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Telegraph
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Today, only Ukraine and Russia are ready for land war. We must change that
Ukraine's struggle against Russia has not fundamentally changed the principles of war. But when it comes to how we fight and how we prosecute violence on the battlefield, it most certainly has. The requirements for success are the same in general terms. We need actionable intelligence on enemy dispositions and intentions, the ability to strike and defeat the enemy, and the ability to hold ground. This latter and most important element still requires soldiers. The trench warfare today in the Donbas is no different to the trench warfare at Ypres in 1915. Necessity is the mother of innovation on today's battlefield as much as it was during WWI, and trained manpower is still essential to develop and exploit any sort of success. For most casual observers on the war in Ukraine, it is the drone which has changed the nature of conflict, but I suggest that is a false assumption. It is the changing way drones are used, not their inherent characteristics which have changed the fight. My last post in the British Army was in an intelligence role to help bring the Watchkeeper drone into service. This was a multi-million-pound surveillance platform. If you lose one such vehicle, you lose a huge amount of your capability. Today for the same price you can buy 10,000 drones off the shelf which can do much the same job. You can lose quite large numbers of these and your fighting capability is barely affected. What is key today is the electromagnetic spectrum – he who controls this, controls the battle space. This means that fighting is not now about men and women being robust and able to shoot straight: there is an increasing role for the gamer and the hacker to affect the outcome of the battle from a 'room in-the-rear'. Most of the soldiers killed in today's war are killed by drones, potentially operated by someone far off: most of the drones, however, are relatively short ranging, meaning that the drone which kills a soldier probably took off from somewhere not that far away. There is thus still a need for tough, brave troops able to operate close to the enemy lines. At the beginning of the war, we were training the Ukrainian army how to fight, but it is now them who are showing us the way to operate on the contemporary battlefield and I hope we are listening. We must also acknowledge, with the evolution of technology accelerating at such a pace, that where possible, we must buy drones etc off-the-shelf, modified if required. If we try to produce everything ourselves it will be well out of date well before it hits the front. Where we have the advantage, as perhaps in laser anti-drone technology, we should lead, but for most other capabilities we should follow our allies. The much-discussed Strategic Defence Review is about to hit the streets with the plans for the British military over the next decade or so. With the current pace of change, it is no small wonder it is delayed and shrouded in secrecy. The team producing it are no doubt nervous about backing the wrong horse, tank or drone. The old saw 'there is nothing new, just stuff we forgot' has some resonance here. What has certainly not changed is the general principles of war, or as General Bill Slim put it 'hit the other fellow as fast as you can, as hard as you can, when he ain't looking and where it hurts him most'. The principles of war have not changed at all, but the pace of innovation and technology has never been faster. Agility and flexibility are key. Well trained, motivated and well led soldiers are still essential, but control of the electromagnetic spectrum is the single most significant element for the successful prosecution of violence on the battlefield today and likely into the future. The Review must produce a fighting force fit for the current and future battlefield – not the 'status quo ante' which Reviews have been wont to do in the past.
Business Insider
17-05-2025
- Science
- Business Insider
The reign of the Reaper drone may be coming to an end
In the Global War on Terror, America's MQ-9 Reaper was the most terrifying weapon. Armed with missiles and able to stay in the air for 24 hours, the Reaper — and its older cousin, the MQ-1 Predator — became the symbols of Drone Age remote-control warfare. But the skies are not so Reaper-friendly anymore. The Reaper built by General Atomics has a 66-foot wingspan is almost double that of small, crewed planes like the Cessna 172. Many of these big and expensive drones — the Reaper costs $30 million — have been shot down over Yemen, Lebanon, and Ukraine. This has some experts questioning whether militaries like that of the UK should stop buying expensive Medium-Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones such as the Reaper. Better to purchase smaller, cheaper drones they can afford to lose, their thinking goes. "MALE drones can provide persistent surveillance, including through clouds with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), but only if they can survive," wrote military researcher Robert Tollast in an essay for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. "And as that survivability is now highly questionable, it seems that the UK must look for alternative approaches." At least 15 Reapers have been shot down by Houthi rebels over Yemen since October 2023, with seven destroyed in March and April 2025, estimated losses at or above $500 million. The threat to the Reapers would likely be much greater against a more advanced military, which fields larger and more accurate air defenses. Houthi air defenses are far from cutting edge: old Soviet-made SA-2 and SA-6 missiles date back to the 1960s, or are Iranian weapons based on those designs. In the Ukraine war, Ukraine's Turkish-made TB2 Bayraktar drones — armed with laser-guided anti-tank missiles — initially devastated Russian armored columns that invaded in February 2022. But dozens of TB2s were destroyed once Russian air defenses were deployed, and the Bayraktar has disappeared from Ukrainian skies. Meanwhile, Israel's Hermes drones have fallen victim to Hezbollah anti-aircraft missiles. This has left Britain in a quandary. The British Army's MALE drone, the Watchkeeper, has proven a failure. Based on Israel's Hermes 450, the Watchkeeper produced by Thales Group and Elbit Systems first flew in 2010, but wasn't deployed until 2018. Delays, technical issues and several crashes spurred the retirement of the Watchkeeper fleet in March, less than seven years after it was fielded. "We are getting rid of Watchkeeper because that system has been in service since 2010 and, according to all the military chiefs, is out of date," Lord Vernon Croaker, a senior official