In his keynote address at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) 2023 exhibition, which took place at ExCel London from 12-15 September, the RN’s First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sir Ben Key said that the navy’s Future Air Dominance System (FADS) is “The replacement to our Type 45 destroyer, but [is] so much more than just about ships”.
“FADS is a ‘system of systems’ designed to be completely dominant. Dominant in air defence, dominant in long-range precision strike, blending … ships and aircraft with cutting edge sensors, weapons, [and] digital enablement, to ensure we can do what we need to do faster, more lethally, and more accurately than those who would oppose us.”
Admiral Sir Ben Key, RN First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff
Speaking to Naval News prior to DSEI, Rear Admiral James Parkin – the RN’s Director Develop – said FADS aims to provide “air defence against the hardest possible threats, but also long-range precision strike against the hardest possible targets”.
The RN’s current air-defence dominance capability is based around its six Type 45 Daring-class destroyers. In the 2021 Defence Command Paper, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that Type 45 would be replaced by the Type 83 – what the MoD referred to as a “concept replacement warship” that would begin arriving in the late 2030s.
Today, against a requirement to deliver consistent military advantage and effective deterrence in the complex future operating environment, the Type 83 warship concept sits at the centre of, but still within, a wider concept for delivering dominance in the air, surface, and littoral environments through FADS.
FADS is a clear priority for the RN, with the concept demonstrated at the navy’s DSEI stand. The FADS programme was stood up in September 2021. Although not yet a programme of record, it is in the pre-concept phase and the RN used DSEI to engage with industry and other stakeholders on key concepts and capabilities to consider within FADS. Seeking such input is central to clarifying FADS’ operational requirement.
Within a broad, overall requirement to ‘sense things, decide things, effect things’, a core tenet of the FADS concept is spiral development of capabilities that already exist onboard Type 45. In this sense, the RN is not seeking a replacement for Type 45 as such, but an upgrade to its capabilities.
Type 45 was developed as an anti-air warfare (AAW) platform to defend a carrier strike group (CSG). Now, the navy is looking at providing more disaggregated capabilities to counter high-end ballistic missile defence threats, including from hypersonic systems; and to counter uncrewed air systems (UASs), including those operating in swarms. The core requirement remains to defend a CSG and other maritime task groups, but to do so through providing a range of distributed capabilities to tackle a range of different threats, including providing long-range precision strike to attack threats at source (at sea and ashore).
The RN is looking at how the air-defence capability in place and being updated onboard Type 45 – for example in the Sea Viper Evolution (SVE) programme, which is seeking to augment the existing AAW capability with capacity to deal with short-range ballistic missile threats – can be enhanced further through spiral development to provide capability and effects for FADS.
FADS capability requirements will include a large, high-power sensor. Such a sensor will need to be carried onboard a large ship – namely, Type 83. However, a suite of other sensors will also be needed, with these sensors disaggregated – for example, on smaller vessels – to expand sensing capability and to contribute other effects, as well as improving resilience.
Network resilience will be critical in ensuring proper dissemination of data across the disaggregated FADS force. Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a key role in managing the vast amount of data generated and disseminated. As regards resilience, one factor within FADS consideration is how far disaggregation can be taken whilst maintaining robust, networked connectivity and effects.
FADS is also a benchmark project for demonstrating how the RN is developing new approaches to capability procurement, including agility in both initial acquisition and upgrading capability through-life. The focus on distributed sensors and effectors also enables industry to contribute in ways other than constructing ships and their capabilities.
