Weapons development goes in cycles: and right now, defence against air attack is the big puzzle. Against missiles, to be precise, which these days come in an every-increasing range of types - and numbers.
Ireland is often rightly criticised for hiding behind the whole of the rest of Europe when it comes to every aspect of defence, upon which it spends two fifths of bugger all. As far as air defences go, we're effectively doing the same. Any rabble that can get its hands on Iranian drones, UAVs and the like can inflict serious damage on even countries with advanced air defences. Here in Britain, effectively speaking we have none worthy of the name. Were we to be at imminent risk of salvos of drones, cruise missiles and hypersonics of the kind several hostile nations can muster these days, the best we could do would be to line up such of the Daring class destroyers as are seaworthy at any point in time (two? three if we're lucky): and (even assuming they aren't themselves eliminated in the first wave) when their limited magazines are empty, that's us done for. A further handful of frigates with Sea Ceptors and machineguns, and men ashore with small arms left to tackle such of the slower-moving drones that they can see with the naked eye.
The same is essentially true, mutatis mutandis, as regards the air defence of any "expeditionary force" we might send into the fray - see this sobering piece from the excellent Sergio Miller (an old comrade of mine) at the Wavell Room. (On the subject of "projecting power", I won't even bother to mention the vulnerability of Gordon Brown's aircraft carriers, we've been over that many times before.)
Pathetic.
At least, someone has noticed: a fancy initiative (review? committee?) has been launched by the MoD to address the higher-tech end of this threat spectrum - Science and Technology Oriented Research and Development in Missile Defence - 'STORM', haha. Neat acronym, but it has a paltry budget, and I can't see Starmer really promoting anything 'defence' to the top of the list except a bit of rhetoric.
To put in perspective the breadth of the challenge, consider how Russia is addressing the problem, which they feel pretty acutely, too, with their huge land mass and multiplicity of large, soft targets of high value (airfields, oil refineries, strategically important factories and the like). They are trying to throw everything anyone can think of at the problem: passive measures (camouflage and shelters for aircraft, laying tyres on aircraft wings [sic], installing 'barbecues' (metal frames) above the hatches of tanks, erecting wire screens around oil facilities) and active steps (licensing oil refinery firms to acquire small arms [sic], experimenting with anti-drone ammo for existing guns, issuing shotguns to infantry units, stepping up electronic warfare measures, considering a huge fleet of very light aircraft armed, WW2-style, with machine guns against slow-moving long-distance drones) etc etc etc. But they've been at war now for nearly 30 months and they are still taking huge casualties and damage from the air (and inflicting the same, of course).
We haven't even mentioned the threat from seaborne drones etc ...
Who in the West is taking any of this seriously? Our reliance on nuclear deterrence is now complete. Under its umbrella, fingers need to be pulled out, and rapidly.
ND
19 comments:
Are we only vulnerable to air attack? I'd have thought we'd have struggled with land and sea attacks as well without the USA getting involved.
Like the rest of Europe, we've been hiding behind the Americans since at least the end of the Cold War.
Let's face it, not spending on defence (one of the few things the state needs to do) allows politicians to spunk the cash on pet projects instead to keep their places in parliament.
One of the many reasons Broon's carriers were madness is because the money could have been better spent on other kit (or, even better, left to fructify in the pockets of the population).
I suspect that UK and US weapons acquisition is slothful, incompetent, and corrupt. The notion that the relevant arms of government can respond adroitly to drones is laughable.
When I first flew a drone (belonging to a son-in-law) I not only laughed with glee - it's tremendous fun - but immediately talked about using the things in warfare. Female faces suggested disapproval but the opportunity stuck out a mile. So what has the MoD being doing about it in, say, the last ten years?
I puzzle a bit over exactly what problem we are trying to solve here.
A Lancet missile would barely make it from Calais to Dover let alone London. But a decent sized ballistic missile (non nuclear of course) could make it from somewhere unfriendly to London. What happens next is the question, especially for the launcher. Anti missile missiles - a very difficult thing to make reliable - not the same as Iron Dome.
Something along the lines of an Iranian drone would have to putter its way across Germany and Belgium and France and I am sure those countries would do the decent thing. During WW2 we used ack ack guns strung along the coast although we might remember the CPRE was objecting to radar towers as late as 1939.
Certainly the Russian/Ukranian war is very affected by drones and missiles and the economics and feasibility of knocking them down. The smaller battery powered drones are limited in their flying time. Normally they use the ISM frequency bands and these could be blocked by a competent opposition - but it is not difficult to move the operating frequency. But essentially they are a near quarters weapon.
The key is where in the world your battle space is. If you are surrounded by friends OK but out in the open life is more difficult.
T'was always so. Remember the Falklands? Argies only had 5 exocets and managed to take out two ships. AFAIK they only had 3 Super Étendard to deliver them.
Seems that throwing people at the enemy/problem rather than costly equipment is a very British thing to do.
Also see 'British Industry'
The bottom line. It is fairly simple and cheap to make a missile that goes from here to there. Making a missile to destroy one in flight is a much more difficult and expensive job. So the economics are asymmetrical - which is very annoying.
yup, that's the current state of the competition between opposing technologies
these things have leapfrogged each other for centuries. Millenia!
