The Register Home Page

back to article Royal Navy chief backs drones, autonomous weapons in ‘Hybrid Navy’

The leader of Britain’s Royal Navy has outlined a “Hybrid Navy” built on a mix of crewed, uncrewed, and autonomous platforms to ensure it can continue to defend the nation and operate overseas. In a speech at the defense and security think tank, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And so ..

    .. Terminator becomes a documentary :(

    1. Alien Doctor 1.1

      Re: And so ..

      Don't worry, it will be decades late, way overbudget and won't work anyway.

      1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: And so ..

        The robot escorts will certainly work, just not in the Navy.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: And so ..

          They work just fine in Amsterdam.

          I'd suggest that the only advantage the Navy has over the Air Force is that a ship can carry exponentially more dones than a C-5 Galaxy or A400M Atlas. Of course, a Maersk Triple-E class container ship, if equiped with a container disgarding system could outcarry every navy ship on the planet. Pehaps Maersk should purchase L3Harris and form their own drone fleet?

          1. Peter2

            Re: And so ..

            I'd suggest that the only advantage the Navy has over the Air Force is that a ship can carry exponentially more dones than a C-5 Galaxy or A400M Atlas. Of course, a Maersk Triple-E class container ship, if equiped with a container disgarding system could outcarry every navy ship on the planet. Pehaps Maersk should purchase L3Harris and form their own drone fleet?

            I'd suggest that a ship armed with anti aircraft and anti ship missiles has quite a strong advantage in that it's sitting on the surface, and will shoot down a C5 or A400M on sight, while also preventing ships from operating within it's weapons range. Every other navy in the world other than the USN has medium calibre anti aircraft guns which can bring down drones for the cost of the shells; well under the cost of launching the drone. And that's pre laser.

            The only advantage that drones have is low cost and the ability to hit high cost targets. For instance a remote controlled speedboat with a MANPADS stuck to it (total cost maybe 1 million but probably considerably less) killed a couple of Russian SU34's last weekend. (total cost ~100+ million)

            Flying around a platform worth a quarter billion to drop drones is only going to end in tears when for the cost of a 30k MANPAD like Martlet the big expensive C5 or similar gets hit and crashes.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As if there's a choice!

    With a critical shortage of manpower, zero heavy industrial capacity and a populace that wouldn't fight for the UK at any price, going autonomous is the only option left.

    1. retiredFool Silver badge

      Re: As if there's a choice!

      Problem is, who is going to build them? Import from China? US is in the same situation. We (US) has become great at jawboning and spending huge sums discussing new bestest ways to do things. To implement our grand ideas, we outsource to a country that can build it and build it cheap. Because all the profit has to go for jawboning.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: As if there's a choice!

        The US is a lot further geographically from any threat and its also self-sufficient in terms of raw materials. By contrast, the situation in Europe is pretty dire with energy shortages being the most pressing of several existential threats.

        1. ThatOne Silver badge
          WTF?

          Re: As if there's a choice!

          Yes, the Swiss navy is severely understaffed...

          Serious now, Europe might be a desolate and impoverished hellhole as our glorious leader king president doesn't tire to repeat, but they are firstly bigger (and thus have more resources), and secondly face quite different threats from the island which is the UK. As for energy, I haven't heard of any energy shortages in Europe (but then again I didn't check) so I don't think they lack it any more than the UK. I don't see they would anyway, please enlighten me if you know more.

          1. stiine Silver badge

            Re: As if there's a choice!

            So you're saying that the French could open some breakers and black out the whole of Great Britain?

            1. ThatOne Silver badge
              WTF?

              Re: As if there's a choice!

              No, why?

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: As if there's a choice!

                Because a internet search says that 18%-20% of the UK electrical power crosses the channel. In fact there were designs to build solar farms in north Africa and wire them straight into the UK. Do they have rednecks with chains in Europe? We sure do here in the southern part of the USA.

                1. Peter2

                  Re: As if there's a choice!

