Royal Navy and British Army set to increase operational effectiveness

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The Army ​will deliver a tenfold increase in lethality over the next 10 years by harnessing firepower, surveillance technology, autonomy, digital connectivity and data – leading the way in NATO in its use of technology to change how it fights, improving speed and accuracy. 

The Royal Navy will also ramp up new drone systems as part of an evolution in how it fights, moving towards a mix of crewed, uncrewed and increasingly autonomous capabilities to secure the North Atlantic for the UK and NATO.

The Defence Secretary will outline the Government’s plan for the biggest transformation of the Armed Forces in memory and its approach to put NATO first during a meeting of NATO Defence Ministers in Brussels today.  

Following the Prime Minister’s commitment to the largest sustained increase to UK defence spending since the end of the Cold War, the Ministry of Defence will move to spending at least 10% of its budget on drones and novel technologies. This delivers on the government’s commitment to invest £5 billion on new drone and laser weapon technology, supporting thousands of jobs around the country, as part of the Government’s Plan for Change. 

Key to increasing Army lethality will be the ability to rapidly find and strike enemy targets. Prioritisation of the ‘Digital Targeting Web’ will increase the pace and scale of change already being tested through Army initiatives like ASGARD, which is being delivered to British troops deployed with the NATO Forward Land Forces (FLF) in Estonia.

In the last week, the government launched procurement for a new open framework to encourage defence companies to submit concepts for new digital systems that could be integrated into ASGARD. The aim is to exploit advanced technologies such as AI and uncrewed capabilities, enabling the development of advanced digital ‘Decision’ making on the battlefield.

Defence Secretary, John Healey MP said: "We will invest in technology to give our troops the edge in the battlefields of the future, transforming our Armed Forces and boosting our warfighting readiness.

"This will increase our lethality, provide a powerful deterrent to our adversaries and put the UK at the leading edge of innovation in NATO.

"We will back UK business to innovate at a war time pace; creating highly skilled jobs and fast-tracking the weapons of tomorrow into the hands of our warfighters, as part of our Government’s Plan for Change."

The government’s Strategic Defence Review plan will commit the UK to step up on European security by leading in NATO, with strengthened nuclear, new tech and updated conventional capabilities – learning the lessons from the battlefield in Ukraine.

As part of Britain’s commitment to NATO, during his visit, the Defence Secretary will confirm for the first time that UK military liaison officers will join the development of NATO’s Forward Land Forces (FLF) Finland. These officers will work with both Sweden, as the Framework Nation and Finland as they develop FLF Finland – a vital component to strengthening the Alliance’s deterrence posture on the Eastern Flank.

On the sidelines of the meetings, the Defence Secretary is expected to join defence ministers from Canada, Denmark, Norway and Poland who will sign a document to join the UK-led NATO Flight Training Europe project, that delivers a network of training campuses to train pilots for jet fighters, helicopters and transport aircraft.

To boost the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier operations, the government will invest in the cutting-edge of NATO capability—moving to have the first ‘hybrid’ carrier airwings in Europe, where the aircraft carrier’s F-35B jet fighters are complemented by autonomous collaborative platforms in the air and drones. 

The Navy is moving towards a ‘New Hybrid’ fleet that exploits autonomy and uncrewed systems – along with conventional warships – for a mix of equipment and weapons. The UK’s Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are two of the most powerful warships the UK has ever built and, following the Strategic Defence Review, the Royal Navy’s Carrier Strike programme will evolve into ‘hybrid’ carrier airwings, exploiting the latest technology to combine crewed and uncrewed platforms to make the carrier an even more potent form of deterrence. 

On major deployment to the Indo-Pacific, HMS Prince of Wales is heading up the Carrier Strike Group right now with uncrewed air systems onboard. In the future, the carriers’ crewed air wings will be further augmented with more uncrewed systems.