Author: Chris Cole

FoI challenge shows MoD claim of “thousands of cutting edge” drones in service to be nonsense

Chris Cole

In response to questions raised by the Financial Times regarding the number of drones in service, the MoD insisted in December 2023 that “we have invested heavily in over 30 such programmes over the last several years and have thousands of cutting edge aerial vehicles that are designed to make our armed forces more lethal and effective.”

List of UAV programmes MoD says it has funded “over last several years”.

Following a long-running Freedom of Information (FoI) wrangle with the MoD, in which the Information Commissioner threated legal proceeding against the Department,  Drone Wars UK finally received a list of the 32 UAV programmes which the MoD said it has funded.

However, of the 32 programmes listed only seven have resulted in drones which are currently in service (one of which is a naval target/training drone), while another four relate to drones which are planned to be in service in the future.

Of the remaining programmes, seven relate to drones that have been retired or are due to be retired this year, five are for trials (two of which have ended), two are funding broad research and two are funding for programmes not related to the development of military UAVs. The names of five other programmes have been redacted.

In total these programmes add up to around 250 military drones currently in service, with another 250 due to be in service in the next year or two – far from the ‘thousands’ claimed by the MoD in December.

While it is unfortunately no longer surprising that MoD reporting on its programmes is questionable, the extent of smoke and mirrors around UK’s drone programme in particular is disturbing.  Cost overruns seem endemic, an RAF Squadron specifically set up four years ago to trial new drones has yet to undertake any such tests and now we find that we are being misled about basic inventory figures.

Analysis of drone programmes listed by MoD in its FoI response

We believe that there is a real debate to be had about the efficacy, legality and ethics of drone warfare – even more so given the increasing autonomy of these systems.  While some insist that that the UK must invest even more heavily in drones and autonomous weapons arguing they are transforming warfare, serious questions remain.  However neither Parliament nor the public cannot properly debate and discuss these issues without appropriately factual information. While we have seen increased secrecy from the UK government around the deployment and use of drones – ostensibly due to what is described as the ‘geopolitical situation’ – we now have misleading information about UK drone numbers and development programmes given to the UK media.

Around the world we are increasingly seeing new and emerging technology being adopted by militaries in order to  ‘increase lethality’.  The UK has argued that it should be at the forefront of this new way of warfare – “all the warfare of the future” as Boris Johnson described it when discussing the Integrated Review.  However it is crucial that there is proper accountability and oversight of these developments, something that is simply not possible without proper transparency.  Misinformation here, whatever some may say, is simply wrong and unhelpful.

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Outdragon revealed: UK secretly using US signal intelligence pod on drone operations

Chris Cole
US MQ-9 Reaper drone carrying surveillance pod flying over a Polish base.  Credit: The Aviationist

Drone Wars UK can reveal that British armed Reaper drones have secretly been equipped with a US intelligence gathering capability called ‘Outdragon’ since around 2019.

Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) pods on US Reaper and Predator drones have been used to geolocate, track and kill individuals via signals from mobile phones, wireless routers or other communication devices using a variety of systems developed by intelligence agencies with codenames such as Airhandler and Gilgamesh.

In response to our FoI requests on the capability, the Ministry of Defence is refusing to confirm or deny any information other than the existence of a 2019 contract to integrate it with UK Reaper drones.

The existence of Outdragon and its use by the UK was confirmed by the (possibly mistaken) publication online of a series of MoD maintenance forms relating to the UK’s new MQ-9  ‘Protector’ drone.

Image from: Flying Log and Fatigue Data Sheet – MOD Form 725(Protector RG-1)(AV)

Documents released by Edward Snowden show that UK AIRHANDLER missions are developed and controlled from the UK’s Joint Service Signals Unit (JSSU) at RAF Digby, which is the nearest military base to the home of UK drone warfare, RAF Waddington.  A 2017 Intercept article, based on documents from Snowden, showed that US and British intelligence officials worked “side by side” at the base using AIRHANDLER with UK Reaper drones to gather data and develop near real-time intelligence for military and intelligence operations. Read more →

MoD publish new UK ‘Drone Strategy’ and its embarrassing, superficial nonsense.

Chris Cole
Click to open

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) finally published its long-promised strategy on UK plans to be “a world leader in defence uncrewed systems’ and to say its underwhelming would be an understatement.  The document – stripping out graphics, self-promotional photographs and the glossary –  runs to around four pages, much of which is filled with management speak that would make David Brent wince.   Apparently, through “Pan-Defence Excellence” the MoD will be “enshrining the principle of iterative – or spiral – capability development” to create a more “predictable demand signal.”

