A bit later than intended: but I said we'd have a post on Badenoch and her £10 bn 'Britannia Shield'.
One should never fall for "the bomber will always get through" as an excuse for doing nothing. She's right that we haven't been doing remotely enough. But we need to examine both the history of our air defences and the current threats, to recognise the challenge we face.
1. WW1 No air defences at all, until some fighters were belatedly deployed against Zeppelins. Even then, the casualties per ton of bombs dropped, on an essentially unprepared nation, were extraordinary - so much so that, extrapolating to the Luftwaffe's bombing resources, it was estimated that London alone would suffer a quarter of a million casualties in the first week of a prospective WW2**.
2. WW2 Fortunately, this didn't result in a policy of What's The Point? Quite the reverse. Making good use of the months of Phoney War, effective multi-layer defences were instituted. Radar station, very capable fighter cover, barrage balloons, anti-aircraft guns, air raid shelters of various types, blackouts, ARP wardens and teams of fire watchers.
All very well: but that's a time of flat-out national effort, no expense spared.
Cold War A very different enemy, based in East Germany and point eastwards, with no aircraft carriers. Our interceptors were pretty effective but, by the 1960s, few in number: our long-range AA missiles (Bloodhound, Thunderbird) were not impressive, neither in quality nor quantity. Quite plainly, the strategy was one of (a) forward defence on the Lüneburg Heide & (b) hide behind the Americans.
The one area in which some rather more impressive protective measures were put in place against air attack was the Navy, which was then upgraded significantly post Falklands / Exocet.
But now, however well armed, we can't muster a single destroyer on demand! So a protective line of these vessels is certainly out of the question.
Threat in 2026 It's not bombers! RAF Typhoons may be expected to make short work of any stray Tu-95s. Clearly, it's cruise missiles (however launched), ballistic missiles and, since Ukraine's impressive Spiderweb operation, drones launched from lurking trucks and coastal vessels. Here's the thing. The USA and Israel have invested mightily in "exquisite" air defences, and since February have been comprehensively taken to the cleaners by Iran.
Solutions Our needs are not the same as theirs, however; and as regards long range missiles, forward defence in the classic sense remains the solution (though not for Poland et al). What else can / should be done?
Firstly, get the well-armed destroyers operational! In recent years the Navy has become a disgrace. (Gordon Brown's bloody aircraft carriers are of course much to blame.)
We may safely rule out Trump's 'Golden Dome' as a solution or model for us: £10 bn doesn't buy you much down that track. Passive defence - hardening our military assets - must be part of the plan: but Russia, the USA, Israel and the Gulf States have discovered that it's really difficult to protect infrastructure (being static, with locations known precisely). The Russians have in fact tried to harden their refineries, to no avail. (As regards the Spiderweb military targets, they hadn't even tried.)
When we get down to the level of hostile drone swarms, it's not clear the 'nuclear option' - even supposing we had an independent capability - gets us very far. Another very important form of forward defence is intelligence from all sources, which should definitely be beefed up: we're even quite good at it.
Which brings us to tech solutions, which probably require a load of R&D - and not into the exquisite systems that can't be afforded. Early-warning detection systems are definitely needed for ship-launched short-range cruise missiles: shouldn't be beyond the nation that developed radar. The real puzzle is the drone swarm from within, or just offshore. Detection at a distance? I am not abreast of the latest technology, but it seems implausible to me. However, no detection = precious little chance of shooting down: so R&D should go into that, too. If the drones were to be guided or require Starlink, it's possible GCHQ might have a very useful role. But Ukraine deploys pre-programmed autonomous drones requiring merely the initial launch command.
Finally, bringing down drones on the perimeter of targets, 'Goalkeeper' style (albeit all these things are easier at sea). We're in danger of getting into science fiction here, but is there some kind of laser etc that could both detect and defeat an attack on the spot? It needs to be cheap, if it's to be deployed at scale.
Last thought: we should (continue to) stay close to Ukraine in these matters. They are so far ahead of the game, we could do a lot worse than making this a joint venture.
Any other perspectives?
ND
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** The authorities were debating as to whether the bodies should be dumped in to the gravel pits where Heathrow is today, or into the Thames at high tide.
22 comments:
In the days we were developing radar , we had a huge manufacturing sector and electronic capabilities at the leading edge. Not so much now.
A rubbishy low effort load of old tosh, even by your standards.
