Feature: Royal Navy articulates vision for Future Air Dominance System

Type 83 destroyer concept. (UK MoD/Crown Copyright/Janes)

Recognising the need to fight and survive in the face of an increasingly complex air and missile threat, the UK Royal Navy (RN) has started to lay out its thinking on the Maritime Integrated Air and Missile Defence and Strike (M-IAMDS) capability and associated Type 83 destroyer host platform planned under the Future Air Dominance System (FADS) programme.

Broad in its scope and ambitious in its aims, FADS is characterised as an interoperable, multidomain so-called ‘system of systems' underpinned by the RN's themes of sense, decide, effect, connect, and enable. Cast by the RN as a transformative multidomain programme by virtue of its embrace of digital networking, intelligent automation, and force-level engagement control, it is being trailed as the navy's highest priority future capability – and one of the most impactful of the next decade from an industry and prosperity perspective.

Some key elements of FADS are already in funded development or in the de-risking phase. Examples here include investments in weapons effectors through Sea Viper Evolution (SVE) and the Common Anti-air Modular Missile (CAMM) programmes; development of the next-generation Strike Net communications and data architecture; and work to ‘open up' combat management suites under the umbrella of the Real-time Combat System Open Data Enablers (RECODE) project.

However, there are two more delivery ‘pillars' expected to underpin and enable the next-generation M-IAMDS capability to be enshrined in FADS. The first of these is the Type 83 platform, which the RN wants to see replace the current Type 45 destroyers from 2035 onwards; the second is the development of the software-based Force-level Threat Evaluation and Weapon Assignment (FTEWA) logic that will optimise the allocation and exploitation of tactical assets within the force.