In a nutshell, the (ahem) ‘strategy’ seems to be: ‘learning from the war in Ukraine we will work even closer with the defence industry’.  The Minister for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge and the Commander of Strategic Command, General Sir Jim Hockenhull announced the strategy at a press event at Malloy Systems, the drone company recently taken over by BAE Systems.

The strategy document contains no details about timescales, programmes, spending or even categories of uncrewed systems that the MoD will be focusing on.  The closest the document comes to any information on future plans is a bullet point that says “the RAF is testing cost-effective expendable Autonomous Collaborative Platforms.”  Another bullet point argues that “the army has a long history of uncrewed systems and development.”  Pretty sure someone should have at least added the word ‘chequered’ in there.

Drone Strategy launched at Malloy Systems. Credit: BAE Systems

Sifting through this thin gruel we can pick out one or two points.

  • In his Introduction, Minister for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge argues “it is in the uncrewed space that we will increasingly drive the mass of our forces…” Drones, in other words, are seen as a way of increasing the size and lethality of UK armed forces as personnel recruitment slumps and spending on big-ticket items eats up the budget.
  • There is a recognition that drone warfare is “not only here to stay but likely to increase as technology expands opportunities for [drone] employment.” This is due to the fact, argues the document, that “inexpensive commercial and military technologies have democratised [drone] employment.”  Drone warfare, it is acknowledged,  is no longer the preserve of larger Western states.
  • The strategy suggests that the “initial priority is the successful delivery of the Ukraine-UK uncrewed systems initiative.” Given that the current use of drones in this conflict is primarily small, first person view (FPV) drones or one-way attack drones, it is likely that funding of  new UK developments will be in this area.   Whether that will be effective for UK security needs is questionable to say the least.
  • The decline in transparency and debate about the development, use, legality and efficacy of drone warfare from the government is likely to continue. While,  the document pays lip-service  to “the importance of public engagement” on these issues and insists it is  “committed … to keeping the public informed of our progress and developments”  these lofty aims are caveated with need to protect “necessary operational sensitivity” and the requirement to “balance transparency with security.”

All in all, it is likely this strategy document will be put on a shelf and quickly forgotten.

Proliferation of armed drones continues apace resulting in numerous civilian casualties

Chris Cole

New data from Drone Wars UK shows that more than forty states now operate large ‘Predator-type’ armed drones, with twenty-two countries having acquired these armed drones since the beginning of 2021, more than doubling the previous number of operators.

A full list of countries that possess MALE armed drones together with details of the types of drones they operate, which countries are likely to become operators in the near future and a short narrative report on each country is available on our ‘Who Has Armed Drones?’ page.

For the first time our data shows that more countries have used these armed drones to undertake strikes within their own borders (15) than for strikes against targets within other states (12).  A number of new users including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia and Mali have caused significant civilian casualties in drone strikes over the past 12 months.

While the use of smaller ‘suicide’ or one-way attack drones has come to the fore in 2023, particularly for their use in Ukraine and the Red Sea, the larger re-usable systems, known as medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) drones and typified by the US Reaper and Turkish Bayraktar TB2, continues to spread.  Turkey is now the main exporter of such systems with fifteen countries gaining armed drone capability for the first time from Turkey since the beginning of 2021. A  further dozen countries are likely to gain the capability in the near future.

Proliferation leads to civilian casualties

Of the 22 countries that have acquired MALE armed drones since the beginning of 2021, 12 are involved in ongoing internal or external armed conflicts, while a further 7 are states which have simmering tensions with neighbouring states or are repressive regimes.  At least six of the states that have acquired armed drones since 2021 have already used them to launch strikes with a number of these causing civilian casualties.  While Le Monde called Africa ‘the new playground for drone exporters’ with Turkish companies winning multi-million dollar contracts, civilians on the ground continue to pay a high price. Read more →

Accident waiting to happen: UK opens skies to large military drones as crashes continue

Chris Cole
‘Protector’ drone flying from RAF Waddington (Credit; RAF)

As the UK begins to open its airspace to medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) drones for the first time, at least 20 crashes of this type of drone have occurred during 2023. See latest update of our Drone Crash database for full details. It is highly likely that other crashes have occurred that have not been publicly reported.

In November 2023, the RAF began flying its new ‘Protector’ drone (a new version of the Reaper)  from RAF Waddington as part of a short test programme after receiving permission from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). The MoD has submitted plans to be allowed to fly drones from RAF Waddington on a permanent basis from Spring 2024.  Meanwhile the US Air Force have submitted plans to the CAA to fly US Global Hawk drones from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.  It has put an application to fly US Reaper drones from the base on hold, presumably until a decision is made on the Global Hawk flights.

