The British Army’s 11 Brigade is currently transitioning into a specialised tactical recce-strike role, often described as the Army’s first ‘drone brigade’.

After a period as the Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB), it was re-designated in November 2024 as a combat-focused unit within the Land Special Operations Force.

In its previous role, 11 Brigade, it was instrumental in training the Armed Forces of Ukraine under Operation Orbital and Operation Interflex. It resubordinated from the 1 (UK) Division to Field Army Troops in November 2024.

As of mid-2026, the brigade’s order of battle is:

• 3rd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland
• 1st Battalion, Irish Guards
• 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment
• 3rd Battalion, The Rifles
• 4th Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (Army Reserve)
• Outreach Group

2nd Battalion, the Royal Yorkshire Regiment will also play a role, the Experimental and Trials Group has obvious synergy with 11 Brigade. I understand they are now in 11 Brigade.

The brigade is now developing a capability to fight as a tactical recce-strike force built around specialist reconnaissance and uncrewed systems, together with advanced communication and AI decision support systems.

What does this have to do with Light Strike?

Light role, mobile, big effects, covering force, limited CS/CSS, it can trace its conceptual lineage back to 24 Airmobile Brigade.

And also because it has some elements of my earlier Light Strike concepts (stand-off weapons, ISTAR, pickup trucks and data processing), I thought I would include it in this series.

It must be said though, it is new, and rightly so, much information about it will not be public domain.

Read this article with that in mind.

11 Brigade Role and Concept

The underpinning concept that informs 11 Brigade is a bold claim that near surface capabilities will be the primary-supported form of manoeuvre, with everything else falling in line as supporting capabilities.

The strategic context of the 11 Brigade’s new role is heavily influenced by tactical observations from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the continued need to develop credible counters to Russian capabilities as they are today, not pre to their invasion of Ukraine.

With the British Army aiming for two warfighting divisions and a corps HQ ARRC (HQ Allied Rapid Reactions Corps), 1 Division developed a series of changes that increased its utility in a peer fight, i.e. with Russia.

These changes sought to exploit the advantages of light role forces (1 DIV), whilst negating their inherent weaknesses. In short, this concept will blunt the opposing force in the ‘first battle’ phase, setting the conditions to fight the second battle (3 DIV), the heavy lads!

The covering force, which would be support weapon heavy, would also have to defend from drones, use heavy lift drops to emplace mines and drop heavy charges on enemy positions, and hold or deny areas solely with UGVs.

These tasks would be coordinated using drone and ground-based sensors and a comprehensive decision support system.

11 Brigade is in development, it is not a formed capability yet, and may inform more than just itself, but it has been financed, and will draw on Project ASGARD and RAPSTONE for some of its delivery mechanisms.

Shift to Primary Drone Manoeuvre

Unlike traditional formations that use drones for reconnaissance or to support artillery, 11 Brigade is evolving to fight ‘in and from the near-surface’. In recent simulations like Exercise Bull Storm in Kenya, the brigade experimented with replacing traditional artillery and mortar fire with first-person view (FPV) drone attacks.

Manufacturing Weapons in the Field

A key differentiator for 11 Brigade is its ability to 3D print some of its own weapons in austere environments. During Exercise Bull Storm, units within the brigade (specifically 3 Battalion, The Rifles) demonstrated setting up field workshops, using portable 3D printers powered by field generators to produce drone bodies, assembling FPV drones in field conditions.

Endless Combat Mass

The brigade’s leadership envisions a future where platoons are armed with a virtually endless supply of drones. By printing drones in the field for approximately £400 each (compared to £2,000 for off-the-shelf equivalents), the brigade can achieve massive scale and lethality without relying on traditional resupply chains. The stated goal is to have bases in the rear, spitting out drones day and night to be sent forward to fighting subunits.

[Note: I understand after testing this concept, the brigade has discounted it and it will no longer play a significant role]

Digital Targeting Web

The brigade is expected to be a primary user of the upcoming ‘digital targeting web, a £1 billion initiative designed to connect sensors and effectors across land, sea, and air to form a single, rapid kill chain.

11 Brigade Weapons, Vehicles and Systems

Whilst the brigade evolves, it is still testing equipment and systems, what is being used in mid-2026 may be thoroughly changed by this time next year.

