The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force are working together on the development of fixed-wing drone technologies that could eventually fly from Britain’s aircraft carriers, offering enhanced strike capabilities and reduced risk to personnel.
In a written parliamentary response on 23 June, Minister for Defence Maria Eagle stated that “the Royal Navy continues to work collaboratively with the Royal Air Force to investigate the potential for fixed wing Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP) to enhance the strike capabilities of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers.”
These platforms—often referred to as ACPs—are uncrewed, next-generation drones designed to work alongside manned aircraft as part of a team. They can carry out roles such as strike, surveillance, jamming, or acting as decoys, and are expected to play a key part in future air power by expanding the effectiveness of crewed platforms like the F-35B without placing pilots at risk.
Eagle added that “ACPs provide the opportunity to generate additional combat mass, improve operational persistence, and offer more choice to the operational commander by reducing risk to life.” Importantly, she confirmed that the ability for these drones to physically operate from the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers is being treated as “an essential attribute to enable their deployment by the Royal Navy.”
The development of such capabilities aligns with the Future Maritime Aviation Force (FMAF) initiative, which seeks to modernise the Royal Navy’s aviation assets and introduce new uncrewed systems to complement the F-35B Lightning II.
In a separate response to a written question from Paul Holmes MP, the Minister confirmed that the Ministry of Defence is in regular contact with drone technology suppliers to ensure British forces remain at the forefront of uncrewed system development. “Defence routinely engages with drone component suppliers to iterate and spiral develop capability in close cooperation with allies,” Eagle said.
She noted that support to Ukraine remains a major source of insight and progress. “One of the key mechanisms to ensure that Defence is up to date with the latest developments in drone technology and associated tactics is through our support to Ukraine, where drone capabilities are developed and exploited in cooperation with drone component suppliers.”
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We working on ACP by having “regular meetings with drones suppliers”.
Now the MOD approach to R&D is regular cups of coffee with BAE on the hopes they come up with something for free.
The large and genuine problem is that this kind of thing is best done by startups.
However, startups need secure cash flow.
MoD doesn’t do cash flow streams – it does stop start and then drop you with radio silence.
It isn’t rocket science.
Now, don’t be so dismissive.
Regular coffees with BAE will, within 3-5 years, evolve to coffees with biscuits.
More insights.
More trials.
More deliberations.
More informing decisions.
And after this latest Eagle Speak, still no actual orders for any real physical kit.
And round the wheel turns.
Seen on X ( UKDJ ) a few days ago, so far this government have ordered:
Small extra batch of Jackal E.
4.5 million on One Way Strike Drones, a Modini product apparently.
Undisclosed numbers of LMM and M270 rockets.
15 extra M270 ( maybe, maybe not pantomime ) as part of an ongoing previous plan.
That stacks up against all the extra billions talked about,
of Britain going on a “war footing” with industry ramp ups,
and the Army now 10 times more lethal, with less of everything as all three services continue to shrink.
Nothing to see here! Move along.
All too true DM. It is amazing how they miss the obvious. The Americans are reportedly rushing to get LRASM, JASSM-ER & AARGM-ER integrated on F-35B. That might be the quickest route to upgunning a RN carrier task group. Even a small interim buy would do it for now.
Yes, an ASM for fast jets should be a high priority, and quite cheap defence spend wise?
Assuming the yanks complete the F-35B integration, then we just need a small buy, say 60 of each, like the RN use of Tomahawk. 60 each of LRASM, JASSM-ER & AARGM-ER comes to around $570m. Anything else would cost billions for that level of firepower.
There is something highly depressing about this.
Reeve’s statement to the house was predictably like a 5th form effort of low end Gordon Brownian double announcing money, adding another few existing budgets into defence but slightly shrinking the overall pot so something is being squeezed somewhere…
They’ve no interest in defence, SB.
No more than the last lot, or the ones before.
It is an inconvenience to fund rather than seen as a necessity.
Maybe Reeves will get taken by Palestine Action, then she might appreciate when armed men come to do violence on her behalf, rather than begrudging it, grandstanding, and finding money for HMGs mates in the MIC instead.
My concern is that more and more of the ‘defence’ budget is actually being used to resurrect a 1970’s industrial policy by the back door.
As you say I am not seeing new kit being ordered, never mind delivered, with any identifiable urgency.
It really says it all that since 2014 we have done nothing but cut and yet we expect Putin to sit up when we bang our fist on the table.
So many posters on this site blame the Government (or even, on their less lucid days, the ‘woke’ Deep State) for the failure to increase defence spending but I think these explanations miss a more banal issue.
Since Governments of all political persuasions have failed to increase defence spendings, surely the constant factor when it comes to reluctance to increase defence spending is the wishes and priorities of the electorate.
And the most important part of that electorate is (purely coincidently of course) the one that keeps Centre-Right, nominally pro-Defence, political parties like the Tories and Reform in power: the over-60s as a whole but those in receipt of the state pension in particular.
It is this electorally powerful part of the population that keeps the present political status quo in place: the demand for increased welfare spend on extremely expensive things like old age healthcare and the state pension but also a strong hostility to the tax increases necessary to pay for it.
Defence spending is currently caught in a pincer movement between these two contradictory requirements. Governments of all persuasions know this and this is why they are very cautious about either increasing taxes to pay for defence or by shifting spend from welfare as they know this would be extremely unpopular, especially amongst their own voters.
How do we get out of this? I think we need a ‘burning platform’ where all parties can clearly see that the status quo has to change and that defence spending has to be increased asap. Russia or China declaring war on us should do it but that sounds a bit extreme to me! Suggestions on a postcard.
To be fair, the Malloys on the carrier will be a real purchase.
Good shout. Have they ordered them, i thought they were only on trial and contractor owned?
Hmm. Ownership is an assumption on my part, but I know the MOD have purchased T150 before and the Navy has had the internal capability to run them for some time. I saw one displayed on a Royal Navy stand at a show a year or two back and chatted to the sailor from 700X whose job included operating them. It has also been reported (both UKDJ and Navy Lookout) that the nine drones on the CSG are operated by a dozen members of 700X NAS, operating from three ships.
I wish they’d taken a couple of T400s as well. I’m not sure if 700X have any T400s, but the Army does.
Thanks, Jon.
I lose track on the Drone front.
Any idea how many of each type were procured?
No idea. These were reported as a newly delivered in August last year and forms the first time they’ve been deployed on ships, but whether they were part of a larger batch I can’t say.
As for the T400s, there seems to be a lot of ambiguity in reporting about what has been purchased for us and what for Ukraine. the first mention of “heavy lift” drones for Ukraine was made in BoJo’s time near the start of the war, and those were thought to be Malloy T150s. The Experimentation and Trials Group in the Army were testing the T400s on Salisbury Plain last year. My guess is that none will be operational yet.
I think they used old ones the Marines have already used for ship to shore trials, rather than a new order. So Navy owned but not a special procurement.
These were reported to be a new batch, having been delivered to 700X NAS last August.
The telling word AGAIN, Daniele is “eventually”.so no change there. There was even an article in the D.T. ( I know!) the other day suggesting that the Heathrow runway; road improvements to “faciltate” the movement of troops and rural broadband might come under the defence budget.. Happy days!
Hi my friend.
Yes, I mentioned the rural broadband bit here.
Overall, yes, but it includes to small Hamlets. Hardly defence related, although overall yes a good secure Internet available could be used defence wise, and is.
Surely all that part of the 1.5 though, to get to the 5% with 3.5 as “core.”
I know you’re as suspicious and cynical as me when it comes to these people, so who knows what Reeves will shove in it.
The Tories were no better mate, sadly
No argument from me, surprise, surprise. One lot following another. Still, no rush I suppose!!!
Separating defence sending from defence-related spending will be a huge boon if it’s done honestly. We will actually know for the first time in over a decade how much we spend on Defence.
So much project work going into drone development but very little being pushed through to actual production and deployment. I know it’s a fast changing technology, but at some point the MoD are going to have to hang their hat on something and bring it to fruition.
We seem to be going round in circles. In 2022, the RAF cancelled project Mosquito, claiming smaller cheaper UAVs would be more cost effective. This left the RNs Vixen project in disarray. No result from the RFI on EMAL system was ever made public. Since then, a GA Mohave drone has been tested.
Before any progress is made, both services must be clear about what they want and why and what that ambition will cost. It is hard to see that anything has progressed in the last three years.
What UK really needs is more combat aircraft both to make better use of the carriers and to rebuild some of the RAFs drastically reduced fast jet fleet. Endlessly playing around with UCAV concepts is a waste of time and resources.
They used to say the British Army (and by default the other services) were the best trained and worst equipped in NATO. Now it’s going to be the best informed and least equipped.
Shame there doesn’t appear to be a collaborative effort between countries with f35b navy’s. So surely there will be more drone helicopters but the most obvious would be manned and unmanned tilt rotor or at a push, push – rotor helicopters.
I understand the whole vision of system of systems with drones but on a carrier with a fixed amount of room this will just reduce the number of F35s. Would this then still be a capability enhancement or just a way to switch out expensive jets with something about 1/10 the price as a cost cutting measure?
Combat loadout of 36 F35s vs say 24 F35s and circa 24 drones?
Peacetime loadout of 24 F35s vs say 12 F35s and circa 12 to 24 drones?
The concept is based on the idea that we will never procure enough F35B to allow filling up the carriers.
Even the upper limit of 138 isn’t enough for full carrier air wings of 36 jets on a regular basis, so drones are needed to make up the numbers.