Robot missile warships to boost Royal Navy firepower
New designs will help British fleet overcome ‘worrying’ crew shortages
Matt Oliver Industry Editor
The new air warfare command ship acts as a ‘mothership’ for up to six smaller vessels, which are crewed by just six to 12 people
Robot missile warships could dramatically boost the firepower of the Royal Navy as the service
grapples with a recruitment crisis.
BAE Systems will unveil two concept vessels at an arms show in London this week that aim to
bulk up the Navy at low cost and with minimal crewing.
A new “air warfare command ship” would be armed with up to 128 missiles, laser weapons, decoys, automatic cannons and deployable drones.
It would also use high levels of automation onboard to allow “ultra-lean” crewing arrangements and act as a “mothership” for up to six smaller vessels known as “deployed sensor effector platforms”.
These would each carry their own sensors and another 32 missiles and be run on crews of just six to 12 people – but could operate completely autonomously when at sea.
BAE said each smaller ship would take just two years to build, compared with five to six years for existing frigates and destroyers.
The company’s proposals will be seen as a possible contender for the Royal Navy’s Type 83 programme, which aims to replace the existing fleet of Type 45 or Daring-class destroyers.
Steve Hart, head of maritime business development at BAE, said: “This is all about delivering additional mass for the fleet using an ultra-lean crewed model.
“It’s something you could do very quickly to get additional missiles, additional underwater sensors.”
The designs had come from a need to bulk up the Navy “more cost-effectively, so you could deliver mass much more quickly, within a probably more constrained budget, and to complement crewed platforms”, he said.
Each smaller DSEP ships take just two years to build, compared with five to six years for existing frigates and destroyers
Gavin Rudgley, a maritime engineer at BAE, added: “The air warfare command ship would be the ship that carries the main sensor capability, so the main radar, and has the command function that can identify targets and make effectors work, so missiles and so on.
“But it would work in conjunction with the smaller, either uncrewed or ultra-lean crewed autonomous platform that then gives extra leverage.
“This is the direction future warfare is going.”
BAE will unveil the early designs on Tuesday at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) fair in London. DSEI is Europe’s biggest arms show and is supported by the Ministry of Defence.
The ‘mothership’ concept is all about delivering additional mass but using an ultra-lean crew
The focus on uncrewed systems comes as the Ukraine war highlights the
growing role of unmanned drones on the battlefield, while crew availability issues have also forced the Royal Navy to retire some ships early.
In June, Vice Admiral Andrew Burns, the Fleet Commander, said a worrying shortfall in headcount was leaving Britain potentially exposed in a new era of global threats.
Asked to identify the single biggest challenge facing the Navy, he said: “It’s people, right now.
“It’s the quantity of people. And it’s not just recruitment, it’s retention.”
His warning came after Britain’s naval forces failed to hit their recruitment targets every year since 2011.
Only 2,450 people joined the ranks in 2023-24, according to data from the Ministry of Defence (MoD). That represented a shortfall of more than 1,500 recruits, 40pc lower than the target.
Vice Admiral Burns said future recruitment is likely to involve fewer uniformed personnel as the Navy seeks to advertise a wider range of jobs.
This could mean roles aimed at protecting subsea infrastructure or controlling fleets of uncrewed vessels.
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