It’s time to rethink the fleet
Why the Hybrid Navy is about more than adding uncrewed systems.
Written by Adrian Fryer, former Royal Navy Commodore and Naval Director, Saab UK
The maritime domain is entering a period of profound transformation. What was once defined by open oceans, clear lines of control and visible fleets is now characterised by contestation, transparency, complexity and mass.
Advances in sensing, autonomy, data and other technology have fundamentally altered how navies operate, and how they are challenged.
At the same time, the cost of traditional large, crewed platforms operating in concentrated formations is rising. These remain vital assets, but they are also high-value, increasingly exposed, and expensive to deploy continuously. Maintaining presence everywhere, all the time, is becoming economically and operationally unsustainable.
The future fleet will not be defined simply by the ships it possesses, or by how many uncrewed systems it adds. It will be defined by how effectively the whole force can sense, decide and act together. That is the real significance of the Hybrid Navy.
After more than three decades in the Royal Navy, including command at sea, and now working in defence industry, I see this challenge from two perspectives: what commanders need operationally, and what it takes to turn technology into capability they can trust.
The requirement is not autonomy for its own sake. It is to give sailors and commanders more reach, more resilience, more decision time and more options, and turn those benefits into operational advantage.
A different approach to presence and protection
Navies must protect maritime trade, deter aggression, support joint operations and safeguard critical infrastructure. They must do so across large areas, with finite numbers of people and platforms.
Crewed warships remain essential to that task. They bring endurance, versatility, command capacity and combat power that cannot simply be replaced by a collection of drones. But we should challenge the assumption that every task, sensor and effect needs to be concentrated on those ships.
The spread of uncrewed systems and increasingly accessible surveillance creates new challenges for how naval forces operate and protect themselves. The maritime environment is not uniformly transparent, but neither can commanders assume that distance or the size of the ocean will conceal their activities in the way it might have done in the past.
The response must involve more than adding defensive equipment to individual platforms. It requires us to reconsider how the force is organised: what should remain concentrated, what can be distributed, and how those elements support one another.
A Hybrid Navy is not a conventional fleet with drones bolted onto it. It is a force in which crewed and uncrewed systems are designed and employed to work together.
Changing the geometry of force
Distributed sensing is a practical starting point. Where a sensor is positioned can be as important as what it can detect. Moving sensing beyond the confines of a crewed warship can extend warning, provide complementary perspectives and create greater freedom in how the force is positioned. The platform best placed to detect a threat may not be the platform best placed to respond.
Our work with Kraken Technology Group, integrating Saab’s Giraffe 1X radar with the K3 Scout uncrewed surface vessel [link], provides a practical example of this approach: bringing air-surveillance and drone-detection capability to an uncrewed surface platform in support of counter-UAS operations.
The wider significance is not simply that a radar can be mounted on a different vessel. It is the opportunity to place sensing where it offers operational value, without requiring a crewed warship to occupy that same position.
Earlier warning can give a commander time to investigate, reposition, protect or respond. Complementary observations can improve understanding and confidence. Together, these can create more options before circumstances narrow the choices available.
That is the connection between distributed sensing and decision advantage.
More information is not enough
SENSE–DECIDE–EFFECT is a useful lens. Making it work across a distributed force is the challenge.
A detection is not yet an understanding of the situation, and understanding does not automatically produce an effective response. We must establish what has been observed, how reliable the information is, what it means for the mission and who has the authority and capability to act.
Simply sending more contacts and data feeds to an already busy operations room risks increasing workload rather than improving decisions.
The architecture must help turn distributed observations into shared understanding. Processing, combining and prioritising information should free human cognitive capacity for judgement, intent and decisions, not create an ever-growing burden of supervision.
Resilience is equally important. The force must retain useful capability when communications degrade, navigation becomes uncertain or individual nodes are lost. Distribution alone does not deliver resilience; the systems, procedures and people must be prepared to operate through disruption.
Architecture before platforms
This is why the integration question must shape capability from the outset.
Architecture means more than the network connecting equipment. It includes common data standards, interfaces, command relationships, doctrine, assurance, training and support.
Alongside asking how capable an individual platform is, we should ask what it enables the wider force to do and how readily that contribution can evolve.
That does not mean waiting for a perfect design. It means establishing enough common foundations to field useful capability, learn from operational use and improve it without creating another collection of disconnected systems.
For industry, the responsibility extends beyond delivering a product. Partnerships must bring sensors, platforms and integration expertise together around an operational purpose. Success is a capability that people can employ, sustain and adapt, not simply a successful demonstration.
One force, across the maritime domain
The same reasoning applies below the surface. Protecting critical undersea infrastructure requires more than detecting an unusual contact. It requires an ability to understand what has changed, investigate it and, where necessary, to intervene.
Surface sensing, underwater vehicles and specialist intervention systems have different roles. Their value grows when they contribute to a coherent mission rather than operate as isolated capabilities.
The balance will differ by task and environment. There is no single configuration of people, platforms and autonomy that will suit every mission. The objective, however, remains consistent: give commanders better options, earlier and with greater confidence.
Rethinking the fleet is therefore not a choice between sailors and machines, or between traditional naval power and new technology. It is about combining their strengths and changing how we acquire, integrate and employ them.
More reach. More resilience. More decision time. More options.
The measure of success is the operational advantage they deliver together.