Speaking under the hulls of HMS Active and HMS Formidable at Rosyth, Babcock’s senior leadership told the UK Defence Journal how they intend to meet the First Sea Lord’s call for rapid expansion of autonomous mass at sea, telling me their ARMOR Force concept is built to deliver both speed and scale.
Babcock chief executive David Lockwood said the company’s partnership with HII and Arondite is designed to combine industrial production with fast software-driven adaptation. “It’s a collaboration to take their uncrewed technology together, their platform technology, to offer a thing we’re calling ARMOR Force,” he told me. “You can invent once, used many times… technology going from us to them then to us. I was with their CEO last week, and it’s a really strong, deep relationship. Culturally we’re very similar.”
Asked whether industry can realistically deliver mass at the pace the First Sea Lord demanded, Lockwood argued that the model behind ARMOR Force allows capability to evolve while the ships are still being built. “I think he’s looking for two things. One is pace of build, and the other is pace of innovation,” he said. “We can innovate post-build. We can actually innovate in build as threats emerge. I’d like to believe the great strength of Babcock is we’re big enough to have mass, but small enough to respond like an SME.”
ARMOR Force is built around the Type 31 frigate acting as a Common Command Vessel controlling a dispersed fleet of large unmanned surface vessels drawn from HII’s ROMULUS programme. Backed by PODS modular payloads and an autonomous mission system planned for deployment by the end of 2026, the concept is central to the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Bastion, Atlantic Strike and Atlantic Shield operations.
Sir Nick Hine said the Type 31 platform is well suited to leading such a fleet, but he wants further refinements. When I asked how adaptable the frigate is for autonomous command, he said, “Straightforward to make it a command vessel. There’s lots of things I’d like to do. I’d like to give it a stern ramp. I’d like to change some of the internal configuration to make it easier to move things around, to make it more flexible.”
Hine also disclosed that Babcock has offered the Navy an early demonstration package. “My offer to the Royal Navy yesterday was to deliver HMS Venturer and an unmanned surface vessel from HII as an initial operating concept for ARMOR Force in 2027,” he said. “It would only be initial operating capability, it wouldn’t be everything, but it would be a really good start.”
The approach aligns with the Royal Navy’s push for a hybrid fleet in which autonomous systems carry risk, range and persistence while crewed ships act as command hubs. With HII providing repeatable-production USVs designed for long-endurance operations and Arondite supplying the Cobalt autonomy stack, Babcock says the architecture is built for continuous upgrade.
The First Sea Lord had warned that Britain’s traditional advantage in the Atlantic is under strain. Babcock’s pitch at Rosyth was that industry can meet the moment, provided the Navy embraces faster cycles of adoption. Both Lockwood and Hine suggested they are ready to move as fast as the customer demands.