The Royal Navy has shot down its first-ever hypersonic missile, marking a historic milestone in UK defence. HMS Dragon, one of the Navy’s most advanced warships, “obliterated” the missile during tests off the coast of Scotland. Dramatic video footage showed the Type 45 destroyer launch a specially modified Sea Viper missile at an incoming high-speed target, which accelerated to more than four times the speed of sound – otherwise known as Mach 4 – before being struck with deadly precision.
Hypersonic missiles would form the tip of the spear of any Russian attack on the UK, according to a report, and defence against them would fall to the RAF and the Royal Navy. Yesterday’s launch was part of Exercise Formidable Shield 25 – a live-firing exercise designed to prove the Portsmouth-based ship’s ability to defend herself and other vessels from attack, including from swarms of drones. The destroyer used a telemetry variant of the Sea Viper missile, specially modified to record data for future operations.
Its target was fired from the Ministry of Defence’s Hebrides Ranges – a vast test area based on the Outer Hebrides islands of South Uist, Benbecula, and St Kilda.
Sea Viper combines the Sampson radar system – the distinctive spinning spiked ball on top of a Type 45’s main mast – with the Aster missile system, which sits in silos on the ship’s forecastle.
The system tracks aircraft and other objects across thousands of cubic miles of airspace over the Hebrides range, identifies threats, and destroys them when necessary.
“The successful Sea Viper firing as part of Formidable Shield 25 is a huge moment for HMS Dragon,” said Commander Iain Giffin, Dragon’s Commanding Officer.
“Not only does it prove that Dragon’s world-leading air defence capability functions as it should following an extensive maintenance period, but it also proves our ability to integrate and operate alongside NATO allies and partners.
“Training alongside ships, aircraft and land forces from 11 nations in this complex, multi-domain exercise ensures that we maintain our fighting edge against evolving high and low-tech threats.”
Lieutenant Commander Sarah Kaese, Dragon’s Senior Warfare Officer – currently on exchange from the Royal Australian Navy – added: “Seeing how far Dragon has progressed, both within the Warfare Department and the wider ship, is impressive. Formidable Shield has been both a significant challenge and an opportunity for Dragon to come together as a warfighting unit and integrate into a task group developing air defence capability.”
Britain is already working with Australia and the US to fast-track the development of hypersonic technology as part of the AUKUS alliance.
The agreement includes the Hypersonic Flight Test and Experimentation (HyFliTE) Project Arrangement, which incorporates existing national efforts, including multiple test flights of hypersonic vehicles. These tests aim to advance hypersonic concepts and critical enabling technologies through robust experimentation.
A report from the Council on Geostrategy think tank last year confirmed that conventional hypersonic missiles “look set to provide the tip of the spear for the Russian doctrine of active defence”.
“Any conflict with NATO would involve Russia using an early wave of missile strikes designed to deal heavy damage to critical NATO military nodes and other critical infrastructure,” the report said.
“Hypersonics would be used to target key missile defences, such as radars and launch sites, to enable a greater number of Russia’s slower missiles to reach their targets.”
It added: “The British Isles are more vulnerable than ever to a nuclear strike ordered by the Kremlin. Hypersonic weapons are more difficult to detect, track and intercept than existing ballistic missiles. But the UK only possesses limited ballistic missile defence sensor capabilities.
“Currently, the UK lacks its own dedicated ballistic missile interceptor, but the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers are being upgraded.”
Formidable Shield involves nearly 7,000 personnel from 11 Nato nations, and is aimed at battling against uncrewed air and surface systems, subsonic, supersonic and ballistic targets.
The first phase of the exercise took place at the Andøya firing range in Norway, before moving on to the Hebrides range. Formidable Shield ends on May 31.