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British Navy's Type 45 Destroyer HMS Duncan Completes Drone and Missile Swarm Defence Trial Off Wales.
The Royal Navy announced on 26 February 2026 that the Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan completed Exercise Sharpshooter off the Welsh coast, defending notional UK critical infrastructure against waves of drones, aircraft and simulated missiles. The drill reflects London’s effort to adapt home waters air and missile defence after recent Red Sea combat experience highlighted the growing threat of coordinated swarm attacks.
On 26 February 2026, the Royal Navy announced that the Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan had completed Exercise Sharpshooter, a three-day trial designed to defend notional critical national infrastructure off the Welsh coast. Conducted on the Aberporth Range in Cardigan Bay, the scenario subjected the ship to waves of drones, aircraft and virtual missiles at a tempo modelled on recent operations in the Red Sea. The exercise illustrates how the United Kingdom is adapting its air and missile defence posture to protect energy installations, ports and subsea cables in home waters as well as overseas sea lanes.
Royal Navy destroyer HMS Duncan and her Wildcat helicopter repelled swarms of drones, uncrewed surface vessels and simulated missiles off Wales in a high-intensity test of the UK’s layered naval air defence for critical infrastructure protection (Picture Source: Royal British Navy)
Exercise Sharpshooter placed HMS Duncan at the centre of a notional task group tasked with restoring maritime security in a contested region while protecting critical national infrastructure such as offshore platforms, coastal logistics hubs and undersea data links. Over a 72-hour period in Cardigan Bay, the destroyer confronted swarms of uncrewed surface and aerial systems travelling at up to 200 mph, alongside simulated cruise and ballistic missile attacks generated in the range’s synthetic environment. The scenario was deliberately crafted to echo the operational pressures experienced by HMS Diamond in the Red Sea, where a combination of drones and missiles launched by Houthi forces in Yemen repeatedly targeted merchant shipping and coalition warships during 2023–2024.
HMS Duncan’s response relied on a layered air and missile defence architecture typical of the Type 45 class. At long range, the Sea Viper system, combining multi-function and long-range radars with Aster family missiles, was exercised virtually against mock cruise and ballistic missile profiles. Closer in, the ship used her Phalanx automated gun, a 30 mm cannon, heavy machine guns and the 4.5-inch naval gun against live uncrewed surface vessels, aerial drones and simulated surface targets. The embarked Wildcat helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron extended the defensive bubble with Martlet lightweight missiles, engaging fast and manoeuvring targets at ranges of up to six kilometres. Together, these layers formed a continuous engagement envelope against low, slow and fast-moving threats, reflecting the kind of multi-axis attacks now seen in several maritime theatres.
The threat systems used during Sharpshooter underline how realistic the training has become. HMS Duncan and her crew faced Hammerhead uncrewed surface vessels, 5-metre remotely operated craft able to surge at up to 50 mph and replicate the behaviour of fast inshore attack craft or coordinated swarms. In the air, QinetiQ’s Banshee Whirlwind aerial target provided a high-speed, manoeuvring surrogate capable of flying at more than 200 mph, approximating hostile drones or strike aircraft. These live threats were combined with simulated aircraft and missile tracks, forcing Duncan’s operations room to fuse data from multiple sensors, classify targets, prioritise engagements and allocate weapons under tight time constraints. By the end of the serials, the ship had achieved her main training objectives, including tracking and neutralising five aerial targets and sinking two Hammerhead craft.
Sharpshooter was as much a test of human performance as of hardware. Throughout the exercise, HMS Duncan operated in Defence Watches, maintaining a continuous high-readiness posture while simultaneously dealing with internal incidents such as fires and simulated battle damage. The crew were required to keep the ship combat-effective around the clock, managing fatigue and disrupted rest cycles as they responded to successive attacks and onboard emergencies. Weapon maintainers had to diagnose and rectify faults in the 30 mm medium-calibre gun and other systems between firing windows, ensuring that each weapon was ready for subsequent engagements. This emphasis on engineering resilience and rapid repair mirrors wartime conditions, where the ability to recover quickly from technical issues can be as decisive as the performance of the systems themselves.
Strategically, the scenario reflects converging concerns for the UK and its allies: the spread of drones and precision missiles to non-state actors, the exposure of offshore energy platforms and subsea cables, and the risk of grey-zone attacks in European waters. Recent years have seen suspected sabotage against gas pipelines in the Baltic and sustained drone and missile strikes on merchant traffic in the Red Sea, demonstrating that critical infrastructure and sea lines of communication can be targeted far from traditional front lines. By rehearsing the defence of “critical national infrastructure” close to its own shores, the Royal Navy is signalling that high-end air-defence destroyers like HMS Duncan are central not only to expeditionary operations but also to homeland security and the protection of NATO’s northern and western approaches.
Sharpshooter also highlights the growing role of industry and synthetic environments in preparing navies for contested domains. The training package was designed and delivered by the Royal Navy’s Fleet Operational Standards and Training teams in partnership with QinetiQ and Inzpire, blending live targets with sophisticated simulation to capture current and emerging threat profiles. This approach allows scenarios to be updated rapidly as adversaries evolve their use of uncrewed surface vehicles, loitering munitions and long-range missiles, without waiting for new physical surrogates to appear on the range. In effect, the waters off Wales are being used as a testbed for future air and missile defence concepts, helping to ensure that Type 45 destroyers remain relevant as they are progressively upgraded under programmes such as Sea Viper Evolution.
Sharpshooter demonstrates that HMS Duncan is being prepared to operate at the sustained tempo now seen in real operations, from the Red Sea to the North Atlantic, defending high-value infrastructure and merchant shipping against complex, layered attacks. By combining live threats, synthetic missiles and demanding internal emergencies, the exercise has validated the destroyer’s sensors, weapons and crew cohesion as a single combat system rather than a collection of isolated components. It also sends a clear political signal: air-defence destroyers are now a key element of the United Kingdom’s strategy to deter attacks on its energy network, data infrastructure and critical maritime corridors. In an environment where drones, cruise missiles and uncrewed surface swarms are increasingly accessible to state and non-state actors alike, navies that invest in realistic, high-intensity training will be best placed to safeguard national and allied interests at sea.