                  The figures vary hugely hour to hour. Have a look:-

                  https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

                  Basically we've got interconnectors to our neighbours of 1-2GW, and so import wind & hydropower powered energy from our neighbours when they have a surplus and export when we have a surplus and they don't. It's not actually a problem; we could generate everything with a mix of nuclear and gas if the wind stopped blowing and if it wasn't sunny.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: As if there's a choice!

            and I saw a documentary saying the Austrian one is so underfunded their submarine captains are starting choirs and banging their nannies.

        2. Albert Coates Bronze badge
          Mushroom

          Re: As if there's a choice!

          "The US is a lot further geographically from any threat "

          Yah, but try going west from Alaska - 20 miles of Bering Strait, and what's next? Oh, Russia.

          "also self-sufficient in terms of raw materials"

          Hmm, maybe, but only China has the industrial capacity to refine rare earths, needed for super-strong magnets, car batterries etc.

          1. DS999 Silver badge

            Re: As if there's a choice!

            Yah, but try going west from Alaska - 20 miles of Bering Strait, and what's next? Oh, Russia

            Sorry but it isn't relevant that by far the least populated part of Russia is quite close to the least populated part of the US. If a foreign power wanted to invade the US, going in via Alaska would be by far the dumbest possible option. You could disable a small and shrinking part of the US' overall oil production, but good luck to any army trying to negotiate the terrain to the get to the other side where most of the (still small) population is, and for the fact it is easily the most heavily armed (by necessity due to the wildlife that can kill and eat you, and not necessarily in that order) state as well.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: As if there's a choice!

              Ah, thanks for explaining why Trump and Putin are destroying the country from the inside out. It makes sense now.

          2. Clausewitz4.1 Bronze badge
            Devil

            Re: As if there's a choice!

            ” but only China has the industrial capacity to refine rare earths, needed for super-strong magnets, car batterries etc.”

            Rare earths are necessary to produce high end weapons systems as well.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: As if there's a choice!

              Also high grade steel. Which they're no longer getting as Trump & fellow criminals also pissed off the Canadians and there's zero capacity in the US itself to process to that degree of quality as the accountants sacked all the people when they discovered globalisation was cheaper. Well done, really good forward planning.

        3. midgepad Bronze badge

          distance

          The Bering strait between the USA and Russia is 61 miles wide.

          1. TheTut
            WTF?

            Re: distance

            You go girl!

            Numbers are hard so her is a correct answer from the intertubes:

            The closest point between the United States and Russia is 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers) apart, located across the between Little Diomede Island (U.S.) and Big Diomede Island (Russia).

            1. retiredFool Silver badge

              Re: distance

              Yep, As Sarah Palin famously said, I can see Russia from my window. It was patently false as she didn't live on the Island, but typical Palin/politician. Liar liar pants on fire.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: distance

                If a politician's pants really were subject to self-immolation the moment the wearer were to lie the world would be a better place.

                That said, I'm not sure I want to see Trump or his sycopants naked to avoid such a risk. You can't unsee that..

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The US is a lot further geographically from any threat

          I disagree, the US brings the threat with it wherever it goes.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: As if there's a choice!

        Britain. We have lead the world for decades in underwater robotics. British tech is commonly deployed through the industry, British engineers are found all over the industry.

        And not just for these vehicles, but we've got world-leaders in a lot of the the supporting technologies within our borders too.

        I quit a job in 2019 because Defence-industry clients wanted to remove human-in-the-loop controls for underwater autonomous drones we'd had fitted with shotguns, shaped charges, that sort of thing. And we deployed one from an autonomous boat. So identify an approaching unwelcome vessel, float out without people, deploy without people, then... well, I guess they wanted to remove the people from the approaching vessel too. Removing the person in the loop was a problem for me, so I left. A year or two later they got a contract with the same client- so that'll be out there now.

        That wasn't even originally a Defence project, though the Navy have been talking to industry about this for at least a couple of years before that too.

        So yeah, Britain not only can build these but we HAVE built them, have been able to build them for years, and they're likely already out there.

    2. AVR Silver badge

      Re: As if there's a choice!

      Autonomous escorts may protect your crewed ships, but they'll have plenty of demands for maintenance at sea by people coming over temporarily, and operators on other ships to keep them doing the jobs they should I expect - not sure there'll be a genuine saving in people required. Certainly they'll need industry to make them. I think the idea is to make sure your crrewed ships are protected and to keep squishy and hard to replace people out of the line of fire.

