Defence secretary says MoD having to come to terms with ‘new age of warfare’

A new missile system to provide protection for the UK’s two aircraft carriers has entered into service, the defence secretary has announced.

The Sea Ceptors, developed at a cost of about £850m and deployed aboard type-23 frigates, will offer a protective shield against missile attacks for the two carriers. HMS Queen Elizabeth is undergoing sea trials and HMS Prince of Wales is scheduled to be handed over to the Royal Navy in 2019.

Russia and other potential rivals are developing missiles that are becoming significantly faster, reducing the time defenders have to react. But the Ministry of Defence says innovations such as the Sea Ceptor, which has a longer range than the Sea Wolf system it is replacing, can provide the necessary cover.

At the opening of the Royal United Service Institute’s conference on sea warfare, Gavin Williamson said the Sea Ceptor would provide protection against everything from supersonic missiles to fighter jets.

After the first test-firings last year, the Sea Ceptor is to be deployed on HMS Argyll, which is heading for the Asia Pacific region.

Willliamson told a room packed with senior navy figures that the MoD was “rapidly having to come to terms with this new age of warfare”. He cited Russian submarine activity in the north Atlantic, which he said had increased tenfold.

He said Russian warships had approached UK waters 33 times last year, compared with just once in 2010. “It goes to show the increasing aggression, increasing assertiveness of Russia,” he said.

Other threats were posed by fast-moving changes in technology. Williamson said present MoD building programmes were too slow, taking decades from planning to completion, whereas in other areas such as smartphones there were frequent updated versions. The MoD should not hesitate in borrowing ideas and technology from other industries, he said.



In a new development, he said the UK was to send type-23 frigates to the Gulf from next year to provide a permanent presence at a time of “unprecedented uncertainty”.