United Kingdom is placing significant emphasis today on developing the unmanned component of its armed forces primarily air platforms, but also maritime drones.
However, despite the Ministry of Defence monitoring tests of cutting-edge systems such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and loyal wingmen, the ministry has declined to evaluate any specific platforms.
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According to UK Defence Journal, the minister for the armed forces, Luke Pollard, refused to provide details to an MP about allied programs namely the Australian and American CCA contenders MQ-28 Ghost Bat from Boeing and the YFQ-42 from General Atomics, as well as Boeing’s MQ-25 Stingray aerial refueller.
Instead, he stressed the ongoing transformation programme for the British military, which is being shaped for the next decade and beyond, and emphasised the need to draw lessons from the war in Ukraine specifically the use of drones, data and digital warfare to strengthen the UK armed forces.
Looking ahead, recommendations favour giving the military a broad spectrum of capabilities rather than betting on a single platform, which makes sense. But for now the UK has not finalised concrete procurement plans.
From Defense Express's perspective, the Brits are indeed learning from Ukrainian experience with unmanned systems for example, we previously reported how they copied Ukraine's idea of carrying FPV drones aboard maritime UASs after seeing how effective that is for delivering FPV strikes against air-defence systems.
The UK is focusing even more on airborne drones and on ways to counter them and in this area Britain is also drawing on our experience: this month it plans to begin production of a Ukrainian air-defence drone.
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