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: As if there's a choice!

        Certainly they'll need industry to make them. I think the idea is to make sure your crrewed ships are protected and to keep squishy and hard to replace people out of the line of fire.

        It's not just protecting the RN's ships, but all the shipping we rely on. So figure on the Strait of Hormuz. Lots of ships wanting to transit that, not many warships to provide escorts. So much the same challenge as with WW2 and convoy protection. Ships running escort duty can't be doing other things, and the WW2 solution of churning out lots of relatively basic escort ships would be very expensive. Plus they'd need sailors, and the armed forces aren't having an easy time recruiting. So makes sense to investigate building drone ships that could act as escorts and manage those remotely, including from shore based facilities. Plus it helps solve the range problem, ie an escort needs to be relatively close to the vessel it's escorting to engage incoming drones or small boats.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: As if there's a choice!

          I sort of agree, until someone hacks them, of course, at that point you have the tools to cause havoc pretty much parked on top of your targets. It's harder to hack crew, you'd have to find their family and find a way to communicate with them while at sea that you have a means to pressure them into becoming criminals etc.

          That's my biggest problem with all this autonomy: the people that take those autonomy decisions, do they not use Microsoft products? Have they not experienced just how unreliable IT can be? It's about the only benefit the widespread (yet declining?) use of Microsoft products ought to offer: it should by now have given even the most jaded observer the idea that you can't trust a computer..

        2. Clausewitz4.1 Bronze badge
          Devil

          Re: As if there's a choice!

          ” act as escorts and manage those remotely”

          I seriously doubt the effectiveness of such systems, mainly bcz of the electromagnetic disturbances in such regions (GPS jamming and others...)

          1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

            Re: As if there's a choice!

            I seriously doubt the effectiveness of such systems, mainly bcz of the electromagnetic disturbances in such regions (GPS jamming and others...)

            In theory, that should be manageable, ie using systems that don't rely on GPS. Or because hostiles might still rely on that, a modular, container ship could load a containerised GPS jammer container. But something that already happens, so TPTB should have a lot of intelligence about jamming systems in use in Ukraine & Iran, and thus ways to counter it. So one option might be wire-guided drones using fibre*. But an autonomous or semi-autonomous drone dispenser would stay closer to the ships they're escorting, without risking scarce & expensive (in both blood & treasure) warships.

            But range and closing the distance seems the biggest challenge. There's a ton of offensive & defensive drones with a <10km or <40km range, plus RWS could be containerised for when stuff gets into gun range. We have long duration surveillance drones that can follow a convoy, and could easily copy WW1/WW2 approaches and bolt flight decks to cargo ships so those could launch & hopefully recover surveillance drones. But biggest benefit would seem to be cost, plus maybe flexibility given cargo ships would also expand RFA logistics capacity and haul containers full of other stuff to support foreign military ventures.

            *Environmentalists might object to dumping fibre into the water. There's been some images from Ukraine showing fields covered in a cobweb of fibre spun by drones. But then the Red Sea is pretty much a dead sea already, and if the US, Israel and Iran keep attacking oil & gas infrastructure, the Gulf might follow.. As might the Black Sea & Baltic.

      2. Adair Silver badge

        Re: As if there's a choice!

        Absolutely this - things go wrong on mechanical devices running constantly, especially operating in saltwater environments—usually sooner rather than later. So any idea that your 'drone escort' is going to happily chug along for days, let alone weeks, on end without needing the intervention of trained meatsacks to fix the ongoing list of accruing outages and suboptimal performance of essential equipment is simply la la land.

        Mind you, it would be a suppliers paradise.

        1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

          Re: As if there's a choice!

          Absolutely this - things go wrong on mechanical devices running constantly, especially operating in saltwater environments—usually sooner rather than later. So any idea that your 'drone escort' is going to happily chug along for days, let alone weeks, on end without needing the intervention of trained meatsacks to fix the ongoing list of accruing outages and suboptimal performance of essential equipment is simply la la land.

