In a newly-released Prior Information Notice, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has unveiled its plans for a Missile Defence Research & Development Category Strategy.
The forthcoming project is aimed at establishing a strong and effective defence against evolving missile threats, such as ballistic and advanced hypersonic glide and hypersonic cruise missiles.
The initiative revolves around the five key pillars of missile defence, namely Counter-Proliferation and Arms Control, Deterrence, Counterforce, Active Defence, and Passive Defence.
The MoD, acting as the Contracting Authority, is primed to set the wheels in motion for a competitive procurement process. This will culminate in the awarding of a substantial contract for the provision of Missile Defence R&D.
The contract is categorised as a Framework (Services) contract. This long-term agreement, with a duration of six years, is estimated to be worth between £25 million and £125 million.
The notice was published under the auspices of ‘Find a Tender’, a public service that allows users to search and apply for tenders from UK public sector organisations, including central government departments, non-departmental public bodies, local authorities, and NHS trusts.
The MoD has yet to release the specifics of the competitive procurement process. However, the substantial value of the contract is indicative of the importance placed on the project and its potential impact on the UK’s future defence capabilities.
Please can the UK get off zero on BMD. Even if it is only one battery of SAMP-T, Arrow, Aegis Ashore, THAAD, Patriot PAC3. Just get something.
And that battery would be deployed around London.😂🤣😂 What about the rest of the UK?
I think to cover most of the UK land mass with a basic interceptor capability using THAAD or Patriot or Aster 30NT we would need 8-10 batteries. Not a huge investment. Probably £300 million in terms of missiles and mobile launchers and another £1-2 billion for the radar sets.
The Japanese solution of course is probably better. Just get more BMD capable warships. So upcoming type 83 needs to be built in adequate numbers 10-12 ships minimum.
Exactly what I said a few weeks back when this last came up it’s more flexible a concept especially as most attacks are likely from directions where there are far fewer actual targets on land to protect except the likes of Faslane. A few mobile batteries would still be useful mind to protect perceived vital targets when tensions get high, flexibility is the key.
Even 2-4 AAW T31s might be more affordable in the interim and also support LRGs and CSGs. And MK41s into the T45s could useful too.
Keep how many permanently on station in British waters? 4 or 5 or possibly more?
Each SAMP-T battery is at least 500m euro.
£4 billion for 8 then verses cost of a ballistic missile hit, seems like a bargain compared to what we spent on COVID.
500 m euro is a few years old price, & we all know what has happened to inflation.
We don’t need to defend the whole of the UK, no one is going to nuke rural Lincolnshire or Dundee. We could buy a few for key population centres and military facilities – surely that would probably be a reasonable halfway house and likely more affordable?
Actually quite what is in the mind of potential enemies is hard for the civilian to tell. In the 60s we all thought London would be the number 1 target. Turned out it apparently it was not. The US bases in Eastern England and the cities that supplied them were priority for the Soviets.
8 batteries will cover most of the metro areas and Faslane. Total cost of 8 batteries is close to f*** all for a country with a £50 billion per annum defence budget and £1 trillion total budget.
Depends what your priority is to defend.
Most military bases are legacy installations and in the south and South West.
Yet of course there are scatterings of key facilities elsewhere.
I believe the Aster 30nt has a range of around 130km, you would need a lot of them to cover the whole of the UK.
Considering the debris is inside the city, it means patriot is only able to defend the size of kiev and no more, it seems in fact a little less as the missiles are downed well inside.
Agree we should have a national capability with ASTER 30 1NT / 2, with more critical sites getting Sky Sabre as well..
It needs to be an integrated system – not bits and bobs.
With Aster-NT that will come to fruition.
Which is the other reason that Aster is not a dead end as people keep saying plus it uses UK missile IP so it is a totally sovereign system.
There is no budget for a full UK wide system at present. The MoD has spent enough on looking at BMD studies over the last 25 years, that it could have bought one battery instead. If we have one battery, we get to learn it. We understand, what works & what doesn’t. So if we need to spend many billions on a later full system, we are a wise customer. Otherwise, we just waste a decade & many millions, on yet more studies.
I have to disagree.
The systems available now are not great and very expensive.
With Aster-NT that all changes.
There is already a thought process to slot NT into T45 and go from there.
Buying orphaned odds and ends is really expensive and they just get scrapped as they have little real value but huge costs in training and maintenance.
There are only 6 T45. Land based SAMP-T batteries cost (some years ago) 500m Euro. We could probably afford one battery. After all, this article says the MoD will blow £125m, just on a study.
Its for missile R&D, not a study.
& will there be anything in service at the end of it?
