BLUF: Britain and France are investigating ways to integrate drone systems with their new aircraft carriers, including for logistics, surveillance and combat. This is an opportunity for European defense SMEs to supply aerial, surface and submarine drones for naval use.
US and Israeli attacks on Iran will deplete already limited US munitions stockpiles, which will likely force the American defense industry to prioritize domestic orders over European buyers.
However, the British and French navies will be protected by their preference for European-made munitions.
The United States is using clones of Iranian Shahed drones to strike Iran, underscoring the importance of battlefield-proven tech and cheap munitions, the head of a Lithuanian drone manufacturer RSI Europe told The Arsenal.
And a seemingly obscure bureaucratic reorganization at the US Department of War could mean quicker and more competitive arms sales to Europe—the pressures of the war against Iran notwithstanding.
Welcome to The Arsenal Europe, a weekly newsletter for European defense tech and sister publication to The Arsenal Ukraine. Only want to get the Ukraine issue? Change your subscriber settings here.
If this email was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here to get our emails.
The Arsenal offers consulting and custom research services. Need talented experts on the ground to answer a due diligence or business question? We’ve got you covered! Email us here!
Bringing aircraft carriers into the drone age
As the US and Israel began their war against Iran over the weekend, the French navy redeployed its only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, to the eastern Mediterranean, according to French broadcaster BFMTV. France plans to replace the aging flagship – which entered service in 2001 – by the late 2030s.
Large warships face a new threat from maritime drones, which Ukraine has used to lethal effect against the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, Iran converted a commercial ship into a military drone carrier, the Shahid Bagheri—which US forces say they hit in the first hours of their attack. The Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has also used aerial drones to attack shipping in the Red Sea.
That’s why Britain and France are looking to both aerial and maritime drones to protect their carrier strike fleets.
DEFENSE INDUSTRY TAKEAWAY: Aircraft carriers and other large warships have long been the preserve of major defense contractors. But the shift to integrate them with drone systems is an opportunity for smaller, more specialized firms. The shift is still in its early stages, so the opportunity is likely to grow. That said, most European navies don’t have aircraft carriers, which are necessary to launch the largest aerial drones at sea: Britain has two; France, Italy and Spain have one each; and the rest have none. Nevertheless, smaller aerial drones and maritime drones can still have applications with a wider variety of warships.
Addressing French troops in Abu Dhabi on 21 December, Emmanuel Macron announced that he greenlit construction of the Porte-avions de nouvelle generation (PA-NG)—a €10.25 billion next-generation aircraft carrier to replace the Charles de Gaulle. Among its capabilities will be electromagnetic catapults to launch large drones off the flight deck.
French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed construction of the PA-NG in Abu Dhabi on 21 December. Photo by Ludovic Marin / AFP via Getty Images.
Meanwhile, Britain is investigating ways to integrate drones with the Royal Navy’s two new carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, both of which entered service in the last decade.
For example, the Ministry of Defence is looking to spend £12 million (€13.8 million) on designs for short-take off and landing (STOL) drones.
The project, called Vanquish, aims to develop drone concepts to support strike, reconnaissance and air-to-air refueling missions, and to complement the fleet of F-35B Lightning fighter jets operating on the new carriers. Tendering was initially expected to open around 12 January, but details are still being finalized, a well-placed source told The Arsenal.
HMS Prince of Wales, with F35s on deck, in Tokyo. Photo by David Mareuil/Anadolu via Getty Images.
The drone threat at sea
“Where I think drones will make a huge difference in the naval domain is actually undersea,” said Emma Salisbury, associate fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. “The amount of mass that you can have from naval drones—on the surface and under the surface—is a quantitative change from what navies have been able to field so far,” she told The Arsenal.
At a factory in Plymouth, on England’s southwest coast, Helsing is producing an AI-controlled undersea glider for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, called SG-1. Plymouth is also home to the Royal Navy’s largest dockyard, HMNB Devonport, and is represented in Parliament by defense procurement minister Luke Pollard.
“We’ve seen how the Ukrainians operated in the Black Sea. With USVs [unmanned surface vessels], they’ve been able to significantly harm the Russian fleet,” said Sandra Jung, Director of Maritime at German AI drone unicorn Helsing.
Helsing’s ‘Resilience Factory’ in Plymouth, England. Photo courtesy of Helsing.
A Helsing SG-1 undersea glider on display at the Plymouth factory. Photo courtesy of Helsing.
The idea behind the SG-1 and its AI system, Lura, is to conduct wide-area surveillance, said Jung.
“You could detect the noises of ships, and you would be able to classify them and identify them,” she told The Arsenal. “Whenever some of those assets pick something up, they could then surface and transmit that information.”
Reconnaissance and strike drone systems can also be integrated to identify and eliminate threats, Jung told The Arsenal.
Underwater ISR capabilities will make it a lot harder for hidden threats—such as hostile submarines—to launch surprise attacks, said Salisbury.
“There's going to be much more coverage with ISR capabilities, because you can just build a ton of small ISR drones and provide huge coverage of the battle space,” she added.