          But compare our current escort ships, ie say, a Type-45 destroyer costing £800m and a complement of 200 to the cost of a feeder ship, which google tells me-

          A newbuild feeder ship with a 300 TEU capacity typically costs between $10 million and $15 million, depending on the shipyard and technical specifications like fuel efficiency or gear (onboard cranes).

          with a crew of 20-30. But even that would probably be larger than neccessary, ie not really needing capacity for 150x40' containers, just deck space for boxes of drones and maybe some RWS. Holds would also be deep enough to load containerised missiles, if desireable. But modern cargo ships are designed to be as efficient as possible given crews cost money and you don't want your money-makers spending time in shipyards for maintenance. UNCLOS currently means you probably can't make them entirely uncrewed, but they certainly wouldn't need warship-sized crew complements. And you could fit a lot of anti-air or sea drones into a 20 or 40' container.

          Plus there's how they'd likely be used, so defending choke points like Strait of Hormuz or as we did with the Red Sea. Convoy forms up at the safe ends, then gets escorted through the hot bits. If maintenance is needed, that could be done at the ends of the transits, and resupplying simplified, if that's just loading/unloading containers. The infrastructure to do that exists at pretty much every port.

          Mind you, it would be a suppliers paradise.

          Sure, war has always been a racket, but it doesn't always have to be.

  3. Justthefacts

    First, decide your purpose

    As always, first decide your purpose. Then it will all become clear.

    “the navy is overstretched, especially when it is expected to guard pretty much the entire North Atlantic against Russian Navy activity”

    Who expects this? I don’t.

    Two years ago, perhaps, but not today. The clear reason to do so is ONLY to maintain our NATO responsibilities and alliance with the USA. It’s a protection fleet FOR THE USA. As of 18 months ago, Orange Man says he doesn’t need that. Okay, then we should take him at his word, and send him a letter explaining that the UK will no longer pay for the Defense of the whole US Eastern seaboard. They can pay for their own defense, we have other matters to attend to.

    This has the major added benefit of - if the USA had to defend their Eastern seaboard from where they are, it would probably take at least 5-8 carrier strike groups to cover the area on continuous patrol. There would be nothing left to cause trouble anywhere else. Job Done.

    The UK doesnt need any aircraft carriers either. We have no need to project expeditionary warfare force around the world.

    Our strategic naval needs, are to provide naval escort. And to maintain the Vanguard sub Retribution force, so that any attackers can be quite sure of the FAFO element. That’s it.

    Our coastline defense needs, are for missile defense *which we don’t have* and shoreline artillery *which we largely don’t have*.

    We should spend our money on paying for our own defense, rather than subsidising the military doctrine of USA, France and Germany.

    1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: First, decide your purpose

      You missed that Orange Man says what Putin orders him to say.

      It's kind of ironic that the US spends so much on the defence yet they now have de facto Russian president.

      There is no point having all those guns, if people operating them don't have brains.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: First, decide your purpose

      > "if the USA had to defend their Eastern seaboard from where they are, it would probably take at least 5-8 carrier strike groups to cover the area on continuous patrol."

      If a flotilla of enemy ships threatens the American homeland from thousands of miles away, the US will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons. The "Fortress America" concept is a major reason why US nuclear doctrine doesn't rule out first use or nuclear use against non-nuclear states. Most US military spending exists to project force in other hemispheres. That's been used wisely, to keep the Soviets/Russians out of Western Europe, and it's been used unwisely, in failed wars in Iraq and Iran.

      > "The UK doesnt need any aircraft carriers either. We have no need to project expeditionary warfare force around the world."

      That's not true. Most recently, the UK scored a major foreign policy victory building a broad international coalition to de-mine Hormuz and escort international merchant ships once active hostilities cease. It's very good for the UK when nations look to Westminster for the leadership which is lacking in Trump's White House. That could also take the form of other missions, from suppressing Houthi piracy in the Red Sea to using military logistics chains to deliver humanitarian relief. The UK isn't resource-rich. The economy and overall trade balance depend on demand for high-value British services. That's even more important for an island nation in the digital era. The UK also has a huge advantage in the international service sector: English is the lingua franca of Earth in the year 2026. Building those trade relationships requires savvy and agile diplomacy.

