UK prepares for Land GBAD procurement

The British Army Land GBAD MRAD capability will be an evolution of the Sky Sabre (pictured deployed in Poland), with the CAMM missile. (Crown copyright)

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) published a prior information notice for the Land Ground Based Air Defence (Land GBAD) programme on the UK government's tender portal on 5 August. A market interest day will be held in Bristol in October to discuss the programme with the industry and examine possibilities for it to co-operate with the MoD.

The Land GBAD programme is intended to meet the British Army's requirement for a fully integrated system of systems to be delivered incrementally over the next 10 years. As stated in the notice, “Land GBAD must provide sufficient, effective capability to warn, inform, deter, and defeat all air threats [including aircraft, missiles, munitions, and UAS (unmanned aircraft systems)], in order to prevent adversary interference from the air inhibiting Joint Force freedom of manoeuvre. Land GBAD will provide lethal and non-lethal defeat mechanisms and minimise the risk it presents to friendly and neutral air users. It will be deployable on multidomain operations, integrated, scalable up to divisional level, and in joint and multinational operations to protect, engage, constrain, and fight.”

The Land GBAD programme will deliver and enhance capabilities including short-range air defence (SHORAD), medium-range air defence (MRAD), counter-small aerial targets (C-SAT) for SHORAD and MRAD, and all arms counter small uncrewed aircraft systems (C-sUAS). They will be able to target threats ranging from Class 1 UASs, including swarms, to artillery, munitions, and fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, with the possibility of using larger munitions and introducing “future novel weapons”.