Marines to receive new warships with drones and lasers

Development has begun on battle essentials, Defence Secretary confirms

THE Royal Marines are to get up to six new ships that will enable drones to be launched and laser weapons to be fired from them, The Telegraph can reveal.

Grant Shapps has announced that development has begun on the new Multi Role Support Ships (MRSS), which will be specially designed to rapidly transport the Royal Marines Commando Force from sea to shore around the world.

Speaking to The Telegraph, the Defence Secretary said he was investing money in the ships because Britain will need to fight and win future battles with China at sea.

“We’re making these critical investments in shipbuilding to build the future Royal Navy needed to deter our adversaries, and then win if they are not deterred,” Mr Shapps said.

“As nations like China and Russia invest heavily in their militaries we must make sure the UK leads our allies so that the West is not left behind.”

Mr Shapps will make the announcement for the new MRSS at the First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference at Lancaster House today.

His comments come after the Prime Minister committed £75billion in new funding to the Ministry of Defence, taking the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of national wealth by the start of 2030. The MRSS are the first piece of new equipment Mr Shapps has pledged to buy with his new budget.

The new vessels will feature docks for landing craft, a hangar that can take a Chinook as well as a launch pad for helicopters and will crucially have the ability to host and launch attack drones from a dock that can be lowered into the water.

It is also hoped Dragonfire, a high-powered laser beam that can shoot down enemy drones and missiles, will be fitted. Earlier this year, Dragonfire achieved the UK’S first high-power firing of a laser weapon against aerial targets. Although the range of Dragonfire is classified, it is a line-of-sight weapon and can engage with any visible target at only £10 a shot. It has been developed to hit missiles, drones and other enemy targets and runs on electric power, as opposed to ammunition.

Mr Shapps, who as Defence Secretary is also the Shipbuilding Tsar, said the new vessels, which will replace the ageing HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark amphibious assault ships, as well as RFA Lyme Bay, Mounts Bay and Cardigan Bay, had ensured a “secure future” for the marines.

“This is the thing which secures the Commando’s future,” Mr Shapps said on a visit to a Scottish shipyard

“The Royal Marines, in decades to come, are secure in their future with the new fleet of ships being built.”

He said the Navy had learnt lessons from the conflict in Ukraine and that as the nature of sea warfare has evolved, so has the types of ships needed for the marines.

“We go everywhere around the world. But we also know we need to be flexible enough to incorporate the lessons of, for example, the way that the Black Sea fleet has been immobilised, in many cases sunk, without firing torpedoes from conventional large ships.”

A senior Navy source said: “These will be better than the ships they replace as they will be cheaper to run and have greater adaptability.”