      Perhaps the biggest problem with the UK's two carriers is that they aren't nuclear powered. Only the Americans and French have managed to accomplish that. Don't underestimate the value of the military in training nuclear operators and engineers. It really is a form of public education. Fun fact: the US Navy trains more students in nuclear science than any university, by far.

      That should be coming into clearer view during the Hormuz crisis. English nuclear combined with Scottish wind could have made the UK energy independent and carbon neutral. Instead, bills will be going up.

      1. Justthefacts

        Re: First, decide your purpose

        What flotilla? You don’t understand the realities of submarine warfare. It is incredibly hard to re-acquire an enemy submarine once you have lost track of it. Fortunately, there is natural shelving which makes the waters near the U.K. a natural pinchpoint. We acquire their position as they transit the shallows, and then tail the buggers in the North Atlantic. If we decline to do so, Russia basically has a dozen hidden and lost missile platforms sitting off the coast of the US, for as long as their commanders feel like sitting on the bottom or slow-cruising. They could be 100 miles off Manhattan and the US wouldn’t have a clue.

        Or rather, they would know, because they couldn’t allow that, but they’d have to dedicate a large % of their surface navy with helicopter ASW to deal with it.

        Aircraft carriers: my vote goes to: refuse to “scored a major foreign policy victory”. All this “ nations look to Westminster for the leadership (or Paris, or Berlin)”, is just pointless puffery. I’m a strong advocate of “soft power” but this isn’t how soft power works. Soft power works by trade-ties with Asia Pacific region (where all the money is); top universities exporting graduates around the world; English language literature, films, TV, but also science.

        “Perhaps the biggest problem with the UK's two carriers is”…..that they don’t support the kind of wars we might need to fight, and if they did, the Carrier is a fighting machine with a 70-year lifespan in a world where they will be effective for at most ten more years, and possibly zero. A carrier is a mobile airfield, that’s all. The Ukraine war has demonstrated that small, cheap drones are much more effective than large expensive aircraft. Why would just floating the airfield make any difference to that statement?

        The “Americans and French have carriers, therefore so should we” is a category mistake. The Americans have carriers (and many other types of weaponry) because they fit their doctrine. It’s a catastrophic mistake to just assume their weaponry choice is “the best”, and therefore Monkey See Monkey Do. E.g. if you are Sweden, a Saab Gripen has 10x the capability of a 5th gen fighter, or even a 6th gen fighter. It does what it does, operate out of rough terrain, which is what they need it for. Ukraine only started holding its own when it stopped asking to be given tanks and outdated fighter jets, and started making its own doctrine using drones. That’s a lesson much wider than whether drones themselves are the weapon of the day.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          The irony is that the blunt force attack on Ukraine and the later war on Iran has enabled Ukraine to significantly expand its war economy by selling solutions to the Middle East and so generate an increasing income, whereas the financial relief Russia has as the price of oil shoots up is at best temporary.

          Was Ukraine not originally in the business of selling wartime solutions to Russia, pre Crimea? That should have been a first hint that it could possibly not that easy to subdue it.

          Can't be good for your image to be essentially outgamed by a former comedian..

          1. Casca Silver badge

            Re: First, decide your purpose

            There is nothing more serious than a comedian

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: First, decide your purpose

      "As always, first decide your purpose. Then it will all become clear."

      A defence force has to react but until there's something to react to the purpose isn't known. Certainly policies can be set, scenarios devised and worked over but in the end it's events that determine the actual need.

      How do you plan for the fallout of a rogue president starting a war on a whim?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: First, decide your purpose

        You can't. Trump will do whatever he wants and nobody in the US has the balls to stop him.

      2. retiredFool Silver badge

        Re: First, decide your purpose

        Yeah his 60 days was up on Iran and the first thought that pops in his mind was let's go get cuba, then greenland. Really his sanity is in question. And much like the king with no clothes, none of his subjects are telling him the truth. Stop just stop. History is not going to judge trump's enablers well, and worse for them, trump is old, fat, and likely to die from choking on McD fish sandwiches long before marco or hegs or pirro or ... Something the young might want to think about.

