The Royal Navy has not set targets for the number of uncrewed surface or underwater vessels it may deploy in the Arctic or North Atlantic, according to a ministerial answer to a parliamentary question.
Responding to a written question from Lord Stirrup, Defence Minister Lord Coaker said the service is focusing on broader capability development rather than fixed platform counts, as it reshapes its approach to operations in the High North and across the Atlantic.
He told peers that the Royal Navy will enhance warfighting readiness over the next four years through the programmes known as Atlantic Bastion, Atlantic Shield and Atlantic Strike. “The Atlantic Bastion capability options submitted for consideration in the Defence Industrial Plan include a blend of uncrewed systems, underwater payloads, options to increase lethality, and improvements to crewed platforms,” he said.
Uncrewed systems are being considered as part of a wider move toward a so-called Hybrid Navy, combining crewed ships with autonomous and remotely operated platforms, rather than as a discrete fleet with defined numbers attached. The Ministry of Defence did not indicate how many uncrewed surface vessels or underwater systems might eventually be procured or deployed.
Lord Coaker also addressed suggestions of an “Arctic Sentry” mission, stressing that it remains conceptual. “Arctic Sentry remains a concept, rather than an agreed activity,” he said, adding that discussions are ongoing among allies on how NATO should strengthen security in the High North in response to growing Russian activity. Decisions on specific platforms, quantities and timelines appear likely to depend on the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan.
When there Is no news to report, It’s good to see It being reported…. ffwd to 2035 !
Why do they need to broadcast exact numbers and locations anyway? FGS show a bit of smarts. Hope these surface and sub drones have enough zip and or stealth to get away from some adversaries trawler nets or even a stray cargo ships crane…LOL.
Be interesting to see how much all this ends up costing compared to a price of a crewed frigate.
My prediction is that the unit costs will be little different to a basic frigate and that a few of them will tie up a real frigate playing mother fixing them.
IRL there will be most of a crew controlling them from the mother ship.
So I don’t actually believe that the first generation will have any tangible benefit at all.
However, it will be used as an excuse to fail to increase the manned surface combatants.
My take is that the drones that are coming available for aerial use are starting to get increasingly useful but that the sea drones are a decade or so behind that except for niche cases.
Agree – a realistic perspective. I accept the logic that we will need unmanned technology to construct an affordable, comprehensive and persistent Atlantic net. But in the near future, in addition to the T26s, the RN could possess a fair number of T31 (and River) flight decks which might support decent coverage of Proteus and Merlin sonar buoys. We might be better advised spending our limited funds on networking technologies we are already good at. Learn to walk before we run with the unmanned technologies.
Buy what is there instead of spending your money on a concept that does not exist.. we live today.. tomorrow does not exist.
nothing to see here, again
Two? …or am I getting carried away.
At this rate, the Gosport Ferry Company will have more hulls than the Royal Navy
Ah yes, “increased lethality ” , but absolutely no orders of anything. Plus ca change.
It’s such a shame that many on here are, quite understandably, reduced to sarcasm and disappointment about almost all announcements. ‘Depending on the DIP’ caveats everything at the moment, so not publishing it = more money for net zero, welfare, etc.
When SDR 2025 came out, I felt quite optimistic about the future; more fool me.
Little surprise really, we’ve had this shit since 1995 FLF.
91 OFC was the only justified SDSR.
Both Labour and Tory vow the world when in opposition, then cut the military when in office.
The current crop are a particularly virilant strain with the power of the 3 HR lawyers at the helm and the influence of the left regards welfare reform.
SDSR25, I was a grumpy and cynical as usual, and I’ve seen nothing to change my view sadly. That document isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Like all the others, no corresponding financial commitment means its purely for grabbing headlines now to deflect from realities.
The “Grandstanding” that I usually call it.
Grandstanding is what Britain has been doing since the Crystal Palace 1851 exhibition. The trouble is we don’t seem to understand that our circumstances are somewhat changed.
Agree yet disagree.
A nation without an out of date empire that is still a P5,G7 nation with one of the world’s biggest economies and a whole list of other world leading attributes should still be able to have armed forces commiserate to it’s rank size wise.
We have money, politicians are now only interested in votes and their own standing so spend elsewhere.
I’d also suggest that as the Cold War is a distant memory or unknown to many the importance of a military is lost and indeed shunned fashionably, along with a whole lot else I don’t need to get into. Look at our universities as an example.
I do think things are gradually changing, look at Europe as a whole.
Whether the big two adapt or go down kicking and screaming is of no consequence. I read Church attendance is also up.
I understand and agree with a lot of what you say. I won’t be here but it will be interesting to see what historians make of this period in our history. My view is that we are at a nadir, a low point, but a turning point. We see this in the fortunes and low morale of our important cultural and constitutional building blocks; the Royal Family, the National Health Service, the Church of England, temptations to cut trial by jury, Reform and the Green Party out-polling the historic Labour, Tory and Liberal parties. The run down in our armed forces is part of the picture. As we let go of our empire tried EU membership – an attempt to grow into and define a new sense of national identity. It failed because we had not finished the bereavement process of losing empire. Bit like jumping into a new relationship too soon after losing a partner. The increase in church attendance ( mostly among generation Z I believe) is an encouraging sign that we are recovering-recovering our confidence in ourselves. It’s also interesting and a good sign that abstinence from alcohol is prevalent in gen Z. Our children are focussed. As you say, our universities are top drawer – the Chinese know this – as is our high tech industry. The economy does need rebalancing away from pubs, deliveroo and cash car washes towards the sectors highlighted by the govt- media, financial services, pharma, defence, energy. The challenge is to do this while maintaining the growth which funds the income tax returns which repair the potholes. Belt tightening is required, but not popular of course with those worst affected. 2026 will be the year we see whether Ms Reeves’ supply side economics theories work when they are opposed by Trump tariffs, Brexit hangover and the govts own failure to cut the benefits bill. On the defence side of things I’m looking forward to seeing 2 or maybe 3 new frigates undergoing sea trials and ( eventually) some significant equipment orders. I also believe they will come up with something credible out of the Ajax mess – necessity is the mother of invention. 🙂
Agree regards Ajax, Paul. They have to get something out of it, as the alternative is sod all.
