Has the UK developed a secret long-range drone for Ukraine?

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's recent announcement that his government will supply Ukraine with "hundreds of new long-range attack drones", despite not having a fleet of such aircraft in the military's inventory, has aroused more than one curiosity among defense analysts.

Sunak said on May 15 that the drones have a maximum range of 200 kilometers, but beyond that the exact type of system or information about its capabilities was not disclosed.

The lack of transparency on the matter stands out because British political and defense officials have been consistently open about military equipment sent to Ukraine during the conflict with Russia.

Among the items donated by the UK are Challenger 2 main battle tanks, over 10,000 anti-tank missiles such as NLAW, Brimstone and Javelin, Storm Shadow long-range strike weapons, Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), self-propelled guns, hundreds of armored vehicles and Starstreak transportable short-range air defense systems (MANPADS).

As for the mysterious "long-range" drone, even experts aren't sure what the MoD is specifically referring to.

There is nothing in the UK inventory that matches a long-range attack drone, so there are only two options that could explain this: an aircraft that the UK government has been working on and has made secret, or something from another country that the UK will finance and supply to Ukraine.

Excluding small drones and those with more bizarre missions, the UK currently operates General Atomics' MQ-9A Reapers, soon to be replaced by a fleet of MQ-9B SkyGuardians, Thales' Watchkeeper drones and QinetiQ's Banshees. But none of these have been bought in the "hundreds" or are considered attack drones and only the Watchkeeper, predominantly an ISR and which has suffered a number of accidents in service in the UK, fits the 200km range profile. .

If the long-range drone in question is a secretly developed system, it would not be the first to enter the Ukrainian conflict. In April, the Pentagon surprisingly admitted it was sending previously undisclosed Phoenix Ghost drones to Ukraine. Very little information had been released at the time, other than that it was a device similar to short-range munitions and was being rapidly developed in cooperation with the US Air Force.

Analysts are convinced that the country possesses the industrial capacity to readily design attack drones, even if the systems themselves are not part of the current acquisitions. This is especially true if drones are combat munitions.

The technology and manufacturing capabilities required to produce capable unidirectional strike UAVs are not particularly critical.

Iran has demonstrated this with its Shahed-136 as well as a wide range of other smaller examples such as the Ababil-2 and Raad 85. It should therefore come as no surprise that the UK – which has been at the forefront of procuring and supplying urgently needed capabilities to Ukraine that are not part of its arsenal – is able to rapidly design or procure and then produce such UAVs to scale for the UK. 'Ukraine.
Every advanced state has the technical, industrial and economic capabilities to develop a long-range attack drone. If anything what is missing is political will and sometimes time, and this may well be the case.

For reasons of speed it is very likely that the United Kingdom has purchased a ready-made UAV, easily available in what is an expanding market. There are several models in development or construction that could easily be acquired and some of these are already in series production. If anything, the problem is what is defined as long range and if this affects the Russian reaction.

---

---

The article Has the UK developed a secret long-range drone for Ukraine,? comes from Economic Scenarios .

---

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-regno-unito-ha-sviluppato-un-drone-segreto-a-lungo-raggio-per-lucraina/ on Tue, 23 May 2023 09:00:29 +0000.