in the Ministry of Defense, told the House of Commons in November 2024. With a range of almost 100 miles, the Watchkeeper could peer deep into enemy areas and locate supply depots, airbases and other targets for long-range artillery, missiles and aircraft. Thus the British Army is now embarked on Project Corvus, which calls for a long-endurance surveillance drone that can stay airborne for 24 hours and fly deep penetration missions. But this may only result in another MALE drone too expensive to buy in quantity, and too vulnerable to be expendable. These same issues threaten the Reaper ($30 million) and the Bayraktar TB-2 ($5 million). "Assessments in Ukraine would suggest that the point at which a UAV becomes attritable is a unit price below $200,000 for ISR [surveillance missions]," Tollast wrote. This creates a cost-benefit dilemma. Hordes of cheap, expendable first-person view (FPV) drones have become the dominant weapon in the Ukraine war, paralyzing bold battlefield maneuvers and practically driving armored vehicles off the battlefield. These are mass-produced commercial drones that can be rigged for military missions at a total cost of hundreds of dollars. Most of these have limited payload capacity, altitude and a range of only around 10 miles. On the other end of the spectrum is the airliner-sized RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude $200 million drone that is being retired from the US military. A Global Hawk was destroyed by an Iranian anti-aircraft missile in 2019. In the middle are the drones like the Reaper, which can carry a 2-ton payload of missiles and sensors, has a range of 1,200 miles, and can fly at 50,000 feet. The Reapers were essential aircraft in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as they could stay in the air hunting for targets far longer than a crewed aircraft, and be placed in more dangerous airspace because there was no risk to a human flier. For example, from September 2007 to July 2008, MQ-9 flew 480 sorties totaling more than 3,800 hours in Afghanistan. In many ways, these UAVs resemble the earliest drones, which were just modified versions of manned aircraft. For example, World War II F6F Hellcat fighters converted into remote-controlled machines for target practice. The AQM-34L Firebee that flew reconnaissance missions over Vietnam was 29 feet long, not much shorter than an MQ-9. They face a glaring problem: more adversaries are armed with air defense missiles capable of knocking out aircraft-sized drones. Drones like the MQ-9 were not designed to fly in areas covered by an enemy's surface-to-air missiles. A Bayraktar's cruise speed is only 80 miles per hour, while even a relatively speedy Reaper has a cruise speed of around 200 miles per hour. Thus even a militant group like the Houthis can down an MQ-9 with an old Soviet SA-6 surface-to-air missile. This puts drones at a fork in the road — go low-cost and large volume or even higher-cost with fewer aircraft but more capability. America's Reaper replacement may do the latter: a more sophisticated — and expensive — drone that includes stealth capabilities to evade radar; radar remains the primary means for air defenses to detect targets. For Britain, with its far smaller defense budget of roughly $70 billion, an improved MALE drone isn't viable. Tollast sees several non-drone options, including Low Earth Orbit satellites, high-altitude balloons, and tethered aerostats (such as blimps), which avoid the vulnerability of medium-altitude drones. Yet satellites and balloons may not be in position when you need them, and aerostats can't be dispatched quickly into remote areas. Unless a technological breakthrough enables small UAVs to enjoy the capabilities of their larger brethren, the inability of large drones to function reduces the huge advantage of sensing the battlefield that the US and Western militaries have enjoyed.
Times
14-05-2025
- Times
Urgency of the drone wars is passing us by
It was a surveillance drone designed for 'all weather' — except bad weather. The British Army's Watchkeeper programme was finally put out of its misery last autumn when it was tacitly acknowledged that the only place this 'world-leading' project was leading anyone was headfirst into a Welsh tree. Eight of the 54 drones delivered (taking 18 years and £1.4 billion) were lost to crashes during training exercises. The rest, for everyone's safety, seem to have been carefully stored in a warehouse. Now what? Somehow, John Healey's announcement to ditch Watchkeeper caught the army off-guard. Quickly, a replacement programme, Corvus, was set up. Its trajectory will tell us much about how capable our government and military are of living in the real world. It started well.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ceto raises funds to enhance data-driven insurance solutions
Maritime insurance start-up Ceto has raised $4.8m (£3.6m) in a funding round led by Dynamo Ventures. The investment round also saw participation from existing investors Howden Ventures, Signal Ventures and Motion Ventures. The company plans to use the funding to expand product offerings and strengthen its team for international customer base growth. It is currently increasing capacity engineering, operations and sales departments. Ceto CEO and founder Tony Hildrew said: "At Ceto, we aim to unite the power of AI with the indispensable human expertise at the heart of maritime. This kind of technology plays a critical role in identifying risk and improving decision-making, ushering in a smarter era for shipping and finance." Ceto's platform captures and analyses data from commercial ships to assist in improving insurance risk assessment, reducing the likelihood of machinery failures, and increasing fuel efficiency. The insights generated are accessible via an integrated dashboard provided by the company. Ceto's clientele include a Japanese shipping company, a mid-sized operation based in Singapore and a UK owner with a fleet of eight vessels. The start-up has appointed a new chief underwriting officer, Bob Clarkson, who has more than 30 years of experience in the field of marine insurance. Clarkson's background includes roles in underwriting, claims management, and as an insurance manager within shipowners' offices. The products include Watchkeeper, which utilises AI to track ships in real time, identify potential issues and help fleets run 'safely'. Another product, CarbonID, focuses on emissions and fuel tracking to help ships comply with environmental regulations, while also aiming to reduce costs and 'pollution using AI'. Additionally, Connected Insurance is a product that connects a ship's performance data with its insurance coverage. "Ceto raises funds to enhance data-driven insurance solutions " was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
