddy cycle,
and the Hallstatt–Bray cycle.
These patterns appear in ice cores, marine sediments, tree rings, and historical documents. They also correlate with solar and astronomical proxies. These cycles are not speculative; they are among the most robust features of paleoclimate research.
Yet current GCMs (Global Climate Models) do not reproduce these oscillations with the correct amplitude or timing.
This is not a minor detail. If models cannot capture the natural background variability of the climate system, then attribution regarding the global warming from 1850–1900 to the present becomes inherently uncertain, because any unmodeled natural contribution to the warming (for example due to solar activity increase during the same period) necessarily reduces the fraction of warming that can be confidently assigned to anthropogenic forcings. And if the anthropogenic contribution to past warming is smaller than assumed, then its contribution to future warming — and therefore the associated climate risk — must also be proportionally reduced.’ (two minutes thirty seven seconds on Google, precisely)
The pursuit of net zero is at the very root of this country’s problems. It is readily apparent that we can restore our verifiably credible conventional deterrent right away. That we choose not to do so is clearly a political choice. Mr Carns is unfortunately part of yet another government making exactly that blunder.
I am not a climate change sceptic but there is obviously variations in any computer modelling and it is by its very nature only as good as the data inputted.
I personally think our commitment to 2050 to achieve ‘net zero’ is economically killing us and needs to be revised. For all the rhetoric about making bills cheaper, just the reconfiguration and reinforcement of the national grid (which I am personally witnessing) is costing billions and will take at least until 2040s and the overall cost is eye watering. That is without the built inefficiency of renewables, which requires over capacity, back up energy generation and vast amounts of battery storage, which we are paying vast subsidies for. Any sane policy at the very least should be subsiding this change by extracting what we can that remains from our own offshore reserves and using the tax revenues. This is not radical thinking but common sense and is the policy of close allies – Norway.
All this has to be balanced against the cost of climate change but our emissions are not really significant in global terms, however, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels from unstable parts of the globe does make strategic sense as recent events bare out.
The difficulty of adjusting our approach cannot be understated as changing legislation and treaty obligations will be faced with legal challenges, protests and hysteria by the msm and climate change evangelicals.
As far as I can see if we wish to have low emissions and a secure supply of energy (Canada being the second largest producer of Uranium) what we need is a significant and continuous investment in nuclear, we need to build on the workforce developed by Hinkley Point C, pick a design and have it build and ran by domestic companies with domestic money so we don’t just hand profits over to foreign ones, and continuously move the ever more experienced workforce to the next same design project over twenty years and then iterate the next design and keep going.
The stop start nature and spending so much developing a design and then only building one offs is really driving up the costs, and if the plan is to move more and more things like heating and transport over to electricity we will need a crap load more generation anyway.
That’s the theory behind SMRs, that what you lose on efficiencies of scale you more than make up for in continuous production.
In addition to Canada as number 2, Australia comes in as number 4 as a producer & has the world’s largest reserves. These are two of UK’s historically closest allies (severely tested by UK infatuation with the EU). Hopefully that is now in the past. Uranium supply is not a current problem. That may change if UK again changes direction.
Very well put indeed, if I may say so.
Your final paragraph sets out part of the problem for yet another weak British government. The other part of the problem is that the (strong net zero supporter) Energy Secretary, backed by a significant part of his political party, appears to be more powerful than the Prime Minister. Consequently nothing will happen. That is extremely dangerous both for the security of NATO and for what remains of the sovereignty in domestic and foreign policy of this country.
I love a good government warning, be it a Carns one, Healey one, Starmer, they’re all the same in that it’s all words ans no trousers or real hard extra money where itvis needed.
Which is numbers of conventional kit.
Just watch the DNE, GCAP, AUKUS eat the military alive while Starmer dances in circles in the Middle East and Carns warns everyone within range. Healey….well he might learn now many Escorts the RN has.
Carns at least has my respect for his credentials regards any military matter.
UK has so little Defence infrastructure now, even a single Russian SSGN could launch a decapitation strike from the North Sea taking most of it out.
They’ve had that ability since the late 1960s through the 70’s, 80s and onwards. I don’t see your point.
Project 667A Yankee-class starting in 1967 meant the Soviets could reliably deploy 16 R-27 / SS-N-6 SLBMs, fired while submerged, from a position just off the coast of Norway or in the central North Sea, putting the entire UK well within the 2,400 km kill zone. These missiles were designed for broad strategic strikes rather than precise, immediate decapitation. In the late 1970s-1980s the Delta-class submarines and the R-29 missile, which had a range of over 7,000 km upped the ante, from that point on, a Soviet sub could sit in the Arctic Circle and hit London, Manchester, or even Washington D.C. without ever having to sneak past a single British sonar buoy. SLBM were more accurate. All those subs could launch from their home waters, no need to enter the North Sea.
In the 1960s and 70s, If russia had launched there was virtually nothing the UK could do to stop them. Once a ballistic missile was in the air, there was no technology in the UK arsenal capable of shooting it down. The UK relied entirely on early warning and deterrence rather than active defense. For a missile coming from the North Sea, the UK had a warning window of just 4 minutes. Those 4 minutes weren’t for the public to get to safety; they were for the Four-Minute Warning to be broadcast and for the RAF to scramble its V-Bombers and launch its own nuclear counter-strike. … 4 minutes.
The ‘Four-Minute Warning’ came from the distance between the Soviet border (or their subs) and the UK’s BMEWS radar (Golf Balls) at Fylingdales. While BMEWS was great at spotting missiles coming from Russia, it had a blind spot regarding the Yankee-class subs. Since radar travels in a straight line, but the Earth is curved. A sub sitting very close to the UK coast in the North Sea could launch a missile on a depressed trajectory, ie flying low.
accordingly the radar might not see the missile until it was already high in the air and very close to its target. This is why the warning time dropped from 15–20 minutes for missiles from Russia to just 4 minutes for missiles from the North Sea.
The UK did have advanced surface-to-air missiles like the Bloodhound and Thunderbird, but these were designed to shoot down Soviet bombers not ballistic missiles. A Soviet bomber flew at maybe Mach 1 or 2. A ballistic missile re-entered the atmosphere at Mach 15 to 20.
In the 60s and 70s, trying to hit a ballistic missile with a SAM was described as “trying to hit a bullet with another bullet.” The computing power and radar speed required simply didn’t exist yet. The UK’s strategy was “Mutual Assured Destruction”. The goal wasn’t to stop the incoming missile, but to ensure the Soviets knew that firing it would result in their own destruction.
The V-Bomber force; Vulcan, Victor and Valiant was kept on high alert, ready to take off within minutes. The Vulcan had a ‘Rapid Start’ system, with the press of one button, all four Olympus engines would howl to life at once. This took about 20 seconds. In official exercises, a four-bomber V-Force flight could go from engines off to all four aircraft in the air in just under 2 minutes … the record was reportedly 66 seconds for four Vulcans.
1968 onwards The Polaris submarines took over. Even if London was erased in a decapitation strike, a Polaris sub hidden in the Atlantic would survive and launch 16 missiles back at the USSR.
The lack of a “Star Wars” style shield over the UK wasn’t an oversight, it was a deliberate strategic choice based on physics, economics, and the Cold War doctrine of MAD. For a country as small as the UK, a 90% effective shield is a 100% failure. If 50 nukes are launched and you stop 45, the 5 that get through still end the nation. The UK government concluded that the only true defense was deterrence – making sure the enemy was too afraid to fire in the first place.