We have have had 80 years to think about ballistic missile attack.
Surely as we developed our own offensive missiles we should have worked out counter measures.
Think this was history of shells versus armour.
Drones are a real challenge in view of cheapness particularly in view of the potential number of actors.
Our so called American powered deterrent does not pose threat to these odd actors. Understand that missiles costing tens of thousands of dollars are being expended on thousand pound drones
"Something along the lines of an Iranian drone would have to putter its way across Germany and Belgium and France and I am sure those countries would do the decent thing."
OTOH a Houthi drone just puttered its way across to Sudan, up Africa and the Nile Valley, then across to Tel Aviv - a 2,000km trip to strike near the US Embassy.
"All things are moving forward at the same time"
You can see why most ships are avoiding the Gulf Of Aden. How many container vessels have anti-drone capability?
Active measures must be pretty tricky if you have ground troops anywhere near.
Does make me wonder though, in a non-war UK context -
a) how easy is it to disable a wind turbine with a drone? I assume you'd still need explosive, or is it easier to target and unbalance the blades?
b) what kind of damage could an anti-tank drone do to a nuclear reactor, or indeed a waste cooling pond?
One thing I don't quite get is - Nato/Ukr drones are trundling sometimes across long distances in Russia. Why aren't they being picked up better?
a) is not the entire border airspace plus maybe 100+ miles in from it monitored by radar?
b) or can low-flying and/or low-radar profile drones get past undetected?
c) you then see video from both sides of drones puttering along with small arms fire from the ground having minimal effect. Now I can see that's tricky cos the drone is probably near its target - but when people video the drones passing overhead, using their mobiles, shouldn't there be some kind of reporting app? Gives location, direction of travel, rough speed. approx height or as many of these as can be calculated? Automatic reporting to some central or regional response centre - which can itself calculate the chances of interception and if its worth launching a killer drone to chase it?
OT, but slowly someone realises that Boris' wild eco-dreams were a pile of excrement...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/23/uk-may-need-new-gas-fired-power-stations-to-decarbonise-grid
Labour is likely to have to approve new gas-fired power stations in its attempt to decarbonise the UK’s electricity systems by 2030, in what would be a tricky decision for the new government. Keeping the lights on for the rest of the decade, and beyond, will require some additional baseload power, and new nuclear power stations will not be built in time, according to a report from the National Engineering Policy Centre. All the UK’s existing gas-fired power stations are expected to be kept going as long as possible but it is probable that more will be needed. Wind and solar generation are set for large increases but the UK’s nuclear reactors are ageing and coal has almost been phased out.
The good news is we can make said plants "geniunely ready" for CCS, just as soon as someone invents it, defying the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
It looks as if nuclear fusion has finally vanished, after 60 years when it was only a decade away.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-secretary-champions-uk-industry-at-farnborough-air-show
£6bn~ish with MDBA over ten years. Includes things like CAMM, plus;
"The Defence Secretary also revealed that scientists and engineers have successfully fired a laser weapon from a British Army vehicle, in a first for the UK. The ground-breaking trials, conducted at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) range in Porton Down, saw the laser weapon neutralise targets at the speed of light from more than 1km away, with each shot costing less than a cup of tea. The Raytheon-developed laser weapon could be mounted onto various armoured vehicles to defeat a range of drones, helping protect soldiers from aerial threats."
Which is the vehicle pictured in the above article.
So there's that.
"The Raytheon-developed laser weapon"
What's happened to the Qinetix laser, Dragonfire?
I know time flies when you’re enjoying yourself and I do enjoy reading your posts, Nick, but it suddenly dawned on me that the blog really should be renamed. I was amazed to scroll back a couple of years and being unable spot anything from BQ or CU.
I’ve obviously missed something momentous…
Does the laser weapon use a windmill or solar panel for power?
"What's happened to the Qinetix laser, Dragonfire?"
Dunno. Turn of the year;
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advanced-future-military-laser-achieves-uk-first
I guess that I'd have to assume that RN are lead in that one.
Banner at the top the page: "This was published under the 2022 to 2024 Sunak Conservative government"
Curious, no?
"Does the laser weapon use a windmill or solar panel for power?"
Nah, aux power gen in the vehicle. But, don't give them any ideas.
How many of those laser shooters do you need to string out along the Ukraine border to offer a credible defence? What is their reload time? And along the southern and eastern coasts of the UK? Do we get a discount for quantity?
Against insurgent groups you can play whackem. Don't need to find their site every time, just make it unprofitable. But against Mr Putin you have to gather all your mates round you and be prepared to take a bit of pain - and dish out a lot more.
Whining about sanctions is as useless as sanctions ever were against nations that have oil, diamonds, gold and gas in their back yards.
Still, General Winter coming soon and a new Potus.
Yup. Wouldn't want hundreds of thousands of men invading and enforcing their ideology on us, would we !
I was in the garrison town of Tidsbury this weekend.
I'd be very annoyed to be on deployment to come back to a town now inhabited by francophone Africans being gifted accommodation @ £1400 pcm that my son's having to pay for his out of taxed wages.
Dustybloke - BQ & CU are still out there. They'll say anything they want to!
So we have Snoop Dogg carrying the Olympic torch, and Massive Attack on the French high-speed rail network!
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