Vehicles

Apart from standard Land Rover and MAN Support Vehicles, the Brigade has recently obtained 270 Toyota Hilux Invincible 4×4 pickup trucks under the £19.7 million Project NIALA/RAPSTONE.

The contract was let to Sonic Communications in Birmingham.

The contract note used an example of a multi-day road march from the UK to Estonia, the original General Carter strike brigade concept example.

Drones

FPVs in public imagery included the Dirk 5 from the Edinburgh Drone Company.

They are a self-assembled unit and can be printed in less than three hours. With suitable components, they are capable of flying at 150kmh with a range of 15 miles

The Twister short-range eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) sUAS is from Quantum Systems in Germany.

This rucksack-portable system provides real-time high-resolution video to the users, featuring a 90-minute flight time and a 15km data link range. The Twister system is often paired with the Nighthawk2-UZ sensor, which includes 20x optical zoom and infrared capabilities.

The Anduril Ghost (including the Ghost X variant) is a modular, expeditionary vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) uncrewed aerial system (UAS) that has emerged as a key enabler for 11 Brigades’ recce-strike operations.

Its modular architecture allows rapid payload reconfiguration, supporting sensors and equipment up to approximately 9 kg. Standard sensors include EO/IR gimbals offering high-zoom optical (up to 40x) and thermal imaging capabilities.

Autonomous features include terrain navigation, target detection, classification, and tracking.

Extended operational range is approximately 15 miles  (24 km), with flight endurance of approximately 55–75 minutes, depending on configuration and payload. Among other tasks, they find targets for the next drone in the list, the Bolt.

Complementing the Anduril Ghost UAS in 11 Brigades’ sensor-to-effector architecture, the Bolt (including Bolt-M variant) is a one-way attack drone. It is a single-use platform carrying an onboard warhead that detonates on impact with the target.

Bolt has a reported range exceeding 20 km with endurance over 40 minutes.

The Anzu Robotics Raptor has also been seen in some reports, and likewise the HX-2.

On the ground, the brigade has reportedly used both the ARX Robotics Gereon and IDV Robotics Viking.

These have both been used in the ISTAR and logistics roles.

L3Harris Corvus Raven C-UAS capability has been integrated with Gereon UGV during Forest Guardian exercise.

Communications and Systems

As with my thoughts on Light Strike going back to 2018, communications and associated systems are the core of this capability.

Things have moved on enormously since then, we now have TrellisWare Technologies, Inc. software defined radios (TW-860 SPIRIT radio for individual personnel and TW-135 for the vehicles), Starlink, and Slingshot Spectra communications systems.

These are enabling systems, connecting sensors to decision makers and effectors, including conventional systems like mortars, to FPVs, One Way Attack (OWA) drones and UAS ‘bombers’

One of the more interesting, and I think significant, systems, is the Cobalt Battlefield Management System (BMS) from the British AI company Arondite and Lattice, from Andruil.

Cobalt is an AI enabled battle orchestration system, serving as a core command-and-control (C2) enabler.

Its core components include:

• Integration Layer
• AI-Driven Decision Support
• Planning and Execution
• EW and Comms Management

It was also used by 16AAB, although I understand 11 Brigade selected Lattice because it was better integrated with the Ghost and Bolt UAS.

Whilst everyone focusses on the drones, it will be battle management system that binds everything together.

ATAK (Android Team Awareness Kit) chest-worn tactical app has been seen in imagery for real-time data sharing, targeting, and a common operating picture.

Work to do, questions to answer

Whilst 11 Brigade represents an innovative and ambitious step in British Army modernisation, positioning itself as the Land Special Operations Force’s recce-strike formation, its structure and concept of operations carry risks and limitations.

If these are purely a virtue of the relative newness of the brigade, and all will be resolved in due course, fair enough.

To reiterate my earlier point, there is much us on the outside, rightly, don’t know.

Primary-supported form of manoeuvre

This is a bold claim, perhaps deliberately so, although it was only in a single BAR article.

If the brigade is about recce-strike, does it replace traditional manoeuvre, this is an unresolved question, especially if that traditional manoeuvre is no longer practical or achievable. A bit outside the scope of this article, but 11 Brigade poses much wider questions about the future operational art.

Reliance on Technology

We might all be a bit jaded about the increasing lethality mantra but put simply, there is no practical alternative. The British Army isn’t getting any bigger any time soon.

