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Spy drones cost MoD £1.4bn Unexploded
munitions at
and can’t fly in poor weather asylum base
Larisa Brown Defence Editor
Britain’s fleet of Watchkeeper drones
struggles to operate in poor weather
and none are on operations despite
having cost about £5 million each.
The spy drones were so extensively
modified, with nearly 2,000 additional
system requirements requested, they
became too heavy, contributing to the
overall programme being an “unmiti-
gated disaster”, an MP said. Eight have
been written off at a cost of £40 million.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Hermes 450
drone, on which the Watchkeeper was
based, has played a key role in the coun-
try’s counterterrorism operations.
Chris Lincoln-Jones, a retired British
Army major, watched the Hermes 450
in action years ago after being asked to
analyse its effectiveness and copy it for
his customer, the Ministry of Defence
in London. His research, mostly con-
ducted in Israel, led to the development
of the Watchkeeper and one of the Min-
istry of Defence’s largest unmanned
vehicle projects, costing £1.4 billion,
with 54 bought for the army.
He called the Hermes 450, also
known as Zik, the “best drone in the
world”, capable of spying on its targets
for as long as 17 hours. At a height of
18,000 feet it was difficult to hear and
nearly impossible to see, and it could be
armed with various types of munitions
to carry out precision strikes.
Experts believe the drone, operated
by the Israeli Air Force’s Squadron 161,
known as the Black Snake, is being used
in operations over Gaza and to carry out
attacks in Lebanon. However, the heav-
ily modified British version has proved
less successful. Several of the drones
have crashed, partly because they have
been weighed down by the extra specifi-
cations. The drone is also restricted to
operating in certain weather condi-
tions. An inquiry into procurement by
the Commons defence committee
found that the programme, which en-
tered service many years late, was “be-
devilled” by 265 user requirements and
1,910 additional system requirements.
Mark Francois, a Conservative
member of the committee and a former
armed forces minister, said the debacle
encapsulated everything that was
wrong with MoD procurement as the
drone was over-specified from the start.
He said the project had been an “unmit-
igated disaster, arriving years late and
effectively already obsolescent”.
Apparently, none of the drones are
on operational deployments but are in-
volved in training exercises.
Lincoln-Jones spent more than two
decades in the army, working as part of
the strategic targeting process within
the Royal Artillery and later specialis-
ing in drone warfare. After leaving in
2000 and joining the reserves, he got a
job as the subject matter expert on
drones with the aerospace arm of
Thales Group, the role in which he was
asked to help with Watchkeeper.
He was sent to Israel more than a
decade ago to study the Hermes 450,
spending months watching the drone
in action from viewpoints such as the
northern city of Haifa.
As the UK programme has faltered,
the Hermes 450 is in action over Gaza
Israel’s successful Hermes 450 drone
inspired a troublesome British version
after undergoing various updates, ac-
cording to Lincoln-Jones. He has ana-
lysed interviews from Gaza and said he
had recognised the sound of the drone.
Last month Hezbollah, the Lebanese
militia, said it had shot down a Hermes
450 over Lebanese territory with a sur-
face-to-air missile.
Lincoln-Jones’s knowledge of Israel’s
military capabilities has led him to
question why so many people have
been killed in Gaza. According to the
territory’s health ministry, which is run
by Hamas, more than 32,000 people,
many of them women and children,
have been killed. “They [Israel] claim to
operate to the same standards as Nato
countries but they don’t. The destruc-
tion of infrastructure in Gaza has more
in common with the siege of Aleppo,”
Lincoln-Jones said, comparing Israel’s
behaviour to that of President Assad of
Syria and President Putin.
Lincoln-Jones, author of Dr Moore’s
Automaton and a military adviser for
films, including Eye in the Sky starring
Helen Mirren, said that Israel would be
able to make out the positions of non-
combatants using the Hermes 450
when launching an attack, so there was
no need for such death and destruction.
“Gaza and the West Bank are the most
surveilled places on earth,” he added.
The Hermes 450 is described by Elbit
Systems, the Israeli defence electronics
company that produced the drone, as
the “primary platform” of the Israel
Defence Forces (IDF) in counter-
terrorism operations. This week Elbit
announced that it expected sales to rise
this year, after reporting fourth-quarter
revenue boosted by higher ammuni-
tion sales to Israel for its war. Joseph
Gaspar, senior executive vice-pres-
ident, said it had to change priorities
after the conflict started in October, in-
creasing supplies to the Israeli military
while asking international customers
for flexibility on delivery schedules
given the higher local demand.
In the UK, the MoD is changing its
procurement system. Ministers now
want a greater focus on cheaper, less
complex products that can be deployed
to the front line before they are fully
completed to speed up the process. A
spokesman said: “Watchkeeper is a
highly sophisticated drone which has
accumulated more than 4,000 hours
of flying, providing vital information
for soldiers on the ground. It has been
successfully deployed across the
world, including Afghanistan, where
it played a crucial protective role for
British troops.”
Tuesday April 2 2024 | the times
Boy, 16, dies
in midnight
farm crash
Kieran Gair
The family of a teenager who died
when his farm buggy crashed in a Lan-
cashire field have paid tribute to their
“beautiful, kind and lovely” boy.
Hector Eccles, 16, was driving his
Polaris Ranger four-wheeled off-road
vehicle when it crashed in a field in
Worsthorne at about midnight on Sat-
urday. His passenger, a 17-year-old boy
from Burnley, was not seriously injured,
Hector Eccles was
happiest on the
farm, his family
said in their tribute
the police said. Paying tribute yester-
day, Hector’s family thanked those who
had expressed sympathy and shared a
photo of him. “This is our Hector on
his farm with his animals, where he
loved to spend his time. Always hap-
piest: on the farm, at Gisburn Auction
or with his friends and colleagues in
Pendle Young Farmers. Hector will
always be in our hearts and minds, we
will always remember our beautiful,
kind and lovely boy.”
On Facebook, Pendle Young Farmers
said: “Everyone ... is devastated to hear
the loss of our fellow young farmer and
friend ... He was a kind, helpful and love-
ly lad that will be missed massively.”
Billy Kenber
A former RAF base set to house 800
asylum seekers is contaminated with
gases and unexploded ordnance.
RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire is one
of three sites, with the Bibby Stockholm
barge in Dorset and the former Weth-
ersfield military base in Essex, chosen
by the government to house thousands
of adult asylum seekers. They are in-
tended to reduce the government’s use
of hotels to house asylum seekers,
which is costing £8 million a day.
Scampton was originally due to begin
housing male asylum seekers last year,
but the site is not yet operational.
A letter from Lee Rowley, the hous-
ing minister, to the local council has
revealed that “potential risks to human
health arising from ground gases, UXO
[unexploded ordnance] and ground
contamination have been identified
which could affect construction work-
ers, service users and other workers”.
He said that “these risks could mean
the site is not suitable for its intended
use” but the government had commit-
ted itself to mitigation measures.
The base had been the home of the
Red Arrows and used by Lancaster
bomber crews that took part in the
Dambusters raid during the Second
World War. It was due to house up to
2,000 asylum seekers but officials said
they had “taken into account lessons
learnt” to reduce the capacity to 800. It
could hold another 300 for a short time.
A government spokesman told
The Guardian that “a number of
surveys will be undertaken prior to
occupation” and any accommodation
“will be fit for purpose”.