The UK is reinforcing its defences against potential drone attacks from Russia, with counter-Uncrewed Air Systems (C-UAS) capabilities forming a key part of national security efforts.
Responding to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Terry Jermy, Defence Minister Luke Pollard outlined the steps being taken to protect military personnel and armed forces bases.
“The UK employs a broad approach to deterring and defeating air and missile threats, including those from Uncrewed Air Systems (UAS or drones),” Pollard said.
He explained that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is working closely with the Home Office to develop a “whole of Government approach” to identifying and countering drone threats. This collaboration ensures expertise from both military and domestic security agencies is used to safeguard key assets.
The UK is also focused on pre-emptive action. “We pursue counter-proliferation and military activities to counter threats before an attack is ever launched,” Pollard stated. If those measures fail, he added, “we can employ a range of active and passive defence measures to intercept the threat and increase our resilience.”
“Given the significant threat posed by UAS to our personnel and bases, counter-UAS (C-UAS) remains a crucial component of our Defence approach,” Pollard said. He pointed to British defence firms providing “a broad range of cutting-edge C-UAS capabilities, much of which is now operationally proven.”
Looking ahead, Pollard cited the Royal Navy’s Dragonfire programme as an example of new counter-drone technology being developed. “We are committed to enhancing our capabilities and modernising our Air Defence approach to ensure our Armed Forces have the capabilities they need to meet current and future threats,” he said.
A Strategic Defence Review is currently underway of course, with counter-drone measures forming a “vital part” of the assessment.
The ability of ministers to say an awful lot while announcing virtually nothing at all continues.
Cutting through the spin.
Nothings changed.
A “Range” “Reinforcing”
What range? Where is the reinforcement?
Taking this purely from a home defence perspective as he mentions bases.
The RAF Reg has a handful of ORCUS.
Rather than buying kit more widely to cover more installations, by his words, the idea seems to be to stop proliferation and use intell or offensive action to stop threat at source.
How?
OK, in the field the Army has several programs underway from CUAS sights up and they use LMM and Starstreak, which seems a waste.
Home defence?
Maybe there is some covert program to put jammers at many more CNI locations?
There seems to be little real movement on acknowledging and doing something about the fact that the air threat situation has changed and that not only is it advancing in the very high end threat zone but it’s proliferating in the low tec attritional aspects as well. It seems to me that because it’s expanding and developing across all levels of threat there is a real struggle to manage this.. after all how do you build an air defence systems for both at home, covering military and key civilian infrastructure, land based deployment with the army and for the marine environment with the navy that can deal with someone who may fire a couple of IRBMs, 10s of short or medium range BMs, hundred cruise missiles and 1000s disposable cheap drones…all at the same time or in dribs and drabs…