In recce-strike, every man really does have to the job of ten. The only way to do this is to leverage technology to create outsized effects.

This creates a technology reliance risks.

• Technology fails, systems break down and get damaged
• Networked and data-intensive design creates high-value targets
• Data links can be subject to jamming and spoofing
• More technology equals a broader attack surface through integration points
• The line between being accelerated by technology and being dependant is a fine one

These are known issues, and the alternative is not having systems like Cobalt, instead relying on BATCO* and chinagraph pencils! (*I was being a bit dramatic there, but if we are going to exploit technology, we have to recognise the issues that come with it)

The key question for 11 Brigade to answer is, not so much can it work without the technology, but how it keeps the technology resilient.

Incomplete Order of Battle (ORBAT)

Perhaps the most glaring structural weakness is the absence of dedicated Combat Support (e.g., artillery, engineers) and Combat Service Support (logistics, medical, transport, equipment support) elements

Consisting of five relatively understrength infantry battalions plus a CIMIC group, the brigade depends on external attachments, host nation support or higher echelons for sustainment and enabling capabilities.

In a peer conflict involving disrupted supply lines or contested rear areas, this reliance could lead to rapid degradation of combat power. Uncrewed systems reduce some logistical demands but introduce new vulnerabilities (e.g., maintenance, battery/fuel resupply, electronic warfare).

Without robust organic CSS, the brigade’s agility may prove illusory under sustained pressure, echoing historical lessons from light forces overstretched in contested environments.

24 Airmobile Brigade had infantry battalions, but it also had artillery, engineers, medics and helicopters, it was a fully formed and well-rounded brigade.

11 Brigade is not.

Service Politics and Resource Utilisation

Is 11 Brigade the best use of five infantry battalions, even recognising they are relatively small?

Maybe there is no CS/CSS because there is no CS/CSS available, and the brigade is the best way to preserve utility? There might be some integration with 3 DIV Deep Recce Strike Brigade, but if not, does 11 Brigade duplicate?

Some have accused 11 Brigade of finding a role for existing battalions rather than defining a need and then resourcing it.

Many think Ukraine is the template, others are more sceptical, if drone countermeasures mature and proliferate, the risk of betting the farm on a legacy capability is obvious.

This tension within the British Army will continue to hold development.

There is a danger that the brigade becomes labelled as ‘everything fashionable’

Ill Defined Mission Set

24 Airmobile Brigade had a very well-defined set of primary and secondary missions, with a defined battlefield geometry.

Does 11 Brigade have these, or just a set of aspirations?

By defining it as a ‘drone brigade’, it risks becoming equipment rather than mission centric, drones are tools, not the second coming.

What about the weather

With a high reliance on drones, there may be a limiting factor.

As the brigade develops, resilience against severe weather will be a critical workstream.

The challenge of systems integration

Systems and projects such as ASGARD and SAPIENT (Sensing for Asset Protection with Integrated Electronic Networked Technology) will need to be integrated, the latter being a standardised open architecture from DSTL.

Can the brigade manage this alignment and integration to avoid duplication and technology cul de sacs?

Defending against drones

Although some of the public materials do mention counter UAS, the imagery published so far does not. Operating in the drone zone will need a well established concept for drone defence, everything from simple mesh barriers to drone interceptors and EW systems.

One for the to do list I think.

Battlefield geometry

With Russian fibre optic drones now regularly operating at 30km plus, the maximum range of Ghost and Bolt start to look like a gap, and it puts the brigade within range of Russian artillery as well.

With both limited C-UAS (so far), limited offensive and ISTAR drone range (so far), and no artillery, battlefield geometry will also be another item on the to do list.

Beyond Ukraine

Will Russia in Estonia operate the same way as Russian in the Donbas?

11 Brigade cannot simply replicate what is happening in Ukraine. Ukraine is a specific set of military, geographic, financial, and technology circumstances. 11 Brigade must think differently, NATO air power, close terrain or wide open spaces, and urban and dense forest.

Summary

As of mid-2026, 11 Brigade looks like an ambitious development to forge a new way of thinking and a new way of working that is relevant to the contemporary (drone filled) environment.

It has huge potential, left alone and well resourced, it could be genuinely transformative,

I have been deliberately provocative in the section above, but as I keep saying, there is much that us out here in the cheap seats shouldn’t know.

Much to observe over the coming years.