Layered defence: How Britain is pushing back against swarms of cheap killer drones reshaping modern warfare

The RAF has warned that unmanned aircraft are now a “routine feature” of the battlefield, as it rolls out new systems designed to detect, disrupt and destroy them before they can hit critical infrastructure.

From Ukraine’s front lines to the Red Sea and the Gulf, cheap, mass-produced drones are being used to harass, surveil and strike targets with a frequency that would have been unthinkable even five years ago.

Air Commodore Paul Hamilton, Commandant General of the RAF Regiment, put it bluntly: “Drone activity is now a routine feature of the operating environment.”

That reality has been driven home by Ukraine, where drones have been used to strike everything from armoured vehicles to airbases deep behind the front line. Western defence officials say similar tactics are now being adopted by Iranian-backed groups targeting military sites and shipping routes.

British bases are not immune. Installations linked to US and UK operations, including RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia, are increasingly viewed by adversaries as legitimate targets in a wider confrontation with the West.

In response, the RAF is deploying a layered defence system built around early detection, electronic disruption and, if necessary, direct interception.

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And the system works, British air defence troops have already been forced to put it into action. RAF Regiment units protecting allied bases near Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan have shot down more than 50 Iranian drones using Rapid Sentry missile launchers, according to defence sources, a figure understood to be significantly higher than the number intercepted by RAF Typhoon and F-35B jets operating in the same theatre.

The ground-based system, quietly procured in 2022, fires lightweight missiles at supersonic speed over distances of up to five miles and is used when electronic measures fail.

The troops, drawn from 2 Force Protection Wing based at RAF Leeming, are part of a wider coalition effort to detect, track and neutralise drone threats, highlighting how frequently these systems are now being used in live operations.

At the centre of that is a counter-drone system known as ORCUS, which uses radar, radio frequency sensors and long-range thermal imaging to track drones approaching protected sites.

The aim is to identify threats early enough to decide how to deal with them before they reach sensitive areas.

“Early detection of hostile drones is vital,” Hamilton said, pointing to the damage caused in Ukraine.

Once a drone is detected, RAF personnel can attempt to disable it using electronic warfare. Systems such as NINJA are designed to interfere with the signals linking a drone to its operator, potentially forcing it to land or lose control.

Defence sources say this approach is increasingly important, as it allows threats to be neutralised without the need to fire costly interceptors, and in some cases provides intelligence on how and where the drone was launched.

If that fails, more traditional air defence systems are used to shoot the drone down.

The RAF describes this as a “layered” approach, giving operators multiple options depending on the type of threat.

The development reflects a wider challenge facing Nato, as militaries adapt to what some analysts describe as “mass drone warfare”.

Recent briefings have highlighted how Western forces risk being outpaced by the scale and cost of drone attacks, with adversaries able to deploy large numbers of low-cost systems that are difficult to track and expensive to intercept.

Ukraine has responded by developing its own low-cost countermeasures, including interceptor drones, a model now being closely studied by allied forces.

RAF Regiment units are working with international partners to ensure their systems can operate together, sharing data and coordinating responses during joint operations.

Officials say that cooperation will be critical if multiple bases or regions come under simultaneous drone attack.

Airbases remain central to UK military operations, supporting everything from Typhoon patrols in the Middle East to wider NATO missions.

But they are also increasingly exposed. Rather than large-scale missile strikes, defence planners now see persistent drone activity, surveillance, disruption and occasional attacks, as the more likely threat.

For the RAF, the challenge is not just stopping a single drone, but dealing with the possibility of multiple systems operating at once, often cheaply, and sometimes with plausible deniability.

Which is where things get uncomfortable. Because while the RAF’s new systems are designed to keep pace, the wider trend is moving in the opposite direction, towards cheaper, more numerous and harder-to-stop threats.