Key RAF bases, the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarine hub and power stations would be most at risk from enemy missile strikes, said ex-military chiefs, who warned Kemi Badenoch’s £10bn British Iron Dome plan is insufficient to properly defend the country.
As concerns grow that Russia could attack a Nato country, head of the army, General Sir Roly Walker warned soldiers on Friday they could soon need to fight a war given the “extreme jeopardy in the world at the moment”.
This comes as at least 1,500 British, French and German troops are heading to Poland next month to rehears deploying to Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed with Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge said, unlike Israel’s Iron Dome, which focuses on short-range threats, the Tories’ Britannia Shield would counter longer-range drones and missiles, with new mobile radar systems bought. The largest sum of the £10bn would be spent on interceptor missile systems.
While military officials have not warned of an immediate attack, Waddington, Brize Norton, Benson, Odiham, Coningsby, Marham and Lossiemouth are the RAF’s seven main operating bases that enemies, such as Russia, would be likely to target in early salvos, experts warned.
RAF Fylingdales, which provides ballistic missile early warning and space surveillance for the UK and US, could also be a focus of the Russians, whose intercontinental ballistic missiles can reach the UK in 20 minutes.
Other key military targets would likely include the nuclear submarine base at Faslane on the Clyde, home to Britain’s Trident fleet, along with naval ports such as Portsmouth.
Critical civilian infrastructure like the UK’s three Liquefied Natural Gas hubs at the Isle of Grain in Kent and South Hook and Dragon would also be in the line of fire, but the risk of radioactive fallout meant nuclear power stations were not an obvious target, analysts said.
Shortage of Patriot interceptors
Britannia Shield envisages a three-pronged system with drones or missiles detected by new long-range radar before upgraded, unified command-and-control systems process data across the armed forces to analyse threats.
Then, interceptor missiles or counter-drone capabilities would be deployed to take out the threat. Cartlidge said it would protect critical national infrastructure and military bases.
But military experts, including General Sir Richard Barrons, said the Tories’ plan for an Israel-style Britannia Shield would do little to defend large cities in the UK.
They also highlighted a global shortage of expensive Patriot interceptors to defend against ballistic missile attacks.
Barrons, one of the three authors of the Strategic Defence Review, said the UK’s current air defence capability is “inadequate” and up to £120bn was needed to fund a proper defensive shield.
“The £10bn is a good start, but it won’t deliver the sort of protection that UK infrastructure and major metropolitan areas are going to need,” he told The i Paper.
“If you wanted to be sure enough that where most British people live had some protection from aircraft, missiles, and drones….there’s nowhere near enough money being put on the table to do that.”
What is the UK’s air defence capability?
The UK’s only current air defence capability that can intercept ballistic missiles are, six Type 45 Destroyers armed with Sea Viper systems that uses Aster surface-to-air missiles.
RAF Typhoons are able to shoot down enemy drones with Advanced Precision Kill Weapon Systems as well as short-range cruise missiles.
On the ground, Sky Sabre, the army’s air defence system, uses radar to detect threats up to 75 miles away, and can take out fighter jets, attack helicopters, drones, cruise missiles, and laser-guided smart bombs, while Rapid Sentry is the RAF’s short-range, counter-drone defence system.
Barrons said £10bn would bring better connectivity between the UK and Nato’s radar sensors and aircraft and fund more investment in new technology such as DragonFire, the laser system to be deployed on naval destroyers which can fry suicide drones.
But the UK currently has no Patriot battery systems, which cost up to £820m, to neutralise ballistic missiles, with a global shortage as Donald Trump’s war in the Gulf depleted stockpiles of the US-made interceptors.
Greg Bagwell, a former RAF air marshal, said: “A Patriot battery will cover maybe a city. It won’t really cover a small town or a base.
“So then you multiply that by the number of places you’ve got to protect, and you suddenly realise the problem.”
The UK should look to alternatives that could be made more quickly under license in the UK such as the Hanwha system in South Korea, Barrons said.
And it should use the £10bn to invest in homegrown interceptors like Cambridge Aerospace’s Skyhammer that can neutralise Shahed drones or cruise missiles, he added.
“I would argue you must protect those things that sustain the core of daily life, and so that’s enough power, enough water, enough food, and enough government,” said Barrons.
How could Russia attack the UK?
Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow for missiles and sea power at the Royal United Services Institute, said Russia would have to launch a strike on the UK from a bomber or a submarine launching cruise missiles.
“They don’t yet have enough Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missiles to strike the UK credibly – they might do by the mid 2030s,” he said.
The hypersonic Oreshniks have been used by Russia to strike Ukraine and have a range of around 1,500 miles, so could in theory, reach London.
Dr Kaushal added: “A lot of the things they could fire over the east have to fly through a lot of [Nato] Allied airspace. So there’s limited chances of their getting here.”
Suppressing major air bases and destroying Astute-class nuclear submarines that can carry Tomahawk cruise missiles would be priorities in any Russian attack, he said.
But the Iskander ballistic missiles Vladimir Putin is using to hit Kyiv are not of a range that can strike the UK, he added.
Bagwell said Iran could not currently reach the UK with its long-range systems, but airbases and other military sites still faced the threat of drone attacks “parked in a truck 10 miles down the road”.
Do we have the soldiers needed for an Iron Dome?
The sort of integrated missile system envisaged by a British Iron Dome would not require more armed forces personnel to man it, which would be too expensive, said Barrons, with soldiers trained but only standing to during a crisis
“Most days you would hope very much you don’t need it. This would be set up, established, and run by industry,” Barrons said.
“Where you needed military people you would need a regular cadre go to work every day, but most of the manning would be done by reserves.
Such a system would be an extension of the armed forces digital kill web architecture using radar, satellite and acoustics, to make decisions about what weapons to shoot at.
The digital targeting web £1bn military integration initiative was introduced under the SDR to link military sensors in space, air, sea and land and cut battlefield decision-making times.
Bagwell said: “That will join these sensors up in a way that improves the UK’s ability to see what’s coming. But you still then have to do something about it.”
He pointed to RAF Fylingdales’ sophisticated radar that can detect ballistic missiles in space up to 3,000 miles away, but questioned if more focus should be placed on deterrent rather than warning of an attack.
“There’s a problem with Fylingdales. It’s one system, one site, and presumably would be on somebody’s targeting list,” he said.
“It’s not just buying the system. How resilient is that system to attack? One of the tactics you use against an enemy that has a sophisticated defence system is you attack the defence system first. So you shoot the goalkeeper and then you’ve got an open goal.”