Upgrading carriers
Naval use of strike and ISR drones is still in the testing and development stage, Salisbury told The Arsenal, but the Royal Navy is already using vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones to load supplies onto its carriers.
“The other big project is Proteus, which is essentially an unmanned [cargo] helicopter.”
A Leonardo Proteus helicopter on display in London. Photo by John Keeble/Getty Images.
Militaries are also investigating unmanned fighter jets, she added.
“What navies are trying to do with their carriers is ready them for the eventual use of these bigger, fighter aircraft-style drones.”
One way to do that is to install Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) catapults for takeoff and Advanced Arrestor Gears (AAG) for landing, which France plans to include with the PA-NG. Both systems are produced by the US firm General Atomics. Unlike conventional steam catapults, electromagnetic systems are adapted for both manned aircraft and drones.
Britain’s two carriers don’t have catapults or arrestor gears: They’re designed for aircraft capable of Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) like the F-35, with a “ski-jump” design at the end of the runway.
With Vanquish, the British MoD wants to develop jet-powered aerial drones capable of short take-off and landing without catapults or arrestor gears, wrote Defence Procurement Minister Luke Pollard on 15 January, in response to a parliamentary question.
“The other option is a dedicated drone carrier,” said Salisbury. “Essentially a big platform that your drones can take off from and land onto—which is the approach that Iran has taken.”
While the US says it hit the Shahid Bagheri, it wasn’t clear at time of writing whether the ship had sunk. The ship was in the port town of Bandar Abbas on Friday, according to news reports.
Even if still operational, Salisbury said it wouldn’t make sense for Iran to use it in this conflict.
“If she’s in port, you may as well launch drones from land,” she said.
Similarly, the drone strikes on British bases in Cyprus appear to have been launched from Iranian territory, she said.
She added that the variety of drones available to navies is expanding rapidly.
“There’s huge diversity, which has really only appeared in the last couple of years,” Salisbury said. “Drones offer a way for smaller companies to come into defense contracting, because the barriers to entry are so much smaller.”
Our publication will be putting up a paywall soon. Interested in our B2B subscription packages? Register here to learn more.
Interested in sponsoring The Arsenal?
In over a year, we’ve accumulated more than 3,200 subscribers focused on Ukrainian battlefield innovation. This includes Western primes, defense companies, allied governments, and Ukrainian startups. Want your messaging to target this highly-sought-after demographic?
1. Iran war will constrain ammo, but not for British and French navies
US and Israeli attacks on Iran will deplete already limited US-made ammunition stockpiles, putting production under even greater strain and forcing American manufacturers to prioritize supplying the US military over demands from other countries.
But British and French naval supplies will be largely unaffected because they tend to use European-made munitions, Emma Salisbury of the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre, told The Arsenal.
DEFENSE INDUSTRY TAKEAWAY: Lackluster US supplies present an opportunity for European manufacturers offering domestic production at home, and a long-term risk for US exporters. However, American technologies produced in Europe under license are less likely to be affected. While they’re still subject to a degree of American control—and thus political pressure—they’re less susceptible to the supply shock that the war with Iran could bring for American-made munitions.
“The US is running through its ammunition at a very fast rate at the moment,” Salisbury said.
Much of its stock has already been either sold to allies or given to Ukraine, she added, and “there will come a point where the US is essentially going to run out of ammunition for quite a few of these systems.”
“Replenishing those stocks is going to take a long time, and it would not be surprising if the Americans prioritize refilling their own stocks over filling orders to other nations or to Ukraine,” she said.
The impact for the British Royal Navy and the French Navy will be limited, she said, as they mainly use European munitions.
For example, the Royal Navy’s main surface-to-air missiles are the Sea Ceptor and Sea Viper, both produced in Britain by European manufacturer MBDA. MBDA also provides the Sea Venom to the French and British, while the Martlet is produced in Belfast by French-owned Thales for the Royal Navy.
“Then there's the Naval Strike Missile, which is Norwegian,” Salisbury said. “The French don’t like to use American systems at the best of times, so I’m assuming they’re probably fine.”
2. US cloning of Iranian drone s a lesson for European defense tech, CEO says
The American and Israeli strikes on Iran that began over the weekend saw combat use of the new LUCAS drones, produced by US firm Spectreworks. It's modelled on the Iranian Shahed loitering munitions, which Russia has used in Ukraine.
The fact that the world’s foremost military power is adapting technology from a weaker one like Iran underscores the importance of battlefield-tested tech, Tomas Milašauskas, CEO of Lithuanian drone-maker RSI Europe, told The Arsenal.
The Americans “are ready to integrate whatever proven capability there is, and especially if there is proven doctrine that they can adopt,” said Milašauskas.
DEFENSE INDUSTRY TAKEAWAY: The United States may have pioneered the use of military drones during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but today it’s looking at low-cost drone weapons developed elsewhere—including from its adversaries. American use of Shahed clones shows the influence of the Ukraine war on global defense technologies, highlighting long-term opportunities for manufacturers who can demonstrate their capabilities in Ukraine.
Milašauskas added that the Iran conflict also highlights the danger of using expensive surface-to-air missiles to intercept cheap drones.
