Aircraft Carriers: Guided Weapons
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 106 of the Strategic Defence Fund, updated on 8 July 2025, what modifications would be required to aircraft carriers in order to facilitate long-range precision missiles capable of being fired from the carrier deck.
Answered by Luke Pollard
Project VANTAGE has recently been established as the maritime element of the UK’s One Way Effectors (OWE) programme, which are long-range uncrewed systems.
VANTAGE is an iterative programme, with the first phase focussed on demonstrating OWE launch from a Royal Navy vessel. If successful, VANTAGE will look to exploit the demonstration in a core programme from a range of Royal Navy Vessels, including the Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers.
Subsequent phases of VANTAGE will focus on spiral development of the capability, keeping pace with evolving threats and counter OWE systems, as well as the potential of a modular construct, with interchangeable launchers, effectors, munitions and sensor packages which would require minimal change to shipping to accommodate OWE.
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