Because the UK is a relatively small, densely populated island, it is far more vulnerable to a handful of hits than a massive landmass like the US or Russia. you would either be nuked or had to survive in country, poisoned by radoactive radiation and with total colapse of its infrastructure. The UK’s national grid for electricity, gas, and water is highly centralized, dstroying just three or four key hubs would have plunged the entire island into a pre-industrial state within seconds. “Broken-Backed Warfare.” The idea was that the UK would continue to fight even after its cities were gone, but the reality discovered in Cold War war games was that there would be no ‘country’ left to fight for.
For decades, it was a two way street, both the West and the Soviet Union effectively stood defenceless against a full-scale nuclear strike.
Today, with the Yasen-M, they come back to the North Sea not because they have to as their missiles have the range, but because being closer makes the Zircon hypersonic strike almost impossible to react to, the OODA Loop is too slow. The reaction window has shrunk from boiling a kettle … 4 minutes to sending a text … under 1 minute, thus, the UK has begun integrating AI driven command and control. The 2026 goal is for the defense system to fire automatically because a human being simply cannot process the data and authorize a launch fast enough to stop a Mach 9 projectile.
This is where the UK has integrated its ground-based and sea-based systems into a single cloud … enabling Sky Sabre CAMM/ER and (CAMM HR around 2029/30.) Sky Saber is Sea Ceptor’s land based Common Anti-Air Modular Missile Army brother and is the UK’s primary land-based missile defense system. … and Skyhammer; designed to provide affordable mass, using cheaper, high-speed interceptors to saturate the path of an incoming hypersonic missile, effectively creating a wall of lead in the sky.
The first substantial tranche of Skyhammer missiles and launchers will be delivered to the UK Armed Forces next month, another significant number of additional units will be delivered June to October to complete the initial order, with full operational integration by the end of 2026. We can expect to see them deployed around high value UK sites, like Portsmouth or Faslane naval bases.
Yes, UK home defence against bm’s is late … 50 years+ late, but it’s happening right now. Let’s acknowledge that.
?? in what way CAMM and Skyhammer can intercept effectively BM’s?
From your post it sounds like a lot of stuff is actually happening with GBAD which id encouraging. You mention CAMM-ER, is that the Italian or a UK version? And CAMM-HR? Do you mean the Anglo-Polish CAMM-MR? If either or both of these two then they could be cross utilised for the RNs mk41s. With all these missiles and drones is there any talk or action on gun based “off the back of a truck” systems like Terrawhawk or Tridon?
CAMM-ER (Extended Range) is a joint UK-Italian development. The UK provided the core CAMM technology, the active seeker and soft-launch system, while Italy, via MBDA Italy led the development of the larger rocket motor that pushes the range from 25 km to over 45 km. In April 2026, Poland has just signed a massive contract to produce these locally in Zielonka.
CAMM-MR (Medium Range) is the Anglo-Polish variant, the Narew project’s high-end evolution. It is designed to hit targets at 100 km+. It isn’t just a ‘longer’ CAMM; it’s a strategic shift intended to replace aging Soviet-era systems with a sovereign Polish-built shield.
CAMM-HR (High Reach/High Range), often used interchangeably with the MR or specific developmental blocks aimed at higher-altitude intercepts.
Mk41 VLS Integration, apparently they are being cross-utilised. The CAMM family is designed to be quad-packed into a single Mk41 cell. This means a Hunter-class or Type 26 frigate could potentially carry four CAMM-ERs in a space that would normally hold only one larger missile. Lockheed Martin and MBDA have spent 25/26 ensuring the ExLS (Extensible Launching System) allows these missiles to communicate with the ship’s ‘brain’ without needing a total rewire.
The Heavy Lift MAN HX77 (8×8), the big beast used for the Sky Sabre (Land Ceptor). The MAN HX77 carries the EMADS (Enhanced Modular Air Defence Solutions) launcher. Each truck carries 8 missiles … either the standard CAMM or the Italian/UK CAMM-ER. The beauty of this system is that the truck doesn’t need to be level to fire; it can pull over on a rough roadside and launch within minutes.
