\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>n a small workshop in England\u2019s East Midlands, engineers at the British startup Skycutter are designing weapons for Ukraine. A row of 3D printers make the fuselage for interceptor drones, while parts such as motors and navigation chips are slotted together by hand. The same process happens hundreds of thousands of times a month in partner Ukrainian factories.<\/p>\n The swarms of cheap, deadly and often autonomous drones deployed in that war have already changed combat completely. Troops far behind the frontline must move constantly to avoid attack from the air, travelling along netted tunnels and landscapes crisscrossed by fibre optic cables used to steer drones past radio jamming. Cities are terrorised by guided missiles that are cheaper and therefore more widely used than those that came before.<\/p>\n Europe\u2019s militaries are scrambling to catch up, in a drive to spend billions on weaponry \u2013 with added pressure from Donald Trump\u2019s wavering on the Nato alliance and the US president\u2019s insistence that members increase defence budgets.<\/p>\n The unsettling combination of Trump and war on the doorstep has sharpened long-running criticism that the continent has relied too much on US weapons makers.<\/p>\n The EU has responded by promising to spend \u20ac800bn on defence over four years. The UK has also pledged to put aside more, with Keir Starmer likely to come under pressure to show progress after Labour\u2019s heavy losses in Thursday\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n <\/span>Frankenburg’s air-to-air drone interceptor missile in tests on an Airbus catapult-launch drone<\/span><\/p>\n With a new focus on defence sovereignty \u2013 the ability to make and use weaponry without unreliable America\u2019s help \u2013 much of this money is pouring into homegrown companies. A crop of well-funded startups are gaining momentum and expanding production, making big promises \u2013 many still unproven \u2013 that they can do a better job than traditional manufacturers and Silicon Valley rivals.<\/p>\n Militaries do not believe they can totally dispense with people \u2013 infantry \u2013 or heavier machinery such as tanks, artillery and ships. But a big chunk of the planned spending will go on drones of various sizes, whether for the air, land, sea or below the waves.<\/p>\n Gen Sir Roly Walker, the UK\u2019s chief of the general staff, last year said he wanted the forces\u2019 equipment to be 20% \u201csurvivable\u201d (because they have people inside), 40% \u201cattritable\u201d (you aren\u2019t too worried if they\u2019re destroyed), and 40% \u201cconsumable\u201d (single use).<\/p>\n The growing feeling across Europe is that \u201cwe should be able to stand up on our own two feet\u201d, according to one person at a fast-growing weapons startup. \u201cSovereignty is about control. If you buy things off the shelf from elsewhere you are always ceding some control.\u201d<\/p>\n That applies to parts and materials as well. The UK is consulting on how much needs to come from Britain for a product to be sovereign. Manufacturers cannot necessarily rely on parts and materials from various countries who could become adversaries \u2013 notably China.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of supply chain diversification dreams have evaporated,\u201d says Kusti Salm, a former Estonian defence mandarin turned chief executive of the anti-drone missile startup Frankenburg. \u201cI think it\u2019s natural if Europe wants to sustain its prosperity and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Ricardo Mendes, chief executive of the drone maker Tekever, says the advent of unmanned aerial vehicles has prompted \u201ca radical transformation in how defence technology is built\u201d, with companies betting on future demand for kit rather than locking in long-term contracts before starting.<\/p>\n Tekever, which Mendes co-founded in Portugal in 2001, reached a billion-dollar \u201cunicorn\u201d valuation last year, and has 1,200 people, including new factories in the UK\u2019s drone cluster in Swindon, Wiltshire, and another in Cahors, south-west France.<\/p>\n <\/span>HX-2 drones made by the German startup Helsing being launched and hitting targets in testing.<\/span><\/p>\n Other European defence tech unicorns include Helsing, a German company backed by the Spotify founder Daniel Ek, and the German drone makers Quantum Systems and Stark Defence. Stark and Helsing recently won orders from Germany\u2019s military for attack drones, while all but Quantum are investing in UK factories. The British missile maker Cambridge Aerospace \u2013 controversially chaired by the former defence secretary Grant Shapps \u2013 is reportedly also close to joining the billion-dollar ranks.<\/p>\n US rival unicorns include the drone maker Shield AI, the autonomous boat company Saronic Technologies, and the anti-drone weapons company Epirus. But two companies with names taken from JRR Tolkien\u2019s Lord of the Rings lead the American pack: the software company Palantir and the autonomous weapons maker Anduril. Both are making significant inroads into Europe, particularly the UK, but that expansion is coming under scrutiny as European politicians balk at their stridently pro-Trump backers.<\/p>\n Palantir was backed by the billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel. Thiel, a vocal critic of liberal democracies, has also backed Stark, which has raised concerns in Germany, though Stark says Thiel has no direct operational or strategic influence. Palantir\u2019s chief executive, Alex Karp, has repeatedly extolled American dominance, while Anduril is run by 33-year-old Palmer Luckey, who has personally hosted a Trump fundraiser and has cultivated close ties with the administration.<\/p>\n <\/span>The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, holds a drone made by Quantum Systems, along with Germany\u2019s defence minister Boris Pistorius (left), during a visit to the firm in Munich.<\/span> Photograph: Thilo Schm\u00fclgen\/Reuters<\/p>\n The falling costs of parts such as sensors and motors opened the door to the startups. The big, traditional manufacturers were caught flat-footed by the drone revolution, perhaps because it is hard to earn juicy profits on mass-produced products.<\/p>\n Armin Papperger, head of the 137-year-old German manufacturer Rheinmetall, caused consternation earlier this year by describing Ukraine\u2019s drones as low-tech \u201cLegos\u201d made by \u201chousewives\u201d with 3D printers.