Hi SB agreed about integration. Integrated multi-layered air defenses are increasingly key to defending countries and cities. Clearly, the military here should be looking at the severely depleted number of critical defence bases that we have left. Lossiemouth, Lakenheath, Marham, Collingsby, Devenport/Pompey and Faslane all have minimal air defence systems.
Minimal? No GBAD at all!
I doubt they have any air defence at all.
It is not comparable.
An Arrow 3 have a range of 2400km(wiki) way more than an Aster NT
Ballistic missiles that will hit UK will not be the small ones that Aster can intercept.
I see so you know the boosted range of NT?
Why pray would you want or need to intercept at that range? As that is guessing the flat part of the trajectory….where the missile is at its slowest but can, probably, manoeuvre.
For reasons, I’m not going to go into in here, it may well be easier to intercept a hypersonic in its terminal phase. Contrary to popular myth – just as we have seen in Ukraine.
I agree, i think high atmospheric intercept of even MIRV’s is entirely feasible and probably more effective than is believed. Mid course interception will always be difficult as you need to launch something in to space very fast to have any chance at all, that will never be easy of cheap. Each MIRV may cost $10-15 million each and GBAD missiles are much cheaper. That’s a game you can win. The UK is small and dense which means you can defend it with a relatively small number of batteries much the same as Israel. The US, Russia and China can’t… Read more »
Agree, please can we stop ****ing around and buy some missiles. MOD is an embarrassment at doing anything new.
It does seem a waste to spend £125m & not get anything in service.
After trying to make a comment on this subject…. it seems I’m not allowed to do so… maybe thats due to the comment I made or my 28 years with MBDA and BAE… sorry I couldn’t voice my opinion… best of luck guys and girls
All new commenters have their initial posts sent to pending for approval by moderators.
Four batteries of SAMP-T or Patriot and six of Sky Sabre (hopefully with CAMM + CAMM ER) and a battery of SHORAD and VSHORAD for each BCT are needed. What will we get?
We have a fair bit of that. 12 RA has 4 Fire Batteries of HVM Starstreak on Stormer or the LMM launcher. 2 are allocated to 12 and 20 ABCT, one is for 16AA Bde, the 4th, I assume, is for 7 LMBCT. 16 RA had, assume it still has, 4 Fire Batteries, one of which is in the Falklands and 1 in Poland. I’ve read 6 launchers and 2 radar per battery but not really sure. 3 Cdo Bde RM has an AD Troop, part of 30 Cdo. The gaping hole is SAMP-T, obviously. These assets are for the… Read more »
Great!
Good to note the correct classification between ballistic missiles and manouvering hypersonics, rather than all the ‘hype’ associated with KH-47M2
What is the most likely inbound trajetory for an BM’s am i right in thinking anything coming from Easterly or Southerly direction would be hopefully picked up by the NATO ABM in Poland/Romania and US AB’s based in ROTA. So our main threat would be stuff launched by Sub in Artic area so we would need Batteries in Northern Scotland / NI and possibly Central England as secondary line. I suppose possibly at St Mawgan to cover anything launched from Sub out in Western Approaches but hopefully the T-26 / P-8’s would get them before getting that far South? or… Read more »
Interestingly, heard of an MoD consultation regards siting a radar at Cawdor Barracks, which is the old RAF Brawdy.
Sadly not! If you just pick Kinzhal as the nuclear delivery missile, then it can currently be carried by three aircraft, which are the Mig-31, Tu22M3 and the Tu160. The MIg hasn’t the legs to threaten the UK. But the Tu22 and Tu160 have both been tracked over the North Atlantic and down the Western Irish coast. So in essence an attack can come from any direction. There was some talk fairly recently of the Republic of Ireland getting a radar to look west over the Atlantic. However, they don’t have the money for it. Plus there was some backlash… Read more »
6 years ! To do what ? Is this really a competitive process to just award a contract for BMD R&D ? Or am I completely wrong.
What on gods name is wrong with using our existing Sampson and Aster 30 they are in service. If we are seriously going to upgrade our 6 T45 with upgraded Sea Vyper and new Aster 30 why not just leverage that capability ?
Why not work at pace, use the existing Sea Vyper training facility at Portsdown and Link it to a couple of SAMP-T launchers and test it ?
Sampson and Aster 30 are on T45s, right?
Typically two T45s might be available for tasking, so one on the west coast and one on the east coast, permanantly? Is that enough? What if a CSG wanted one or two T45s.