On Sunday, The Arsenal reported that US military demand to replace expensive surface-to-air missiles used in the Persian Gulf could strain US production lines, delaying exports to allied countries.
The US is using various interceptors in the Gulf, “but it’s all expensive, and it’s catching really cheap, attritable munitions,” Milašauskas told The Arsenal. One alternative is interceptor drones, he said.
3. Pentagon reshuffle means faster arms sales to Europe, investor says
The decision to bring two US government defense bodies under a single manager could mean quicker arms sales to Europe, a Swedish defense investor told The Arsenal.
On 10 February, the the Pentagon announced it had brought the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which manages arms sales to US allies, and the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA), which protects sensitive US military technologies, under the authority of a single individual: Under-Secretary of War for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael P. Duffey.
DEFENSE INDUSTRY TAKEAWAY: The linking of the DSCA with the DTSA may allow the US to streamline its approvals process for selling advanced defense tech to Europe. While that’s an opportunity for European governments eager to buy US gear—and for American firms eager to sell—it’s a competitive threat for European defense companies. Moreover, a more competitive US export apparatus could make it harder for the European Commission to persuade member states to back its anticipated proposal to introduce a ‘European preference’ in military procurement laws.
The Pentagon said this was “to improve efficiency, enhance the US industrial base, and enable greater burden-sharing with our allies and partners.”
“If you spell that differently, that is ‘to increase American arms sales in Europe,’” quipped Freddy Jönsson Hanberg, chairman of The Defence Foundation, a defense tech funding body in Stockholm. “This places foreign military sales and direct commercial sales at the center of US strategic partnerships.”
The move could lead to quicker exports to Europe by giving US officials greater clarity about what they can or cannot sell, he said. That’s because while the DSCA assesses the trustworthiness of American partners, the DTSA assesses the risk posed by sharing American technologies.
Some US defense products are deemed too sensitive to be exported anywhere, such as the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
Other US technologies fall on a spectrum of how sensitive they are to export. For example, the US has agreed to supply F-35s to 19 allied countries.
“The DTSA can verify that ‘this is exportable,’” Hanberg said. “Then you have the security cooperation people [at DSCA] that can say, ‘the American company can be a subcontractor to the European company, we know them.’”
Professional movement, promotions and industry news.
Know someone in the defense tech space who has made a professional move? Drop us a line at [email protected]!
David Shapira is leaving the Swiss Innovation Forces to become the new Chief Commercial Officer of Counter Drone Defense System (CDDS). CDDS develops autonomous interceptor drones designed to protect critical infrastructure and people with minimal collateral damage.
Jason Galanes, former chief of staff to U.S. Representative Michael Turner (a Republican from Ohio) is leaving Washington to take up a new position at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He’ll be the Head of Strategic Partnerships & Training Programmes at the alliance’s Parliamentary Assembly. Galanes announced the move in a LinkedIn post on Sunday.
The European Defence Agency posted several job vacancies last week. The roles include specialists for military mobility and logistics, ammunition and PESCO. Further details can be found on the EDA’s jobs page.
OMNIUM Naval Drones develops submersible drones that are unique worldwide. Its heavy-duty drone Kerberos has a payload capacity of 20 to 50 kilograms and is suitable for rough water. A swarm can block a sea route within minutes and reopen it again. OMNIUM’S Ghost can fly and dive up to 30 meters deep. To spin-out the company from Ocean Robotics, founder Juegen Roider is seeking a partner willing to invest between €500,000 and €1 million, which represents 5 to 10% of the company, which is to be founded in one of the Baltic states. https://www.ocean-robotics.ai
—
Are you a European defense tech startup that’s trying to raise capital?
We’d like to hear from you. Send us your 30-second elevator pitch explaining what you do, how much you’re trying to raise and what for—along with a few remarks from a senior member of your team—and we’ll consider it for this slot in our next newsletter.
Send your pitch to [email protected].
The Wall Street Journal has a feature on the European appetite for Ukrainian defense tech, by Yaroslav Trofimov and Bojan Prancevski. The story also notes what European defense companies have learned from the war—for example, German AI drone unicorn Quantum Systems set up a workshop in Ukraine to adapt its products as they came up against Russian countermeasures.
Belgian forces have seized a ship suspected of belonging to the Russian shadow fleet, Sébastien Georis reports for national broadcaster RTBF. The Guinean-flagged oil tanker Ethera entered Belgian waters from the English Channel and was seized near the popular seaside resort of Ostend.
Researchers tested various AI systems’ behavior in war games and found they chose to use nuclear weapons in 95% of cases, Chris Stokel-Walker reports for the New Scientist.
France has offered to temporarily station nuclear warheads in other European countries and promised to expand its country’s arsenal, as European leaders lose confidence in American security guarantees, Leila Abboud reports for the Financial Times.
Belgian maritime drone startup MAHI unveiled a new Uncrewed Surface Vessel, Alpha-8, to demonstrate the company’s naval AI and sensor systems. MAHI CEO Pieter-Jan Note told The Arsenal that the vessel’s purposes are to prove the company’s systems work and to get customer feedback.