Leonardo UK’s Edinburgh centre is a major AESA hub. It has developed and is producing the ECRS Mk2 multi-function AESA radar for RAF Typhoons integrating radar with electronic warfare/electronic attack. Contracts have covered development and production (hundreds of millions of pounds), supporting skilled jobs and suppliers. The system is described as highly capable for contested environments. Leonardo also contributes sensors to GCAP/Tempest.
New manufacturing is constantly appearing as global defence budgets increase and the UK is one of a handful of cutting edge military hardware development. Leonardo DRS has established UK production of tactical radars for counter-drone, short-range air defence, and related roles.
The UK already provides (and is expanding and enhancing) Sky Sabre (Giraffe radar + MBDA Land Ceptor/CAMM missiles + C2). It can engage aircraft, helicopters, drones, and some munitions with high accuracy (often cited as tennis-ball-sized objects at high speed, perfect for the threat vectors in the post) and multi-target capacity. Numbers are limited relative to some assessments of national needs, but the system is in service (not vapourware), has been deployed (e.g., Falklands, Poland), and is being doubled via recent MBDA contracts that support UK manufacturing (Bolton and elsewhere).
MBDA UK is a core complex-weapons player (CAMM family, Aster involvement via Sea Viper on Type 45s).
And then there’s the leadership in emerging new technologies. Directed-energy work includes successful laser self-protection trials involving Leonardo, Thales, and Dstl. Broader investments include integrated air and missile defence funding (around £1 billion noted in the Strategic Defence Review), C-UAS layers, radar upgrades, and longer-term programmes.-by under-researched
(did you even research this at all?)
Super, nothing at all to worry about, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Thank you for your service.
You’re welcome. Always happy to drop by with a load of inconvenient facts on your — how in a rare act of charity should I describe your comments? — “vibe based” assertions.
In terms of lasers, Dragonfire is actively being worked on and to be deployed on ships.
We do have antidrone commercial setups in the UK, and which dovetails with the military, so our infra isn't entirely defenceless. But those are for individual drones, not large swarms.
Problems include coverage, can we protect every substation for example? And physical weaponry used in mass causes its own problems - what goes up, must come down, and firings tens of thousands of rounds in a built up area is going to cause casualties when gravity calls.
We have non-nuclear EMPs now, could they be be used to tackle swarms?
And how much of our infra is open to cyber attacks? Why bother with drones when a spotty oik in Minsk can cause damage?
CH
I'll add that people only stop being concerned about costs and trade offs when a threat moves from the theoretical to the concrete. So there's a political element there too.
CH
For drones I'd like to see an assessment of the costs of developing machine guns that fire shotgun cartridges - beefed up a bit in scale, but the same principle. They could be hidden in bunkers at a ratio, say, of one gun per ten bunkers and you. oh enemy, have to guess which is where. If the bunkers are often close enough to each other to be cheaply connected by tunnels, and far enough from each other that no single drone strike could disable two, that might be an idea worth exploring.
But how many targets could one protect in that manner? How many targets are there whose destruction would ruin the country? Start off with the electricity grid, the gas distribution system, water distribution, the gas and electricity connections to the Continent, the ....
There are surely huge numbers. So deterrence may be the best bet. You do it to us, we'll do it to you and maybe we'll get our retaliation in first.
I puzzle over Britannia Shield ideas. Let us start with Kipling's 6 serving men - what, where, when etc. Who is going to have a go and why? Reality - a nothing-burger noise for politicians to make.
We are still an island and we might ask the French or the Dutch or the Swedes very nicely if they would mind having a pop at overflying Shaheds headed our way.
Then even the Israeli/American shield had to work hard bringing down high entry (200 miles up) ballistic missiles. A statistical risk even if you have a competent missile + aiming system + detection system. And at about £10M+ a pop HM Treasury will soon start whining and it will be embarrassing to run out.
Autonomous drone swarms launched locally imply either a truckload (several truckloads) parked up in Upminster on a Monday lunchtime. By the time you have noticed they have already gone bang. Getting the truckload on this island looks a tricky problem - but only for the second or third go. The first go is a doddle.
OK, so you have launched some drones. What UK target would you have a go at. The Westminster estate? Doing the UK a huge favour! A submarine base? Probably not defended much but hard to knock holes in subs. An RAF base, from what we see they are walk-in sites. An aircraft/missile factory or two? Heathrow and Gatwick. The question is how much damage are one or two truck/van loads of drones likely to do. A lot of fuss and broken windows, a handful killed and a month or so later back to normal.
Launching drones from an unregistered ship in the Channel is doable. Tricky to put in place the chain of command to sink the thing without warning. Recall Parliament, have a long boring debate.
