In his DSEI 2025 address, First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins unveiled details of Atlantic Bastion, describing it as “a groundbreaking concept revolutionising how we protect the UK and its allies in the underwater environment,” UK Defence Journal reports.
He said the system would “provide a formidable underwater defence posture from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the Norwegian Sea,”blending crewed and uncrewed host platforms in a networked but independent system. “We will have our first Bastion sensors in the water next year,” he confirmed.
Jenkins illustrated how the vision extends above the waves. “Imagine in the near future, a Type 26 Frigate goes into the North Atlantic… But it is not alone. It is sailing in company with two uncrewed escorts, who use AI to work in tandem with the warship. Together, they provide a 3 ship task group in their own right.”
These escorts, he explained, would extend the capability of the parent ship: “The escorts will protect the parent ship, adding to its sensors, weapons and decoy capabilities. Because they have no crew, the escorts are not complex vessels, they are easy to produce at scale, even easier to configure to specific mission requirements as the task demands.”
Far from being speculative, Jenkins stressed the near-term reality. “If this sounds fanciful, it is not. It is my aim to have the first of our uncrewed escort ships sailing alongside our RN warships within the next two years. We will then begin scaling across the Navy.”
He said the approach would “revolutionise our ability to put mass to sea” and transform future shipbuilding. “It will fundamentally change our future shipbuilding programme, enabling us to break the paradigm of only ever bigger, more expensive and complex warships.”
The concept, he added, would inform the design of the Multi-Role Support Ship and the future Type 83 Air Defence Destroyer. “I want both to be founded on a family of vessels, with crewed capabilities at their heart, but more modular, resilient, dispersed and powerful. Fit for modern warfighting.”