        1. Adair Silver badge

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          Trump is not obviously 'insane', i.e. he clearly operates through his own logical frame of reference. Albeit one that from an external point of view is patently self-serving, immature, defensive, and largely motivated by greed. It is a sad sight, made even sadder by the fact that his actions badly effect so many others.

          It is also a very sad reflection on the state of mind of those who voted for such an obviously broken wreck of a human being to be their leader, and a salutary warning to everyone else about being complacent and irresponsible with the choices and actions that we take.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: First, decide your purpose

        > "How do you plan for the fallout of a rogue president starting a war on a whim?"

        Westminster remains sane and committed to the diplomacy, international leadership, and relationships with allies which Trump rejects.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          Westminster remains sane

          That's only true to a certain level, above that sanity should not be assumed automatically.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          at least, until your next election.

      4. Justthefacts

        Re: First, decide your purpose

        I vote that the purpose should simply be the defense of the U.K. homeland. As in “Ministry of Defense”

        As soon as you allow it to be “defense of British interests”, it becomes like a church: morality is whatever the priest-class says God told them.

        Almost without exception, every “defense of British interests” has turned out to be against our interests in the long run, creating bigger problems in the next generation. And I only say “almost” because while I can’t think of a single counter example among dozens, there probably is some obscure case.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          If that's your criteria then if Northern Ireland or Scotland leave the UK then the UK military would too, instead of occupying them on behalf of the central government.

        2. Adair Silver badge

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          '...like a church: morality is whatever the priest-class says God told them.' - I think you will find that is an extremely limited, and prejudiced, view of 'a church'.

          A church can certainly be like that, and some are, just like many other human institutions—religious or otherwise. In Christian practice, your description is exactly what a church is not, simply because if 'the church' is being true to what it represents, it is in the business of enabling human beings to be part of what 'God is about'—the life and teaching of Jesus bearing witness to what that means—which is something very different from what 'human beings are generally about'—witness the motivations and activities of one 'Donald Trump', being an example writ large of the base instincts of humanity, albeit that most of us, thankfully, are generally at least a bit better at keeping those urges and instincts under some kind of sensible control.

          1. retiredFool Silver badge

            Re: First, decide your purpose

            I agree, but unfortunately it was the southern baptists(christians) that were one of and still are the main pillars of trump's constituency. Religion easily goes off the rails. And weirdly trump never goes to church, and the baptists voted for him over people who do. I've a couple neighbors who are catholic and voted for orangey. I wonder how they feel about trump bad mouthing the pope? I imagine they accept it, because while I was chatting with one, he was telling me about how he had started reading the bible again and doing a bible study. Of the old testament. And a bit of irony, this was at a Christmas eve get together. I encouraged him to study the new one. He could use some compassion/empathy.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          Ahem. In the UK we have a "Ministry of Defence".

        4. collinsl Silver badge

          Re: First, decide your purpose

          The problem is that "British Interests" include basically every way we have to make money in the modern world - namely whatever we still physically import, plus our undersea cables over which we do most of our services business.

          Secondarily, as we learned in both world wars, we HAVE to maintain food imports, otherwise we will starve. So defending the UK homeland necessarily includes protecting our ability to import food.

    4. midgepad Bronze badge

      Re: First, decide your purpose

      Flanks, trading, and reinforcement.

      However, if reinforcement is unreliable then it falls back to trade, for noticeable amounts of food and stores.

  4. zebm

    The aircraft carriers were just a kickback to Gordon Browns voters. They’re no use without the aircraft. The Navy doesn’t have enough ships to justify a single one of their 40+ Admirals, they probably think they can count drones like any other ship and thus keep their non-jobs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      40? You wish.

      You wish there were only 40 admirals. According to:

      https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/mod-reveals-number-of-senior-officers-across-uk-forces/

      on 1st July 2025 there were no fewer than 134 admirals and Flag Officers in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines.

  5. Daniel Pfeffer

    The First Sea Lord is fighting the last war

    "the First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins said that there was still very much a place for the navy in the modern world, but that adopting new technology is critical to its future capabilities."