Yep they are, but just think about leveraging that system and developing a land based equivalent. Just go onto Google Maps and have a look at Portsdown in street view and then scratch your had. They have an entire T45 Radar and control built up there for training complete with masts. So why not build a couple of land based Sylver VLS blocks and see how it works. If you built maybe 4 of those on land you would have the necessary radar coverage. Best bit is you can distribute the actual launchers across multiple sites and link them to… Read more »
Interesting that the RN originally had a case for 12 x T45s.
Your idea is certainly worth exploring.
Incredible that not even key targets in the UK have ever had any defence against missile attack.
Are we optimally defended against air attack? Just two Typhoon bases.
If this does anything? It will confirm that the idiots at MoD are nothing but money wasting dicks with a penchant for producing garbage bags full of air and coming up with zilch.
They prioritise industry, the MIC, Jack.
Always have.
It gives us some superb assets, but at great cost as the purchase sizes are so small.
And take ages to go operational.
The UK MoD has had its head in the sand for decades over this. (…Whatever happened to long-range Bloodhound).
As many others have pointed out when discussing anti-missile defence of the UK, what we need is an integrated, multi-layered system.
My input is to ask those in control to also be aware of the threat long-range sub-launched cruise missiles or drones coming in from the North Atlantic (as was a big threat in the 1980s).
We need the modern equivalent of Chain Home Low, Chain Home High, and now Chain Home Space, and progress directed energy systems.
A fixed system like Bloodhound would be gone in minutes, they all went post 91.
We have a Chain Home, the UKASCS. It is comprehensive.
Agree I’d like to see more UK based GBAD, but it will come at a cost of some thing elsewhere if no new money is found.
There was not much capable of taking out Bloodhound back then given the range the Sov’s would have been operating at.
If you work on the principle of a sneak attack, there was much that could be sacrificed to avoid an SSG/SSGN strike on our critical infrastructure.
Bloodhound provided high level AD against Soviet bombers, and was taken out of service in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
No system ever fielded that could deal with incoming missiles, though. Did anyone in the Cold War really think there were no ballistic missiles aimed at these shores?
As a boy visiting Farnborough in the 1970s, I remember seeing a model of the proposed Land Dart i.e. shore based version of Sea Dart, to replace Bloodhound. Sadly, not ordered.
There need to Get something in place .More sky sabre for now maybe not sure how many units there are .Know That some over seas Poland ,Falklands .But certainly not go a miss in UK .🤔
We should have laid the groundwork for this back in 2000 when we were building the Type 45’s.
Additional fixed or mobile SAMPSON radars, control vehicles and containerised Aster 15/30’s. Position them around our main radar warning sites.
They may have had a limited ABM capability but they would have given some protection against cruise missiles launched by aircraft or submarines.
By all accounts Patriot is proving itself against everything the Ruskies can throw at Ukraine. Shouldn’t we just go and procure a few batteries asap? Proven, mature, capable
Not the MOD style. They prefer to throw money away on studies and proof of concepts that contribute spaff all to defending the country. Then use supporting domestic industry as an excuse.
Come on now be reasonable. Got to keep retired or very senior staff in the manner to which they have become very accustomed don’t cha know. I mean what else would they do if they couldn’t meet up listen to a few upstart advisors and then go off the nearest Gentleman’s Club for dinner, Port and some rather present vintage whiskey to while the night away.
No, if we only wanted a medium level system then SAMP/T would be the obvious choice. As it gives us missile commonality with the Navy. However, Patriot is only one tier of the defensive layer. It would normally be networked with NASAMs and THAAD for US expeditionary forces. Whilst at home in the US they have the ground based midcourse defence (GBMD) system. This is similar to the US Navy’s AEGIS/SM3 combination. In that it is designed to counter ICBMs whilst they are transiting in orbit. It uses the same AN/TPY-2 radar as THAAD. But it has had less success… Read more »
Arrow 3 comes with the added benefit of functioning as an anti satellite weapon as well which we could really use. But the US won’t let anyone buy it and will block all Israel exports to keep Lockheed Martin in the game. Personally I think ABM is so important we should not be reliant on anyone in the long run. I would certainly go for an interim purchase of SM3 or THAAD but I think a UK involved project is the way to go longer term. We can use a land based version of the radar being developed for T83… Read more »
There have been a number of Countries interested in the Arrow system. The majority of these like you said have been vetoed by the US. However last year, the German Chancellor Schultz, set up a 12 country Europe-wide air defence system initiative. Which includes Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Norway. A Joint Declaration of Intent was signed on the side-lines of the NATO defence ministers’ meeting on 12-13 October 2022. France and Poland, however, have already turned down Scholz’s offer. I have heard nothing on what the UK’s stance is with… Read more »
We need something in place now really more sky sabre units maybe 🤔
Six years of analysis re potential R&D and eventual GBAD/ABM acquisition program? Hopefully, this contract is melded into AUKUS Pillar 2 program. 🤔🤞
Excellent and timely article George, whatever made you write it now??
