New particulars have been launched on the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Bastion programme, the UK’s growing anti-submarine warfare community within the North Atlantic.
Responding to a written parliamentary query on 4 November, Defence Minister Luke Pollard confirmed that functionality choices submitted for inclusion within the Defence Funding Plan “embrace a mix of uncrewed programs, underwater payloads, choices to extend lethality, and enhancements to crewed platforms.”
Pollard mentioned the proposals align with the federal government’s plan to transition towards a Hybrid Navy, combining crewed and autonomous property. “These are in keeping with the transition to a Hybrid Navy and mirror business maturity to ship, as set out within the Strategic Defence Overview,” he informed MPs.
The assertion follows earlier remarks by Defence Minister Al Carns, who described Atlantic Bastion as “a portfolio of programmes to safe the North Atlantic for the UK and in assist of NATO in opposition to a spread of underwater threats.”
As beforehand reported, the Royal Navy’s new Sort 26 frigates will kind the spine of the Bastion idea. Every ship is designed to deploy uncrewed floor and underwater automobiles from its mission bay, performing as a command node inside a wider acoustic surveillance community.
This structure will hyperlink warships, submarines, and maritime patrol plane by AI-assisted information fusion, creating what officers name a “digitally networked image” of underwater exercise. The system is being developed in parallel with AUKUS analysis into autonomous maritime applied sciences and NATO’s Baltic Sentry initiative.
The initiatives purpose to strengthen Britain’s capability to detect and counter submarine threats in contested waters.