To address the Double Gap issue, the MoD doubled the order for these launchers in late 2025 to ensure more are available on the ground.
The High-Mobility Specialist, Supacat HMT for lighter, more discrete missions, specifically the Skyhammer and potentially the newer Starhammer variants, the Supacat HMT (High Mobility Transporter) is the go to for ‘off the back of a truck’ solution, the World Defence Show in February 26, saw Supacat is pushing the new Armoured Closed Cab variant. This is essentially a modular ‘flatbed’ that can be rapidly swapped. It can carry a palletised Terrahawk 30 mm gun for drone shredding, or a small pod of Starhammer missiles for rapid-reaction intercepts. It is small enough to hide in a British woodland or a barn, then pop out to engage.
Project Brakestop & Nightfall, this is where the UK is trying to close the ‘velocity gap’ using affordable mass. These are being designed for medium-to-heavy commercial trucks, similar to a Scania or MAN 6×6 to keep costs down … However, while these are low-cost, British-designed, British-funded, British-tested and British made … The UK is not buying them for its defence forces … they are being ‘gifted’ to the Ukraine.
Looking forward to the German / UK Deep Precision Strike (DPS) Trinity House Agreement program and its results.
Thanks for all the details above. I wasn’t aware that the CAMM-ER was Anglo Italian, I thought mostly Italian.
Kind of related, i’d like to see the manufacturer of the 6 CAMM farm silo try and squeeze in another 2 for 8 in the same footprint so 4×8 for 32. Or, even join 2×6 together and insert another 3 in the middle join area for a 15 block so 2 for 30. Even if just as options. Could help get more than just the 24 on the T45s.
QuentinD63 … are you a dyed-in-the-wool, John Bull British expat living in Australia and/or are a fair dinkum, true blue Australian; with a passion for the RN? I’m a dyed-in-the-wool, John Bull British expat / immigrant living in Australia (pom) and a fair dinkum, true blue Australian (even though I hate rugby league and aussie rules.) I live in both worlds with Australian / UK passports.
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The CAMM-ER is a fascinating piece of kit that sits right in the middle of a collaborative European effort. it is truly Anglo-Italian, though the balance shifts depending on which part of the family you look at.
The core technology, seeker, electronics, and the Soft Vertical Launch system was developed by MBDA UK based on the original CAMM Sea Ceptor, which is a British design derived from the ASRAAM air to air missile.
The Extended Range variant was specifically funded and driven by the Italian Ministry of Defence. The magic that makes it ER, the larger, high-performance rocket motor, is designed and manufactured by the Italian company Avio.
A British brain inside an Italian body. MBDA Italy leads the integration for the Italian Army and Air Force systems – Grifo and MAADS, but it remains a joint product.
The rocket motor is larger, 190mm diameter, dual-pulse motor, provides more thrust and can reignite its second pulse late in flight to maintain high manoeuvrability at the edge of its 45km+ range. The Italians also redesigned the airframe and fuselage, because the motor is wider (190mm vs. the UK’s 166mm), If you look at photos of CAMM vs. CAMM-ER, the ER version has prominent longitudinal strakes (fins) running down the body. These were added to provide extra lift and stability for the longer, heavier body.
MBDA UK own the intellectual property for the CAMM ‘core’, they recalibrated the software to account for the new fuselage. While the Active RF Seeker is essentially the same one found on the British CAMM and ASRAAM, because the ER flies faster and stays in the air longer, MBDA UK had to rewrite the guidance algorithms. The nose cone had to be slightly reshaped to maintain the radar’s performance at the higher supersonic speeds that the Italian motor generates.
The missile’s two-way data link had to be adjusted to handle the increased ranges, ensuring it could still ‘talk’ to the ship or ground radar from twice the distance. By using the British seeker, Italy saved hundreds of millions in R&D and years of testing. Conversely, by using the Italian motor, the UK gets a longer-ranged missile option without having to fund a new rocket program itself. It’s a classic European defence win win Italy provides the ‘muscle and brawn’ the UK provides the ‘eyes and brain’.