Much as I like the idea of funding a proper land based ABM system and basing it on the Sea Vyper / Aster combo, I’m with Mr Bell on this one. If you are going even think about spending £4 billion on @8 SAMP-T systems why not just use the money and buy more T45’s ? And I don’t think the Navy would take 6 years to figure out how to do it. looking at what is happening in the Ukraine the land based SAM systems are now the prime target. Fixed instals would be even worse. So maybe Japan… Read more »
Geez this won’t be ready for even whatever the Russian equivalent of Dave is showing ancient repeats of those Clowns on Kremlin TV threatening their wonder weapon strikes on Windsor Castle or Number Ten, even though they are far more likely to hit Barnard Castle with their optics thankfully.
Its got to be mobile, with sufficient rounds, look in the CIS they make some of the best and they have cack up after back up, we can keep towing a t45 down the Thames, it will be over by then…I like Agis ashore and Pantsir equivalent.
Just go with the BMD upgrade for Aster and then 8-10 T83 to replace the 6 T45. That way there would be enough flex in fleet numbers to deploy a couple around the UK as and when required but crucially not be 1 trick ponies like a land based battery that will sit in London or at an RAF station doing nothing else! Get some more Sky Sabre batteries into service so some could be diverted to protect the RAF’s main bases or other key infrastructure if a threat emerged and we’d have a very proportionate and flexible mix of… Read more »
Sounds about right 👍
Sensible.
Why… Why do missiles need to be so big, and why do they need to be so expensive? Does it matter how accurate a missile is, in order to kill people? Wouldn’t they be dead anyway? Why do they have to be so sophisticated? Would a tank, a truck, or a human feel better about being destroyed, wrecked and killed by a more sophisticated missile? Wouldn’t smaller cheaper missiles kill, maim, wreck and destroy things just as ‘lethally’? Lots of smaller, cheaper missiles, could be sent in waves, therefore negating any and all defensive systems, no matter how many things… Read more »
We should be looking towards east because they have a vast array to suit all applications AGIS on land with large magazine SM3 SM6, and a Pantsir M equivalent.
Just wondered how Iron Dome rates compared to patriot ??
Different class. Iron Dome is shorter range and much lighter.
Where does MBDA… stand on this??
While you would hope front and centre when it comes to active defence, there’s always the possibility this will be focused on a US-led initiative, perhaps pushed by the AUKUS counter-hypersonic capability. The off again, on-again “Lewis” BMD radar is almost certainly LM; might missiles follow suit? I’d expect/hope this research to be ultimate-manufacturer agnostic. There’s a lot of discussion in the comments focusing on missile interception, but there’ll also need to be research strands on integration, sensors, control systems and (for all I know) possible non-kinetic interception methods. I’m sure MBDA will have views and useful data for all… Read more »
It is odd that we are looking at hypersonic missile defence when we have no national defence against normal supersonic cruise missiles. Ideas we have no national systems to prevent ballistic missiles.
I am not counting Type 45 and the army’s Sky Sabre as these systems are not national and not specifically assigned to home defence.
It seems that Military Home Defence has been neglected, when the first duty of Government is defence of the Realm. ‘Nuclear bunkers’ all pretty much gone. UKMWO disbanded. ROC disbanded. Probably inadequate or old MHD plans and little or no preparedness or exercises (excepting for RAF QRA), since the 1980s. Few army units in most of our counties available for MHD – West and East Sussex has one reg unit and that is the AD unit at Thorney Island. Only two Typhoon bases (all eggs in just 2 baskets). Added to which, the lack of defences against subsonic, supersonic and… Read more »
Baae on most frequently Battle Tested with actual hostile intend(not limited to exercise or simulation only) it’s David Sling (mid range) and Arrow 3.(long range)
SAMP T or Aster family is still lagging behind, Still in development, Not even operational.
BMD is the topic, not anti aircraft defense.
Much harder to defend against a ballistic missile than a man aircraft.
Poland already ordered David Sling
(Nato compliance & production line is hot)
Germany already choose Arrow 3
(Nato compliance)
Now negotiating prices & package details.
Yanks have THADD, but None deployed in Europe.
Arguably we already have a BMD system… the CASD
Flexibility is the key. And warships provide flexibility.
Ergo, BMD capable warships.
We might aswell buy a combo of THAAD, aegis ashore, patriot and the ground based midcourse defence from the Americans as we get most of out kit from them anyway