By Peter Apps
Somewhere in England, – inside a hangar on an industrial estate near a motorway and a port, massive canoe-shaped smooth glass fiber hulls, spray-painted naval grey, await the fitting of nearby packaged engines and other high-tech systems. From Ukraine, similar unmanned attack boats – initially built specifically for that task by Ukraine’s special forces and security services – have largely driven the Russian Black Sea Fleet out of nearby waters.
If the current conflict between Israel and the US on the one hand, and Iran on the other leads to a war in the Middle East, some of these new British boats could go into action. Such craft are being seen as the future of naval warfare, along with many other “dirty, dreary and dangerous” offshore roles such as search and rescue.
Venture City delivers fast, agile firms. A discreetly located manufacturing facility belongs to fast-growing British defense firm Kraken, which this year signed a deal to supply the first tranche of 20 small attack boats for Britain’s Royal Navy, as well as further deals for the US Special Operations Command and the wider US Navy.
Inspired by venture capital, similar companies are emerging around the world, providing not only autonomous attack craft – seen as vital to stopping any Chinese invasion of Taiwan or winning any NATO battle with Russia in the Baltic – but also a host of other untested systems. The Kraken team, like others across the region, says recent headlines about the success of drone strikes in the Gulf help provide a sense of mission – a sense that Western democracies must be prepared to fight and find ways to reduce their casualties if they are to prevent wars from happening. Kraken now offers a range of drones, the 8.5-metre Scout Medium currently arguably the most popular and easiest to mass-produce – but it won’t say whether any of its aircraft have seen action in the Middle East or the Black Sea so far.
The US military says it has deployed similar vessels in recent operations near the Gulf, notably involving Maryland firm Blacksea’s Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft.
US Central Command, which oversees US Middle East operations, has been testing such unmanned ships for much of the current decade. European countries have honed their technology and skills with NATO’s Task Force X-Baltic, also tracking Russian and other vessels they suspect could interfere with undersea cables and other infrastructure.
Whether operated completely autonomously or piloted by a helmsman located at another location connected via Starlink or a similar satellite communications system, such ships can carry a variety of weapons and other payloads, including surveillance cameras, machine guns, or enough on-board explosives to sink a large ship. Iran appears to have used at least two such vessels in its attacks on commercial shipping, an indication of how rapidly naval warfare is now changing.
Drones can operate with or without human control
Heavy congestion in both Ukraine and the Gulf has led to a constant battle to keep remote human-piloted systems operational – and a focus on building autonomous systems that can operate without communication links.
But this is a much more challenging task; Reuters and other media outlets reported several problems with testing last year that attempted to operate such craft without human control — though insiders say that’s hardly a surprise, especially in disputed waters like the Black Sea or the Baltic.
At the time of writing, UK media reported that the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Lyme Bay, an amphibious supply ship, was about to load a cargo of drones for possible mine clearance in the bay – but only once the conflict ends and the environment becomes less hostile for such craft. If that mission goes ahead, it will be seen as a sign of how few warships remain in Britain’s cash-strapped navy and how technology is changing. At the moment, no one expects that the ships built by Kraken will completely replace conventional warships; Trump’s “armada” including aircraft carriers and maritime assault ships is a reminder of the powerful combat power of such a force, even if American commanders have kept such ships away from the combat zone to minimize their risks. However, the speed at which a company like Kraken can build new, cheaper ships is dramatic, as is the scale of its ambition. Kraken says it can deliver 500 remote-controlled ships in the current year and double that in 2027, partly through deals with shipyards in places including Germany and the Pacific Rim. Speaking from his office filled with models from his past life in Formula One racing and high-performance offshore powerboats, Kraken founder Mal Creese explained how he has used his experience in the hopes of becoming a leading marine offshore systems manufacturer.
Learning lessons from Ukraine has been part of that process, such as how to mass-produce such boats in a less conflict-ridden setting. “There are clearly challenges in delivering and building a quality scalable product in a conflict zone,” he said.
Modular construction that can be expanded rapidly
He says what the Kraken team is now able to do is build an increasing series of ships from modular components that can be rapidly mass-produced, then put them together rapidly by hand “like a supercar.” He says that the beauty of that system is that it can be scaled up rapidly. Particularly in Britain, major questions remain about the future nature of military spending. The long-promised defense investment plan remains unfunded, with UK media reporting for months on disagreements between the Prime Minister and the Treasury over how much money is needed – and how much is available. The broader picture of what happens in London is becoming clearer. And while most companies will do everything they can to promise their national governments that certain technology will remain “sovereign” and restricted to their country, they are also making deals to manufacture overseas. The companies being born are a far cry from established “defense primes” like America’s Lockheed Martin, Britain’s BAE Systems or Italian giant Leonardo, all famous for the long work hours and huge cost overruns of huge multibillion-dollar weapons systems. Newer companies like Britain’s Kraken and Cambridge Aerospace, US-based attack drone company Neros or Germany’s similarly focused Helsing are often smaller and have been founded in the past two years. They are also much less established than slightly older “defense tech” giants like Palantir and Anduril, both growing US players in analytics and targeting. While new companies that focus solely on artificial intelligence and analytics may be at risk of being overtaken by publicly available AI products, those that build actual weapons systems – especially fast and cheap – increasingly believe they can find buyers.
Watching Kraken’s locally employed crews at work on their uncrewed speedboats gives one the feeling that such scenes have been rare in peacetime Britain since the late 1930s and the last desperate years before the start of the Second World War. For now, the scale is very small, but that could change rapidly. Many former military personnel who now work in these companies are spending considerable time with customers in many countries, including Ukraine – purchasing as well as manufacturing. In some cases, they are finding their own countries unprepared. Reports since the beginning of the US campaign against Iran suggest that more expensive missiles such as Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot air defense projectiles are running low. Drone providers talk about being able to deliver hundreds of thousands or even millions of individual systems each year. Perhaps it is not surprising that no country has adapted to that new reality as quickly as Ukraine. Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky toured the Middle East, offering expertise in drone strikes and defense systems to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Western countries out of the firing line have been slow to react, but they may not have much time – and some companies on their soil are already moving quickly.
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