All this misses the point - who is going to do this. The defence is to make it clear something very nasty/inconvenient will follow. But if the other chap can deliver nukes (and diesel) your options are more limited.
Oh to be a politician.
There is an absolute huge number of weak points in our infrastructure that could be exploited by a creative enemy.
Simply flying a regular drone over Heathrow is danger enough to shut it all down and cause enormous disruption.
It just shows the paucity of creativity of those who would wish destruction on Britain.
The wall of lead defence that Dearieme proposes may work, but in a densely populated island it severely limits the locations it may be used.
I think that realistically not much is actually going to be done until there is a genuine, active threat. Speaking of which, has anybody heard anything more of the jokers found lurking around the RAF base, rumbled by that lady farmer?
I am also reminded of the fire last year at a substation supplying power to Heathrow, which managed to shut everything down for several days.
Most of these transformers have a long lead time to be replaced, and are very inconveniently cooled by quite flammable oil.
As far as I know, none of these are hardened against an attack.
What about all the wind farms that we increasingly rely upon? How hard would it be for a foreign actor to bugger up a few of the interconnects at an inconvenient time, such as mid winter when we're already maxing out our other sources of power?
Getting drones into the UK wouldn't be a major issue, components or whole drones could be disguised at scale - sniffer dogs aren't going to be much use, and we have plenty of ports to disembark.
As for targets, other than energy, there's also food distribution to try and trigger civil chaos. Or places like Stanlow - that goes up, and Knutsford would find itself part of a new Cheshire Riviera.
Much of our infra is based on their being a high bar to attacks, drones have changed all that.
CH
*there, bloody autocorrect and fat fingers
I do like tech optimism, Clive. But you really should check out what Iran has managed to inflict on the Gulf, against possibly the sternest and most concentrated AA systems on the planet.
Are the new British systems you promote so forcefully, really that far ahead in capability and affordability? Or perhaps proto 'exquisites' that we can't afford on the necessary scale.
A friend of mine is a farmer. His small drone fleet (legit and registered, of course) is impressive in its range and control system. Equally impressive fleets would be easily assembled privately, or indeed provided on a plate by the likes of Iran. " Imports accounted for the majority of UK major port tonnage traffic in 2025, 237.5 million tonnes" (DfT)
You raise very valid points there Nick about the cost-asymmetry of modern aerial threats, the practical limits of high-end air defences, and the UK’s broader strategic vulnerabilities. I was more attempting to whack our Anonymous midwit who keeps trying to make out that the UK has scant-to-nonexistent manufacturing capabilities, which is a flat-out lie (or, at best, is mistaking low-end mass production with high-end boutique sectors).
But yes. No system has proven fully effective against sustained mixed salvos of cheap drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, and scale remains a real constraint for the UK right now (although I’d take issue with any claims this represents a permanent end-state; there is clearly potential which is what I identified).
Iranian and proxy (e.g., Houthi) campaigns since 2024 have repeatedly tested multi-layered Western and Gulf air defences, including Israeli Arrow/David’s Sling/Iron Dome systems supplemented by US Patriots and THAAD, plus Gulf Patriot batteries. Interception rates have often been high—commonly reported in the 80–95%+ range for missiles in major raids, with drones frequently intercepted or falling short even more readily—thanks to layered sensors, networking, and allied cooperation.
However, these systems are not impregnable. Mixed salvos (slow drones to saturate or mask, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles including those with cluster warheads), deliberate targeting of radars and sensors, and interceptor stock depletion have allowed some impacts. Reuters reporting has documented multiple hits on Gulf energy and infrastructure sites (at least 135 drone/missile attacks on infrastructure in one analysis), with cascading effects even when officials attributed damage to debris. Drones have proven especially difficult to defeat economically and at volume. High interception percentages do not eliminate economic or operational costs, nor do they guarantee zero leakage under sustained pressure. That’s what you got absolute right.
However. What you’re either getting wrong or are maybe not giving sufficient weight to is potential and how we are most definitely not starting from scratch. And that every weapon system ever developed has eventually faced countermeasures. I don’t see why this time is completely different.
UK systems such as Sky Sabre (Giraffe radar + MBDA CAMM/Land Ceptor missiles) are capable medium-range ground-based air defence systems suited to aircraft, helicopters, drones, and some munitions, with multi-target engagement and high accuracy. They are in service (with numbers being roughly doubled via recent contracts) and form part of a multi-layered approach that also includes Typhoon QRA, Type 45 Sea Viper, and emerging directed-energy and C-UAS elements. ECRS Mk2 (Leonardo AESA for Typhoons) and GCAP/Tempest sensor work represent high-end airborne capabilities with electronic warfare integration.