<\/p>\n Rheinmetall was later forced to backtrack, but the statement unwittingly highlighted the changing economics of war. Falling prices make it much easier to do a lot of damage with relatively cheap weapons, such as Iran\u2019s Shahed drones that Russia uses to terrorise Ukrainian cities and Tehran fired against its neighbours as it faced US-Israeli attacks.<\/p>\n Shaheds are estimated to cost about $30,000 (\u00a322,200). By contrast, many of Nato\u2019s air defence systems use missiles that cost hundreds of thousands or, in the case of US Patriot interceptors, millions of dollars.<\/p>\n Startups have focused instead on knocking Shaheds and other drones down with much cheaper kit. Frankenburg\u2019s guided missiles are understood to cost \u201cin the low five figures\u201d in dollars, while Skycutter says its cheapest ground-to-air interceptors come in at about $2,000.<\/p>\n Every startup emphasised the need to be more agile than traditional defence manufacturers, known as primes, as war brings a frenetic pace of change.<\/p>\n Skycutter is smaller than many of the other companies raising hundreds of millions of pounds, with 15 people in the UK and 50 contractors in Ukraine. Its founders turned their hobby into a business making civilian drones for inspecting pipelines in 2018, before Vladimir Putin\u2019s 2022 invasion suddenly meant their knowhow was in demand.<\/p>\n They went out to Ukraine and worked directly with frontline units. It is a constant \u201ccat and mouse\u201d game of adapting the technology to new jamming abilities, says one of the directors, who asked not to be named after Russia threatened European drone makers.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you\u2019re there and working with units and what the Russians are trying to do, you fall behind,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n <\/span>Troops in Ukraine make adjustments to a Tekever AR3 Evo 2 reconnaissance drone.<\/span> Photograph: Tekever<\/p>\n Mendes says Tekever has created more than 100 iterations of its main product in the first three years of the Ukraine war, with software updates and the newest sensors or propulsion fitted in as soon as they are ready.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is constant,\u201d he says. \u201cYou are constantly exposed. The only constant that you have is that it is evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet there are problems with this pace of change: militaries and governments are not experienced at adjusting so quickly. For instance, the UK last year published a strategic defence review that called for much more use of drones, but its author last month accused British leaders, including Keir Starmer, of a \u201ccorrosive complacency\u201d towards defence.<\/p>\n <\/span>A Helsing HX-2 strike drone in flight during testing.<\/span> Photograph: Helsing<\/p>\n Starmer slashed international aid in order to pay for new weapons \u2013 a deeply controversial decision for many Labour MPs \u2013 and yet so far money has not been forthcoming. A defence investment plan is months overdue, blocked by the Treasury. BAE Systems, Britain\u2019s dominant prime, last month took the unusual step of publicly saying that work on a next-generation fighter jet would stop in June unless more funding was allocated.<\/p>\n Last week, the Financial Times reported that finalising the defence plan \u2013 and papering over an alleged \u00a328bn funding gap \u2013 would form part of Starmer\u2019s post-election \u201creset\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe UK has been slower than most\u201d to increase spending says Kevin Craven, chief executive of ADS, a UK aerospace and defence lobby group. \u201cWe are disappointed with the pace.\u201d<\/p>\n Skycutter caused a stir recently when it beat a range of rivals in the US military\u2019s Drone Dominance programme. It has been vocal about the risks of delays to UK spending: videos of its interceptors taking down Shahed drones in Ukraine have attracted a host of offers for it to move to other countries, but spending has not come through from the UK.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were knocking at the door of the MoD,\u201d says the Skycutter director. \u201cUnfortunately, the MoD weren\u2019t interested at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make a strategic decision as a company,\u201d the director adds. \u201cDo we stay in the UK or leave the UK? The UK ultimately is our home. There\u2019s no money at the moment because there\u2019s no defence investment plan. We\u2019re running out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n Across Europe, there are still doubts over whether those who buy the kit are ready for the bewildering pace of technological change forced by war, although several executives say attitudes are shifting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really fast-moving ecosystem and I don\u2019t think the procurement is ready to deal with it,\u201d says James Acuna, a former officer at the US\u2019s Central Intelligence Agency and now chief operations officer at Ondas Capital, a US drone investor.<\/p>\n Mike Armstrong, UK managing director at Stark, says military attitudes are changing because \u201cdelivery timelines that stretch several years are no longer feasible.<\/p>\n \u201cModern defence depends on sustained, industrial-scale production, rather than one-off procurement decisions,\u201d he says. \u201cSo long-term signals around demand and procurement really matter, because that gives companies like us the confidence to invest and scale at the pace the current security environment requires.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a small workshop in England\u2019s East Midlands, engineers at the British startup Skycutter are designing weapons for Ukraine. A row of 3D printers make the fuselage for interceptor drones, while parts such as motors and navigation chips are slotted together by hand. The same process happens hundreds of thousands of times a month in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1512,327,4017,896,2284,24491,744,15063,20230,1071],"class_list":{"0":"post-49329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-build","9":"tag-defence","10":"tag-drones","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-future","13":"tag-lowcost","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-races","16":"tag-sovereignty","17":"tag-weapons"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Survivable v attritable<\/h2>\n
Cat and mouse game<\/h2>\n
Running out of time<\/h2>\n