Firepower is irrelevant if you can’t survive: £500 drones exposing a battlefield crisis

A £500 drone can take out a vehicle worth millions. Fragmentation weapons, loitering munitions and IEDs are cheap, widely available and it doesn’t matter how advanced (or not) your main gun is.

The threat has fragmented, but all too often we see our protection concepts haven’t. Traditional heavy armour was designed for direct fire. Today, the danger increasingly comes from above – swarms and airburst – and this is highlighting what protection should look like.

Cyber warfare often gets the headlines, but the physical fight is being transformed just as fast. 3D printing lets adversaries prototype new warheads in weeks. AI now cuts the time from detection to strike into seconds and UAVs mean every convoy, every patrol boat and every compound is under observation 24/7. Meaning the battlefield is transparent now.

The only element that hasn’t changed, is the physics – individuals still have to stop or deflect the energy – what is different now, is the speed. Protection has to be modular and upgradable, because the threat you design for today will likely be obsolete in six months.

Ukraine has been a brutal teacher. The units that survive aren’t necessarily the ones with the best weapons, they’re the ones that adapt. We’ve seen crews welding cages onto tanks in the field, fitting spall liners to civilian pickups and up-armouring boats in a matter of days.

This adaptability at unit level is decisive. It proves that lightweight, add-on protection isn’t a luxury – it’s what keeps a crew alive. Waiting five years for a formal programme doesn’t work when the threat changes every week.

Weight is the enemy of mobility, and mobility is survivability. On vehicles, every KG of armour you compromise fuel, ammo or range. On marine platforms – whether it’s a naval RIB or a superyacht transiting high-risk waters – protection can’t kill your speed. For buildings and compounds, it has to be discreet. This is why advanced composites like polyethylene, ceramics and hybrid laminates give us multi-hit ballistic and blast protection at a fraction of steel’s weight. For example, 3D-moulded kits, bolt-on panels and flexible systems that can be fitted in theatre, efficiently.

There’s a real mismatch in investment right now. We’ll spend billions on precision strikes, but hesitate on the composites that actually get our people home. A top-attack munition worth 0.1% of a tank’s cost can mission-kill it. The ROI on advanced protection is huge, keeping assets in the fight is force multiplication.

Defence can’t keep planning for ‘ideal scenarios’ anymore. There is no front line or rear area. Exposure is constant and procurement has to shift to ensure upgrades offer 80% capability immediately, whilst being continuously developed. This means working with problem-solvers who can take the concept and turn it into frontline deployment in weeks, with full test certification.

In today’s world, protection isn’t about defensive thinking. It’s the offensive capability reaching the frontline.

Ultimately, firepower means nothing if you can’t survive to use it.

Such advanced solutions for modern warfare provides operators with practical, deployable protection without compromising mobility or performance.

Expeditionary forces operating in a high-risk region can seek spoke solutions from ASL GRP to enhance survivability without sacrificing performance.

Jonathon Diffey is a defence industry leader and Managing Director of ASL GRP. Jon leads ASL GRP’s product innovation, from custom client solutions to delivering advanced protection across global security and defence applications. For more information, please visit www.aslgrp.com.

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