Britannia Radio

Royal Navy - new generation of Marine Drones.

Nato's success with airborne drones inspires focus on unmanned

maritime vehicles for surveillance and combat

The Royal Navy has been using unmanned mini-subs such as the Seafox,

above, to clear mines.

The Ministry of Defence is seeking to develop a new generation of

unmanned maritime "drones" that would be used for anti-submarine

warfare and possible missile attacks on enemy ships, the Guardian has

learned.

A fleet of Royal Navy unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) is already

being used in the Gulf to help prevent Iran laying mines in important

sea lanes, and ministers are now considering whether similar devices

could be used to tackle pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Documents show that the MoD is hoping to hugely improve drone

capabilities, having seen how effective they have been for Nato

against the Taliban. Whitehall sources confirm the British military

wants to integrate drones across the three armed services as a cheaper

way of waging war, providing round-the-clock surveillance and

gathering intelligence. "The possibilities of these new drone

technologies is endless,"

Plans for the military's maritime drones are set out in documents

published by the MoD's defence, science and technology laboratory. It

has told defence manufacturers it wants their help to develop drones

"to provide greater support to maritime operations such as mine

countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare and missile defence".

"Innovation in maritime technology, including unmanned systems, will

make it possible for UK armed forces to continue to use the sea with

security and persistence," the report says. "Unmanned systems are

being considered as a potential option to aid in the delivery of a

range of different maritime tasks given the range of potential threats

and increasing demands on the smaller number of highly capable manned

platforms in which much of the UK capability is currently focused."

The tasks set out are anti-submarine warfare, mine countermeasures,

anti-ship missile defence, counter-piracy operations and support to

future submarine operations. The document makes clear the drones could

be used to attack potential enemies.

"A range of unmanned systems including UUVs, unmanned surface vehicles

(USVs), and unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) may be used to support these

maritime tasks," it continues. "And could be expected to perform a

number of roles, including, but not limited to, remote sensing,

communications relay, delivery of effects such as the deployment of

weapons or countermeasures."

It says military expectations "are placing increased demands on

unmanned systems". These underwater and surface vessels need to have

"increased endurance …to support covert operations".

The documents include explanations from Lieutenant Commander Kevin

Giles about why the navy wants such vessels – for "dirty, dangerous

and repetitive" tasks, and to keep costs down. Anti-submarine warfare,

Giles explains, is about "finding and sinking" submarines using manned

and unmanned systems.

"It is entirely possible that we will see drones off the coast of

Somalia," said a defence official. "They could be used for tracking

ships and providing intelligence to the other maritime forces. This is

one of the potential uses of UUV technology."

With fewer frigates available because of defence cuts, the UK is

currently unable to dedicate one of these ships solely to

counter-piracy operations, and UUVs are regarded as one way of shoring

up and extending diminishing capabilities.

Iain Shepherd, who served in the Royal Navy for 20 years and is a

specialist in underwater warfare, said: "The MoD is aware of the

potential for UUVs. They have been deploying them in the Gulf on

mine-hunting exercises and there is a huge amount of interest in other

areas. In submarine warfare, for instance, it would not be too

difficult to develop, at a low cost, expendable devices that can be

left in the sea to form barriers, and they wouldn't expend any power

until they needed to."

Shepherd said the capabilities of the UUVs used commercially for tasks

such as oil exploration were "quite staggering" and that the MoD is

examining how these could be modified for military purposes.

Rear Admiral Chris Parry, a former director general of the MoD's

development, said that "The whole area of UUVs is about to

explode … it could be as big in the maritime sector as it is in

airspace. They could be used for clearing mines for a nuclear

submarine, or the covert mapping of important harbours. A UUV could

find a submarine, attach itself to it and then explode … there is no

limit to what could be done."

The use of UUVs could be provocative, and possibly illegal under

international law. "You use UUVs for work that is dull,

dangerous, dirty and dodgy. There may well be problems because you

would want to penetrate territorial seas, I'd be amazed if you didn't.

Some of these things could be used in six months. When there is an

operational need for something, there is often a way of delivering

it."

However the former first sea lord and security minister Admiral Lord

West was more cautious, saying the navy would be wrong to get "too

sold on these things".

"The areas where I see potential are in surveillance and

reconnaissance, and for such things as mine-hunting and clearance of

mines, without the enemy knowing what we are doing.

"If you can find a way of driving a submarine without people on it,

then that might have potential. But water is a funny thing. When you

fire a missile, you can track it quite easily. When you throw an

orange over the side of a ship, you lose sight of it very quickly."

West also questioned whether such systems could be made completely

secure, saying the use of UAVs in Afghanistan was not a proper measure

of their capabilities. "Using UAVs against a terrorist with no

capability is one thing, but using them against a sophisticated enemy

is something else. Communications can be intercepted or cut, or taken

over. Controlling UAVs requires radio links, and these are

unbelievably vulnerable."

The MoD says: "Exploring innovation in maritime defence is part of the

work we do to exploit the latest technology and ensure the Royal Navy

is best equipped to meet future requirements. We are considering

options for how we can use unmanned systems to support the vast range

of future naval capabilities that include Type 45 destroyers,

global combat ships, Astute class submarines and the two Queen

Elizabeth class carriers that together with Lightning II jets will

provide world-leading carrier strike from 2020."

The Royal Navy has 16 UUVs, based at Whale Island, off Portsmouth. The

vessels are used for counter-marine operations, and have been used

extensively in the Gulf in preparation for any potential conflict with

Iran, which has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a

strategically important naval pinch point.

The Royal Air Force is preparing for the delivery of five Reaper UAVs,

which will be based at a new squadron headquarters inside RAF

Waddington in Lincolnshire.

The use of UAVs in Afghanistan, and American drones in Pakistan,

Somalia and Yemen, has proved highly controversial, not least because

of concerns about civilian casualties and the ethics behind using such

tools.

An MoD document published last year, The UK Approach to Unmanned

Aircraft Systems, made clear the legal and ethical issues are not yet

resolved. It asked: "Do military planners and politicians understand

the full implications of the systems they are currently tasking and

those they hope to procure?"