Estimated costs – 2025/2026
Standard CAMM approx. £1.6M – £2M per missile.
CAMM-ER approx. £2.4M – £2.8M per missile.
A premium for the larger Avio rocket motor and the larger, more complex airframe, strakes and fuselage.
Squeezing in more missiles conundrum.
There are physical and technical ‘hard stops’ (absolute, non-negotiable physical or logical limits that prevent adding more equipment or changing a design.) to consider when trying to squeeze more missiles into the same footprint.
Weight and stability is already a sensitive topic for the T45 class, the new 24 cell farm is being placed in the gym space forward of the existing Aster silos. Adding 32 or 40 missiles starts to affect the ship’s top weight and centre of gravity.
Currently, the Type 45 is getting a 24-cell standalone mushroom farm consisting of 3 blocks of 8. While the standard CAMM (166mm) is famously quad-packed into NATO Mk41 cells, the larger CAMM-ER (190mm) is also designed to be quad-packed in the same way, via the ExLS (Extensible Launching System) insert. However, the standalone farm silos used on the Type 45 and Type 23 are custom-fitted to the deck space, which limits their density compared to a standardised Mk41 grid. The Mk41 cell is a square box (63cm wide), while the mushroom farm tubes are individual round canisters. They lose a lot of corner space with round tubes, which is why your 4×8 (32) layout is so hard to achieve in the farm footprint without the square-grid efficiency of the Mk41.
The issues concern structural support and the gas management, even though it’s a soft launch, the piston and gas generator at the bottom of each tube need space. Adding a 4th row of 8 often runs into the ship’s longitudinal girders or maintenance access routes. Each block of silos requires reinforced steel coaming; the raised frame to keep the deck watertight and structurally sound. There needs to be enough deck plating between the blocks to maintain the ship’s structural integrity against the “hogging and sagging” forces of the ocean.
Joining two 6-blocks and fill the ‘dead space’ in the middle. In traditional VLS, that middle area is often reserved for the Common Launch Tower electronics or the cabling runs that connect the silos to the ship’s Combat Management System (CMS). If you look at the Sea Ceptor installations on a Type 23, they are already packed very tightly. The reason they don’t fill the gaps is usually to allow technicians; Weapon Engineers (WE) to actually get a spanner or a diagnostic cable into the module. Unlike a Mk41 VLS which is accessed from the top, the CAMM farm electronics often require access from the side or bottom for maintenance. If you pack them 4×8 with no gaps, they might have to remove four missiles just to reach a faulty connector on a fifth one.
Additionally, while the idea of an extra block, taking it from 24 to 32 missiles is technically “only 8 more,” it crosses a specific threshold in naval combat logic … “Engagement Bandwidth.”
That extra block pushes the system into a bottleneck. Every CAMM (and CAMM-ER) in the air needs a constant stream of data from the ship’s Sampson radar to know where the target is. The Sampson radar has a limited number of ‘data-link channels.’ Just like a Wi-Fi router; it can only handle so many devices at high speed before the connection for everyone starts to lag. The Royal Navy’s upgrade to 24 CAMMs was precisely calculated to match the Sea Viper Evolution software and to ensure the radar isn’t spread too thin (especially while performing new Ballistic Missile Defence tasks) – adding a 32nd missile means the radar has to divide its energy into smaller and smaller slices. If you fire 32 missiles at once, you might find that the last 8 aren’t getting updates fast enough to hit a manoeuvring supersonic target.
