On 1 September, Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell asked the Ministry of Defence what steps had been taken to improve the domestic development, production, and delivery of autonomous systems for service in the Royal Air Force.
Defence Minister Maria Eagle said the 2025 Strategic Defence Review had made clear that the RAF must remain at the forefront of change.
“The Strategic Defence Review recognised that the RAF must stay at the leading edge of Combat Air’s evolution, through the transition from exclusively crewed Combat Air platforms to a Future Combat Air System (FCAS) with a mix of crewed, uncrewed, and increasingly autonomous platforms, integrated into the UK’s digital targeting web.”
She highlighted two platforms now in service. “Both Protector and Stormshroud, the RAF’s first ACP, entered service this year, the latter being an excellent example of how the RAF is taking modernising its approach to autonomous systems, by combining expertise of the RAF, the Government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and UK industry.”
Eagle added that autonomy will play a central role across multiple capabilities. “The RAF are committed to the exploitation of autonomy and other complimentary technologies in a range of systems, delivering effects across the Air domain.”
She confirmed that future decisions will be shaped by ongoing investment planning. “The pace of adoption will be facilitated by the Defence Investment Plan, due for publication later this year.”
What steps have been taken?? Let’s see, we’ve done hundreds of trials, we’ve informed future decisions, studied emergent threats, consulted with stakeholders, announced plans to triple lethality, while gapping capability and ordering nothing.
Simple.
How can you see through the smoke and mirrors.. witchcraft I say… burn him before he asks for an FOI we won’t answer.
😂😁🤔😳☹️🤞👍🇬🇧
When the RAF cancelled the Mosquito project, telling us it could be done faster and cheaper, the announcement was written in a form of English the Microsoft reading age calculator declared as too high to be quantified, over the reading level of a professional graduate. This ability to speak to the public in words that can’t possibly be understood is a direct output of the RAF drone programme and will find uses in general politics and other areas where complete obscurity of purpose is a boon. Unlike other forms of cryptographic advance, such as quantum cryptography, the ability to talk ****** can never be decrypted, not by our enemies or our allies. This one-way transformation, prototyped by the RCO, will stand the test of time, and our senior military leadership will be talking ****** for many decades to come.
Yeah I recall the Project Mosquito being cancelled along with the spiel about gaining a deeper understanding of cheaper, more affordable alternatives. That they also didn’t order any of.
The Article Picture shows which direction the RAF is taking.
One Drone and a whole bunch of fake Typhoons.
Our Enemies will think we have many more Typhoons than we actually have.
Fake CH3’s next ?
So the answer is NOTHING..
No more dithering, the UK must grab the bull by the horns and address the need to boost aircraft fleet numbers. Sadly, we would find it easier to extract gold from a monkey’s bottom than achieve a follow-on order of Typhoon. So, autonomous craft have to step up and fill the obvious attrition issues if an air war breaks out. In such an event, manned aircraft would become a precious commodity as modern-day combat can be very expensive in lives and material, and as recently stated, we’d prefer to scrap Typhoons than replace them with new planes. China has recently displayed their progress in remote systems, shocking the West. Progress, which, according to observers, is now ahead of the US and Europe. I can’t believe I’m thinking that ‘Duncan Sands’ was ahead of the game by predicting that future air war will be missiles, which also equates to unmanned systems.
Doesn’t amount to much does it?
More worrying is the latest GAO report on F35 block 4. The scope of the upgrade is being reduced to give some chance of being ready by 2031. Costs have risen to $16.5b and the GAO notes the aircraft programme continues to over promise and under deliver. There is no specific mention of weapons integration timescales but it doesn’t look good.
To add to Posse’s post.
Storm Shroud. I understand a grand total of 24 have been bought for the RAF.
Not in the hundreds, or the thousands.
24.
A FOIA asking how many regular and reserve personnel to deploy these assets with 216 Sqn would be interesting.