Interestingly, a minister was discussing Drop 4 standard yesterday, I did not think Ajax had got there yet.
Commiserate indeed 😔
This makes sense. A large drone will be capable of carrying a much more powerful sonar than a small drone and so fewer will be needed to cover the same area.
The RUSI had a very good publication on this, overall they quite liked the idea of the bastion but felt it needed some refinement here and there, a view shared by many here as well.
In regards to the drones however they made a good point, that many here like myself have brought up before, sea state and speed. The small 50-100 tonne drones often shown the artwork of the press releases will not be able to cope with remotely high sea States and would be lost, yet would still be expensive enough that we won’t be able to produce them at a rate of one week and actually afford it.
Additionally it appears that Russia does not actually care if they’re SSNs are detected in the GIUK gap because once they get into the Atlantic they just increase speed and outrun their pursuers meaning that we have to go through the exact same process to detect them as we did before only now we have to cover the entirety of the Atlantic instead of just the Arctic waters in the Norwegian and North Seas
Current Russian naval strategy involves surging their SSN into the Atlantic before a war starts and so even if one of the frigates and detects the SSN it will be peacetime and so we cannot shoot just like we do not shoot now whenever we detect one. By the time the war starts if it does start, all of the Russian SSN will be in the Atlantic unaccompanied.
A large drone ship or minimally crewed, say 3000 tonnes however would be able to keep up with a SSN for long enough for a Type 26 to arrive and take over, a small drone however blacks both the speed and range required to keep up for long enough and so we would have spent a fortune on all of these drones that don’t really help us find the RFN SSNs any more than we already do.
And not on the topic of drones but a sort of fatal flaw with the current Atlantic bastion idea, Russia can just go around Greenland under the ice such as in the Atrina exercise. Unless we include Canada and they perform a similar effort in the Davis straight then all the RFN SSN’s will simply go around the Atlantic bastion effectively making it no better than a naval Maginot line.
Overall I would very much recommend reading the RUSI article on the bastion as it comprehensively covers almost everything and provides suggestions to improve it, like stationing more offensive firepower in the Norwegian Sea to force Russia to keep its SSNs the instead of trying to break for the Atlantic.
From my armchair viewpoint spending lots of monies on these drones for Bastion might be better value spent on an additional T26, having 1-3 more ASW and Artic capable T31s, a few more P8s and a small fleet (4+) SSKNs, maybe the 212CD type in partnership with Norway and Germany current builds. We’ll have to see where their “DIP” (pun intended) is thinking. Will try and give the RUSI article a read shortly over my coffee ☕️ tomorrow morning.
The problem is a blue water drone fleet and drone based capabilities projected onto blue water operations is still fantasy land stuff.. so of course they cannot give numbers.. there is nothing to give numbers on.. just some senior military leaders and politicians drinking the cool aid that is being feed them by an industry that wants money to invent a new product for a market…but the product and even the market does not yet exist..
I hope they realised that there is a lot of smoke an mirrors going on with autonomous systems and drones in naval conflict.. far far to much has been taken from Ukraine which is a green water naval conflict in an enclosed benign sea that is at no point more than 150km from land and the AI companies have been promising far beyond what AI can deliver especially in very complex dynamic environments.
The RN and HMG needs to give its head wobble and realise autonomous systems are not a replacement for crewed vessels, just an adjunct that can be used in specific ways.
And we know this is the case because China is in reality the nation with the most operational experience of autonomous vessels with:
Zhi Fei operating and carrying cargo since 2022,
Zhuhai Yun as an uncrewed research vessel for launching its own drones
Jindouyun 0 Hao a little green water cargo hauler that has been operational since 2019
JARI USV a 500 general purpose combatants that has been working up concepts since 2018..
But with 8 years of operations, china has not started serial production of a large even green water drone combatant and you can be sure if China though the concept was sound it would have serial produced 500 of the things and have them floating around the china seas. also every drone ship china has produced has been optionally crewed.. they all have a bridge and some form of crew accommodation.. because they know from experience even drone ships are better crewed unless you really don’t need or want the crew in a specific time frame or place..
So I have no issue with the RN coming up with a future optionally crewed combatant of say 2000-3000 tones that can act as a patrol ship with a small crew or an uncrewed support vessel for a naval task group ( essentially a down threat trip wire come victim)… in reality it’s going to be a decade away and not replace actual warships….
Will announce readiness over the next 4 years 🤣. No rush. I’m sure any potential aggressor is happy to stick to your timetable.
Call me silly or naive when it comes to unmanned naval drones but what would stop the Russians – or anyone else for that matter – hijacking one and stealing all the tech onboard? They are unmanned after all, so who would stop them? Again – forgive the silly question….