By moving to CAMM-ER, you are double the missile’s range to 45km+, now the computer has to manage an extra 8 missiles at 45km instead of 20km, the processing time for each calculation cycle increases exponentially. The ship’s Combat Management System (CMS-1) has to predict the intercept point for every missile. Adding that extra block creates more math than the current mid-life upgrade is designed to prioritise alongside the ship’s main Aster-30 ballistic missile defence (BMD) tasks … in 2026, with the Sea Viper Evolution upgrade, the focus is shifting toward Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD). That processing bottleneck is even more critical, because the radar has to look higher for ballistic threats while simultaneously managing the 24 CAMMs for low threats.
Even as the Type 45’s undergo Power Improvement Project upgrades, the Sampson radar is still incredibly power-hungry, to guide more missiles simultaneously, the radar has to ‘dwell’ on targets longer, which sucks more electricity from the ship’s engines. Engineers found that 72 missiles; 48 Aster + 24 CAMM is the sweet spot where the ship can fight at maximum intensity without risking a power surge or overheating the radar arrays.
Type 45 was originally designed to fit 2 x Mk 41 in this space. Stand alone ExLS is a 3 cell quad packable unit, each cell being the same size as a standard mk41 cell. They could have easily fitted 4 x ExLS stand alone units in the same space. This equals 48 CAMM. Mk 41 is a very heavy unit, as they don’t know what you may want to fire from them. ExLS standalone is very light weight. It can’t even fire ESSM (not sure about CAMM-ER, but that should be more of a length issue). CAMM is a very light missile. Twenty four CAMM on a T45 is a typical MoD fudge.
You are absolutely correct AlexS. I appolgise for that error.
I must correct my previous assessment regarding the UK’s missile shield. While the integration of ground-based and sea-based systems into a single ‘cloud’ is a significant step forward, we must distinguish between the different tiers ‘Low-End’ and ‘High-End’ defence threat.
Sky Sabre remains the Army’s primary land-based tactical shield, utilizing the CAMM and the new CAMM-ER (Extended Range). However, these are point-defence and local area systems; they are not designed to intercept high-altitude, high-velocity Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs).
The introduction of the ‘Hammer’ family, starting in May 2026, addresses the ‘affordable mass’ problem at the low end.
Skyhammer is a subsonic (Mach 0.7), turbojet-powered interceptor, designed to kill cheap, slow-moving drone swarms efficiently, is not a ‘wall of lead’ against hypersonics; it is a surgical tool to ensure we don’t waste £1 million missiles on £20,000 drones.
Starhammer, is is the faster sibling, utilizing a Nightstar solid rocket motor to reach supersonic speeds of Mach 2.0+. is intended to engage cruise missiles like – Kh-101/ / P-800 Oniks / Kalibr (3M14) / BrahMos / 3M-54 Kalibr (Supersonic Variant) or cruise missiles equivalent to – Storm Shadow / SCALP and Tomahawk.
Not functional against hypersonic cruise missiles like Tsirkon or Kinzhal. and high-speed drones.
While the first substantial tranche of Skyhammer units arrives next month for deployment at high-value sites like Portsmouth and Faslane, these systems protect against ‘low-end’ mass, not ‘high-end’ velocity.
Yes, the UK is finally building a ‘Low-End’ shield to stop the drone threat ‘right now.’ But as for the ‘High-End’ ballistic and hypersonic threats, the UK still remains 50+ years behind. The UK currently has zero land-based systems capable of stopping a Mach 5+ ballistic missile.
Again, let’s acknowledge the progress on drones, but remain clear-eyed about the remaining ballistic vulnerability.
Thank you Magenta.
Carns is part of the problem and he knows the truth about our defence spending or rather lack of it, the total denial government and society are in over our security. If he had a shred of decency honour and integrity he would not be part of this treasonous cabinet and government so stop giving him credit he does not deserve because of his background, it makes him worse then the rest of the useless shower because he knows the reality.
He is one man. Your best chance of influencing government is if you are part of government with a seat at the cabinet table, That is where real decisions are made. Parliament is a broad brush. They can direct policy, but they don’t run the government. Cabinet does.