They are not uniquely far ahead of peer systems in absolute terms, and they are relatively “exquisite” for volume use against the cheapest threats. Open-source cost estimates put CAMM interceptors in the roughly £0.8–1.5 million range each (higher for CAMM-ER); a full battery is in the hundreds of millions. Expending these against £20,000–30,000 one-way attack drones is unsustainable at scale—the same problem facing Patriot PAC-3 (millions per round) or Aster. And yes, analysts I’ve seen frequently cite multi-tens-of-billions of pounds over a decade once missiles, sensors, C2, personnel, and sustainment are included. Current UK holdings remain limited relative to those assessments.
But that’s backward-only looking isn’t it? The UK is moving toward a high/low mix precisely because of this environment. DragonFire (MBDA/Leonardo/QinetiQ high-energy laser) has demonstrated engagement of high-speed drones with a marginal cost around £10 per shot and is scheduled for Type 45 integration from 2027 (accelerated). Low-cost effectors programmes (e.g., Cambridge Aerospace systems), electronic warfare, guns, and better integration are also being pursued. These address the affordability critique more directly than pure high-end missiles, though lasers have weather, power, and range constraints, and full operational scale is still emerging.
But can you seriously argue the situation is hopeless with no realistic prospect of developing on st least the same track, if not accelerating in capability/per £? It seems way too negative to me, given progress to date.
To much PR-puffery to add to my main responses but here is the Cambridge Aerospace anti drone systems and a rough overview: https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/army-news/2026/cambridge-aerospace-skyhammer-starhammer-future-forces-2026
To which I have two lines to draw out. One is that this is a start-up and is employing a startup mentality to produce development. This is exactly what is needed and a welcome shake-up to the bloated traditional defence industry way of doing things.
The second is the company has a £2.5bn valuation and has no problem getting funding thanks to a no-brainer business case and favourable capital markets. Shorter: “it’s capitalism, in’nit?”. And hardly the hallmark of a country where “we don’t make ‘nuffin anymore”. I could cite many, many more examples. So my question to those who keep repeating that falsehood (and I know I’ve provided substantial evidence in many different instances where I’ve seen this here) is, why, despite being aware that you’re at best proving a slanted, partial and therefore dishonest (lying by omission when you’re aware of the omission) take do you keep on doing it?
"aircraft/missile factory or two"
A hit on Airbus Broughton would be a huge economic blow, most Airbus wings made there. Plus extremely embarrassing to explain to the rest of the consortium.
I keep reading (alas even here) about the Russian threat, maybe our total lack of air defence is because we actually want someone to have a go?
"Which brings us to tech solutions, which probably require a load of R&D "
I'm sure plenty of high IQ Chinese will be applying for the research jobs. If things ever got sticky we'll soon discover all the manifold advantages of a diverse workforce.
Running a fag packet calculation I find WW1 bombing managed about 0.27 dead/bomb, WW2 about 0.06/bomb, Vietnam about 0.02/bomb. But modern missiles run about 7/missile. So a definite improvement. But you can see why Zeppelins and Gothas put the wind up Parliament.
Getting back to UK air defence. Our bogey man is Mr Putin. But in the last few weeks the political calculation has changed. The sun now shines out of Mr Putin's bottom thanks to Mr Trump. A triumph of 'Nations do not have allies, they have interests'. Lovely chap, can't do enough for him. And he's got diesel and nukes.
In reality our navy plays at cat and mouse with the Russians as does the RAF. But nothing serious is likely to come of it. Mr Putin is not going to sail up the Thames - not unless Mr Trump gives the OK. All good fun and good for funding requests for more and fancier (and expensive) weaponry. For a non threat.
Obviously there are dangers but of a more subtle and irritating kind. No one can afford a full on ding dong - unless Mr Trump says so. Mr Trump owns Washington and Washington owns London. You can take an educated guess who owns The White House and it is not Mr Trump.
Ms Badenoch is just winding you up, ignore her.
Go on then Jim, tell us who you think owns the White House - is it Xi? Putin? A cabal of Neocons using Trump as their figurehead? Or is it Netanyahu and 'da Joos'?
What about our undersea cables.? This must be one of the UK's weak points.
Phil - Trump sadly had his boots oiled with brandy by Netanyahu and his ego did the rest. A pity as he was ok on immigration and getting better.
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