    Leaving aside the "gunboat diplomacy" of the past, navies are essential to police national and international waters against bad actors such as the Somali and Houthi pirates, and rogue states such as Iran. This need will exist until the Millennium comes, and all men are brothers.

    Navies are now vulnerable to asymmetric warfare. It costs much less to overwhelm the defences of a ship with (say) 1000 drones than it does to build a new ship. The last time that the West faced such a problem was during WWII, with the Japanese kamikaze pilots.

    IMAO, the way to solve the asymmetric warfare problem is not to build expensive unmanned ships, but to design cheap defences. A laser system, for example, could shoot down drones at a cost of a few £s per shot for the electeicity required.

    (I am aware of the problems involving inclement weather etc., but if no one attempts to solve these problems, they definitely won't be solved.)

    1. collinsl Silver badge

      Re: The First Sea Lord is fighting the last war

      I'd hesitate to say that the Kamikaze pilots were that much of a threat - yes they caused damage and a few ships had to be withdrawn for repairs, however the Japanese ran out of planes and pilots faster than we ran out of ships.

      The coming drone future is many orders of magnitude larger than we have ever experienced before, and we do really need to be focused on how to defend from this otherwise we will be overwhelmed.

  6. sanmigueelbeer
    Coat

    A few decades ago, a senior UK public servant once asked a British General the question, "Why is a Main Battle Tank so expensive?"

    To which the response was, "A fleet of Main Battle Tank is still cheaper than to go into battle."

  7. Great Southern Land

    Royal Navy

    Since when is the First Sea Lord a General?

    1. Korev Silver badge
  8. Del Varner

    The state of the British Navy

    From the article: " he means the surface vessels that make up the navy - its destroyers, frigates and aircraft carriers. These are vulnerable to new kinds of airborne drones and missiles, but also sea-going uncrewed weapons"

    At the rate the Royal Navy is going in 5 years they will have no operabble surface vessels

  9. JLV Silver badge

    We - the West - ought to spend more time figuring out what worked in Ukraine's approach to drone building and defense. And killing ships.

    Big exquisite drones - Bayraktar TB2, for example - haven't really performed as expected in Ukraine. That's not to say we need to outsource thinking or manufacturing to Ukraine, but it is to say that really long procurement cycles far from the front line users have generally not delivered much.

    The other thing is not overcommitting to building a lot of soon-to-be-obsolete drones, the tech is moving too quickly for that. Bruce Sterling, a cyberpunk writer of the 90s, once proposed building up flexible manufacturing capacity rather than masses of concrete weapons systems. IIRC he was pretty lyrical about it, something along the lines "and we would just unfold the origami of our automated factories and kick ass". And when we do build up concrete systems, the important thing is to be able to swap in new smarts as quickly as feasible: lots of "obsolete" gun tech does quite well against drones, if adapted, like the then already-retired German Gepards, which is now shining there. Suddenly everyone is "discovering" the economics of shooting down numerous $30k drones with sparse $600k air-to-air missiles.

    And the other lesson from Ukraine Gulf War 3 is to be very very paranoid about rear area and big assets. American bases, parked aircraft and radars have been slammed repeatedly.

    They don't camouflage well enough, they are in fixed positions, they don't have enough point defense and they don't use decoys much. The Ukrainians learned this in '22 and '23 when they had several cases of massive casualties from strikes on barracks where a lot of soldiers were sleeping.

    Billion dollar ships will be targeted by swarm attacks of anti-ship missiles and cheap drones.

    1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      We - the West - ought to spend more time figuring out what worked in Ukraine's approach to drone building and defense. And killing ships.

      We've been providing most of those 'Ukrainian' drones, so we should already know.

      Big exquisite drones - Bayraktar TB2, for example - haven't really performed as expected in Ukraine.

      They're not that exquisite, and were perhaps overhyped. But I think they have performed as expected in a surveillance role. Problem is evolution, and videos showing drone v drone action with both sides using drone interceptors against large, slow drones. Also saw something recently where Ukraine had attached drones to the wing pylons on an An-<something> instead of missiles. Might not be an ideal solution, but I guess kinda works when the drone carrier is defending safe-ish airspace like Kiev.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon