The new boss of the British Army has vowed to make the force ‘twice as lethal’ by using swarms of killer drones and hi-tech missiles with multiple warheads.
War hero General Sir Roly Walker, a former member of the SAS who survived being blown up in Afghanistan, said he wants to ‘turbocharge’ Britain’s shrinking army.
The defence chief said he was ‘committed’ to better equipping the army and and making it more capable of defeating its enemies without necessarily relying on expensive kit like tanks.
In his first public address as the Army’s new head, he told industry partners in a video on LinkedIn: ‘The only real measurement of an army is its fighting power: its lethality in the face of very real, and converging, threats.
‘In the near term, my challenge to the British Army is to double that lethality in three years and treble it by the end of the decade.’
War hero General Sir Roly Walker, a former member of the SAS who survived behind blown up in Afghanistan , said he wants to ‘turbocharge’ Britain’s shrinking army.
He is keen to see the army kitted out with better kit, like drone swarm which have been used effectively on the battlefields of Ukraine (pictured: Ukrainian drone operators)
The cheap unmanned kamikaze drones have been used to pick off individual soldiers as well as taking out armoured tanks and troop transports (pictured is a drone detonating in Ukraine)
The General said electronic warfare, drones, air defence and long-range weapons like missiles and artillery rounds, in addition to logistics and stockpiles ‘remain the stars to steer by’ when it comes to bolstering Britain’s military might.
Sir Roly also said he wanted soldiers working closer with defence firms to ‘track backwards and forwards from the foxholes to the factory’ so weapons are constantly improved and stockpiles never at risk of running out.
It comes as other nations continue to push forward with rapid advancements in both military kit and tactics on the battlefield.
In Ukraine, armadas of cheap kamikaze drones armed with explosives, have proved a deadly new addition on the battlefield.
The aerial death machines can be used to pick off terrified soldiers sheltering in trenches or to wipe out entire troop transports and multi-million pound tanks in a split second.
Some drones can be steered from miles away by soldiers wearing headsets that give them a ‘first-person view’ of their targets – with graphic videos regularly shared online showing the machines chasing down and detonating on terrified troops.
More recently, swarms of drones have been used to attack forces from multiple directions, overwhelming traditional air defences.
From miles away, a Ukrainian operator wearing specialised goggles that give him a first-person view (FPV), chases the terrified Russian with the drone – which is packed with explosives
Allies like the United States are also investing in new drone technology. And America, alongside others, have also been developing self-steer ‘smart bullets’ that can adjust their direction midflight, making them more accurate.
Britain has been experimenting with its own new hi-tech kit, with members of 16 Air Assault Brigade having tested new ‘robo-dogs’ to help shift heavy kit around the battlefield or act as reconnaissance machines.
And on Thursday, North Korea announced it had successfully carried out a test aimed at developing new missiles that can carry multiple warheads – a technology The Times reports Sir Roly wants the Army to be kitted out with.
North Korea said the test was carried out on Wednesday, which Pyongyang hailed as a success, claiming it succeeded in separating warheads, which were guided onto three preset targets.
‘The purpose was to secure the capability to destroy individual targets using multiple warheads,’ North Korea said. But South Korea rubbished the claim and branded it as ‘deception to mask a failed launch’.
Meanwhile in the UK, a debate continues to rage over how the British military would cope if it was thrust into a full-scale war like the one in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, a former senior officer warned the British Army’s ’embarrassingly’ small tank fleet would be wiped out in two weeks in a war with Russia.
Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Crawford, who served in the Royal Tank Regiment, also said the nation’s shrinking army meant it was no longer regarded as a ‘Tier One military power’ by the US.
Lt Col Crawford, who served in the Army for 20 years and is now a defence analyst, described the new Challenger 3 tank, which is due to come into service by 2030, as a ‘decent vehicle’ but stressed that the numbers being built were too small.
He said: ‘We’re currently planning to procure only 148 of them [Challenger 3], which is embarrassingly few, when you remember that at the height of the Cold War, not that long ago, the British Army’s Royal Armoured Corps could hope to field around 900 MBTs [main battle tanks].
General Sir Roly (pictured in Afghanistan in 2009) said he wants to make the army more equipped and capable
The British Army has been experimenting with new ‘robo-dogs’
The robots, which have not yet entered service, are kitted out with an array of sensors
‘No wonder some US senior officers have said that Britain is no longer a Tier One military power.’
His comments follow those of General Sir Richard Shirreff, who warned that troop and equipment shortages meant the Army would struggle to put a war-fighting brigade of 5,000 troops into the field.
Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, he said: ‘I don’t think the British Army can field a war-fighting brigade of 5,000 without an enormous amount of time – I think even that would be really, really difficult.
‘I’m sure the MoD would say yes of course we can do that. I can tell you now most of the units training on Salisbury Plain will be training without their full complement of vehicles for various reasons.
‘Ammunition is in critical short supply. Amongst other things, of course, the bottom of the barrel has been scraped to provide everything that can go to Ukraine but it needs to be replaced. It needs to be topped up and on top of that we need to increase the size of our capability to meet the challenges posed by Russia.’
Sir Roly, who is married with three children, was originally commissioned into the Irish Guards before joining the SAS. He went on to lead dozens of raids on enemy targets in Iraq from 2003.
He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 2010 for ‘indomitable leadership’ during a six-month tour in Afghanistan. He survived a Taliban bomb that ripped through the wheels of his 15-ton Ridgeback armoured vehicle, hurling it 6ft into the air.
He has taken over as chief of general staff from General Sir Patrick Sanders.
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