Following the news that the Royal Navy is investing £15.4 million into the ‘Project Cetus’ unmanned underwater vessel (UUV);

James Marques, Associate Aerospace, Defense and Security Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“Submarines are powerful deterrents and vital to protecting the UK’s interests as a maritime trading nation, but they are also some of the most expensive military undertakings, with difficult recruitment and retention for technical and skilled crews. A Ukrainian attack on the Russian fleet at Sevastopol with a squadron of unmanned vessels has underlined the emerging role that ‘drone’ ships will have in naval warfare at a fraction of the cost of crewed ships. The Cetus announcement follows a recent acquisition of three smaller UUVs from the US’s Huntington Ingalls, as the tense security environment pressures the MoD to experiment faster.

“Plymouth-based MSubs’s Cetus is a modular and portable design that is intended to work side-by-side with the Royal Navy’s crewed vessels – both surface ships and submarines. Although the Navy already uses crewless systems for minesweeping and reconnaissance, Cetus will likely work to protect vital undersea cables and alongside manned Astute-class attack submarines, with a range of 1,000 miles and deep-sea capability. The project will be a testbed to mature ‘best practice’ operations for future unmanned vessels in more combat-orientated roles, which will be a big leap in UK naval history.”