There are now a wide variety of drones used by the military – from small hand-held surveillance systems through exploding so-called ‘suicide drones, to enormous solar powered systems flying at the edge of space. However, MALE drones like the Predator, Reaper and Bayraktar remain the workhorse of military attack drones but due to a variety of reasons, they continue to regularly crash

US Crashes

At least four MQ-9 Reapers and one MQ-1 Gray Eagle have crashed during the year according to media reports. Details are scant as the US has grown increasingly secretive about  such occurrences with USAF ‘mishap’ data not updated since 2021. Alongside these crashes, a US Reaper drone was downed due to a collision with  Russia aircraft over the Black Sea in March, while a US Reaper was shot down off the coast of Yemen  by Houthi rebels in November.

Date Operator Type Phase/details Location / Report
Nov 18,2023 US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper (?) Mid-flight Off coast Somaliland
Aug 22, 2023 US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper Landing Kanoya, Japan
May 15,2023 US CBP MQ-9 Reaper Mid-flight Arizona, US
Apr 22, 2023 US Army MQ-1 Gray Eagle Mid-flight Kirkuk, Iraq
Feb, 4, 2023 US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper Mid-flight Northern Mali

Bayraktar TB-2 Crashes

At least six Bayraktar TB-2 drones have crashed during 2023.  Two of these occurred after Ukrainian operators lost control of the drones and had them shot down.  Bayraktar’s operated by Burkina Faso and Mali also crashed during the year while Turkish Bayraktar’s operating against Kurdish groups also crashed in Iraq.  Meanwhile the US Air Force shot down a Turkish Anka drone in Syria in October after US forces judged it to be threatening a US military position.  Read more →

Cabinet Minister says UK flying surveillance missions over Gaza

Chris Cole

*Important Update (4 December):  Despite stating on camera to two different news programmes that drones had been deployed, the Ministry of Defence has now told journalists that the Minister was incorrect – the UK has not deployed drones but has deployed other surveillance aircraft.   We have amended this blog post.

Late on Saturday 2 December, the Minister of Defence (MoD) issued a short online statement saying that the UK “will conduct surveillance flights over the eastern Mediterranean, including operating in air space over Israel and Gaza.”

On Sunday 3 December, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins, appearing as government spokesperson on Sky News, was asked about the flights and said “The Ministry of Defence has announced that it has sent some unmanned and unarmed, surveillance drones into the region to help look for hostages.”  Subsequently appearing on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg show, Atkins repeated that “unarmed and unmanned drones” were being sent to the region to help look for hostages.

Reporting of the MoD’s original statement by BBC and others included a line which stated that aircraft undertaking the missions “will include Shadow R1s, which the Royal Air Force use for intelligence gathering” but this now appears to have been removed from the online statement. The MoD’s statement did not mention drones.

While the  MoD says that “only information relating to hostage rescue will be passed to the relevant authorities” it is likely that electronic, signal and video intelligence of Gaza gathered by the aircraft will end up in the hands of the Israeli Defence Force. If so, many would consider the UK a participant in this horrific conflict which has killed thousands of innocent civilians and seen repeated violations of international law.

While some news organisations reported this as the first UK deployment of aircraft in the conflict, in fact as far back as 13 October the Prime Minister announced that UK surveillance aircraft were to be deployed “to support Israel.”

Since the beginning of 2023, the MoD has increased the level of secrecy surrounding the use of drones, refusing to provide details of UK Reaper operations arguing that it needs “ambiguity” about such deployments.

This latest episode  – where a Cabinet  Minister states on camera that UK drones have been deployed yet the Ministry of Defence refuses to acknowledge the deployment – is another ridiculous example of the secrecy surrounding UK drones.  [Note –  MoD said after this was published that the Minister is incorrect and other aircraft – not drones  – are  being deployed].

Rumour and misinformation about these UK operations are now bound to be rife and could well turn out to be damaging.  While the government will argue that it is undertaking these operations to assist with hostage rescue, it is easy to see how UK aircraft undertaking surveillance operations over Gaza could get further drawn into ‘supporting Israel’ in this horrific conflict.

The reality is that rather than ambiguity and confusion, we need proper parliamentary and public oversight to ensure we do not get drawn further into this conflict.  Rather than deploying more UK military assets, we should be working flat out for a ceasefire.