What the Navy needs: Small, cheap and lots
What the Navy needs: Small, cheap and lots
Tom SharpeSat, June 13, 2026 at 8:19 AM UTC
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Navy drone
Britain's defences are in disarray. The quantum of money proposed by the Treasury and then used to ambush the Defence Secretary after a whole year of discussions left him no option but to resign (with honour intact). Others have now gone too and the service chiefs are either "exasperated" or "teetering".
The Pavlovian response from the Government has been to appoint a successor and say "nothing to see here". In this environment it is clear why this, and many previous, defence secretaries failed to extract more cash from No 11 – if they even tried.
So how does the Navy get out of the hole? Controlling the maritime domain means getting the mix right between airborne radar and strike, crewed and unmanned surface vessels, and the right balance of nuclear attack submarines with autonomous underwater systems that can operate without communications. It requires confronting an old debate: do we want a few big, exquisite platforms or many smaller, cheaper, faster ones that can be risked and replaced?
Much of this is not new. Sonobuoys are a good example of how "small, cheap and lots" has a place even in anti-submarine warfare. Missiles were around for a long time before the abominable term "one way effector" was born.
To answer this we do need to tackle the "what is defence for?" question. Rear Admiral Chris Parry sums this up neatly: "Britain's Armed Forces exist, alone or with allies, to deter and defeat threats to Britain and its interests. Now get on with it."
Even that short sentence has six nuances lurking within it that should be unpicked.
Will we ever have to fight alone? It is lazy to say no. Allies are the bedrock of our strength, yet we cannot become dependent on them or a burden to them. "Deter" is a daily task the Navy already performs. The nuclear deterrent is the exemplar – in continuous use since 1969 without a shot fired, thankfully. "Defeat" is eye-wateringly expensive, but unless you get it right and with enough mass, deterrence is degraded. Putin knows we can track and kill one submarine off our coast. What if he put four or five down there?
Threats to Britain take many forms and often manifest far from our shores. As an island nation we remain existentially dependent on the sea. That dependence is exacerbated by outsourced critical supply chains.
The 2025 Strategic Defence Review set about answering these questions. As Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher once observed: "Strategy should govern the types of ship to be designed. Ship design, as dictated by strategy, should govern tactics." The Review called for a "more powerful but cheaper and simpler fleet" built around a dynamic high-low mix of crewed and uncrewed systems, greater autonomy and AI. Four priorities stand out, with hybrid navy running through all of them.
First, grow the attack submarine fleet to 12 boats through continuous Aukus production while sustaining the Continuous At Sea Deterrent. Second, secure the North Atlantic through the Atlantic Bastion concept, layering sensors, Type 26 frigates, uncrewed systems and AI-enabled targeting. Third, give the Navy the lead in protecting critical undersea infrastructure and maritime traffic. Fourth, transform carrier air wings into true hybrids of F-35Bs, drones, long-range weapons and unmanned platforms. A good starting point would be fixed-wing drones carrying long-range radar, data linking their pictures to everyone else.
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On this last one, the carriers need urgent attention – they have value beyond just Strike and we are not utilising it well. Project Vanquish should be accelerated to get jet-powered drones to sea. The ongoing Lyme Bay conversion shows the utility of a big deck and space. The knives have been out for the carriers since they were conceived and if we do not demonstrate their utility soon we will lose them. Many think that moment is inevitable.
For the Royal Navy the priorities are straightforward: Atlantic first, not Atlantic only; focus on today's challenges rather than the war that may never come; hybrid must mean complement, not the Treasury's excuse for replacement. Fix the nuclear support infra issues rapidly. Get the Type 26 frigates into service faster without gold-plating them. Deliver the Type 31 faster and in numbers. Sort out the raiding craft for the Royal Marines and, above all, fix the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
A strictly defensive, short-range, uncrewed fortress strategy would produce a very different force from a more expansive, offensive global posture. One is considerably cheaper and comes with different political consequences. The Americans would not be impressed by withdrawal to coastal waters, nor would the Japanese, Australians or European allies who see Britain as a framework nation for Indo-Pacific activity. And if we cannot protect our far-flung foreign trade, our economy will be strangled.
Assuming the latest reshuffle does not deliver a serious cash uplift, the Navy faces a brutal truth: to grow capability you must cut legacy. That is the hardest task. Should we drop the Multi-Role Support Ship programme? Should we hold the F-35B buy at 48? Generating one carrier with a 24-strong air wing would still allow meaningful contribution to the Atlantic Bastion mission which is a priority.
The hybrid navy that First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins has championed is a dispersed but digitally connected array of crewed, uncrewed and autonomous platforms. It is not a slogan for doing less with less and it must not be allowed to become one. It is a way of multiplying effect if we keep the crewed core healthy and fund the uncrewed layer properly.
We remain an island nation with enduring maritime requirements. The Navy, Army and Air Force have interlocking roles. This isn't about competing between services, it's about Defence competing with other departments of state. As Admiral of the Fleet Lord Grey observed, the Army is ultimately launched by the Navy and recovered by it. Maritime power underpins everything else.
The Russian threat is not theoretical. Nuclear submarines loiter off our coast, cyber attacks and interference against critical undersea infrastructure are daily realities, and uninsured dark fleet ships pass within sight of our shores daily. One of them will launch drones into our airspace at some point.
We have become a "one of everything" navy. What we have is generally excellent and our people are outstanding. There is simply not enough of it. Timing is critical in rearmament. Building meaningful numbers of even relatively simple uncrewed vessels between now and 2029-2030 will be extremely difficult from a cold start given current shipyard capacity.
The task is therefore simple. Decide what the Navy is for, ruthlessly prioritise what matters today, accelerate the hybrid layer where it genuinely adds mass, and stop pretending that exquisite platforms alone will keep the sea lanes open.
Parry was right. We must now get on with it. The only variable remaining is whether the latest calamity makes the slightest difference in how the government sees all this.
Source: “AOL Money”
