In-Flight Fight
Manoeuvre in the Near Surface
Hugo Cartwright, et al. | 2025.10.01
Twelve months ago, the British Army’s 11th Brigade was still labelled as a Security Force Assistance Brigade. Over the intervening period, with support from Field Army Headquarters and Army Futures, the likely future of the Brigade has evolved into something more novel: a formation that will fight “in and from the near-surface” or, what might be simply described as a drone brigade.
This article will introduce and explore the ideas around this change and will begin with a narrative of the development of the concept, before describing the relevant historical and contemporary case studies; the foundational tenets, the technological freedoms and direction of travel; and the resulting putative doctrine. Exploiting the advantage of insight into the current conflict in Ukraine but without the pressure of resourcing a current battle to generate the opportunity to build a near-surface combat system by design, it will posit that near-surface capabilities will be the supported manoeuvre arm/battlespace for the next epoch, with all other capabilities in the combined-arms manoeuvre force in the supporting role, and that this battlespace must be approached in a systematic way to achieve best effect.
THE STORY
The 11 Brigade near-surface project began through the confluence of three policy drivers set against the context of a force design failure that meant 11 Brigade was unfit to deliver meaningful Security Force Assistance. The catalysts were: the Army’s need to deliver two coherent warfighting divisions; the need to hasten the delivery of the Land Operating Concept; and the future force direction determined by Army Futures. All of these were of course driven by the reality of war in Ukraine and the need to manage the enduring reality of the Russian threat.
The Army’s requirement to field two fighting divisions meant 1st (UK) Division was required to return as a credible formation to the Army’s order of battle. This presented a range of issues, not just in workforce, but in doctrine; the Service’s corps and divisional doctrine is explicitly based on armoured manoeuvre by largely homogeneous (armoured) brigade types. As a result, 1Division’s first challenge was how to generate a combat system from the heterogeneous group of, largely light, capabilities it had, and make it useful for a NATO corps (specifically the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps). 1 Division’s answer was to build a bespoke doctrine that exploited the mobility of light forces and mitigated their tactical weakness by focusing on the defence of complex terrain. As such the Division pitched to be used in an operationally offensive way at the beginning of a conflict to seize lightly/un-defended key/vital ground and thus exploit the strengths of being tactically defensive in terrain of its choosing.
This doctrine allowed the Division to offer an option against one of the key demands of the Land Operating Concept: resourcing the first battle to “blunt” Russian offensive action. In this model the Division would set the conditions for the successful deployment of the corps to fight a reclamation battle – and could do so, within reason, with the force it had; thus matching the demand for acceleration of Land Operating Concept implementation. Within this divisional concept 11 Brigade had to find a place.
The sponsorship of General Officer Commanding 1 Division and Commander Field Army to explore the Brigade’s role at formation level allowed engagement with Army Futures, RUSI and the information streams emerging from Ukraine, such as Project Eagle. All of these sources cited the requirement to resource covering force functions, particularly counter-reconnaissance, to be able to survive and succeed on a modern battlefield. As such, the Division required a formalised tactical “covering force” both during deployment and whilst operating – something that would be a waste of the resources of the other more fully enabled brigades in the Division. The transition to Security Force Assistance had hollowed the Brigade’s infantry unit structures but had maintained most of its support weapon capabilities – capabilities that had proved instrumental to “blunt” the Russian invasion of Ukraine and capabilities that would prove useful in a defensive covering force battle. This “covering force” role became the conceptual focus for the Brigade as it evolved its proposition.
With senior backing and with the promise of resource, the thinking within the Brigade moved on. It began to migrate from considering what it could do with what it had, to how it might best fulfil the role it was required to do and what those capabilities might look like given the evolving character of conflict and the available historical models. The Army Futures sponsored Project Velocity had already highlighted the primary nature of near-surface capabilities as the character of warfare evolved, whilst in Ukraine the casualty figures attributed to near-surface effectors, and the associated resource cost, showed that something fundamental may have shifted in the way war could be waged. Key trends toward the primacy of near-surface warfare on the contemporary battlefield that emerged in 2024 were consolidated and accelerated in 2025. Significantly, drone warfare is being both centralised and systematised in the militaries of Ukraine and Russia, with the former generating a specialist cadre within the army force structure and the latter creating an entirely new arm. Key advances in the current evolution are:
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Contesting the near-surface from the near-surface (i.e fighter/interceptor drones).
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Use of near-surface assets to perform a manifold of “heavy” battlefield tasks, including the emplacement of mines and the “bombing” of adversary positions.
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The generation of a ground based near-surface early warning and command and control system.
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The “holding”/denial of parts of the defensive line done entirely by drone units.
The growing comprehension of the opportunities of warfare using drones has made them increasingly lethal. This lethality borne of understanding has been enabled by a “power” revolution that is extending the ranges and increasing the capability of battery powered systems. The combination of these factors has driven exponential growth in the relevance and lethality of unmanned systems on the battlefield. The ability to generate a close to persistent presence of these unmanned capabilities has forced the distances between the forward lines of troops to 15 kilometres in some parts of the front as troops try to shield themselves from the particularly ubiquitous shorter ranged systems. There is a Ukrainian aspiration to use this power and doctrinal revolution to push these distances to between 80-150 kilometres by the end of the year – though this timeline looks optimistic. However, if achieved, this could put all field artillery out of range and end the opportunities for opportunistic ground manoeuvre in any realistic form; neutralising Russia’s manpower and fires advantage, automating the war and driving the key contest almost entirely into the near-surface.
Whilst it is tempting to focus on the contemporary conflicts for inspiration, the developments in Ukraine are being forced through evolution as the pressure of the battlefield hinders revolution in the usage of near-surface capabilities. Importantly, the effects of these near-surface capabilities are not new in real terms; it is just the evolving performance, simplicity and cost of uncrewed aerial systems (UASs), allied to organisational freedoms, allows them to mimic (and in places surpass) the capabilities traditionally associated with tactical air power. The most significant changes are the ability to command and control it at the lowest echelon and the scale/persistence, which surpasses the seemingly ubiquitous air-support witnessed during Operation Herrick. It is unsurprising that the models evolving to organise, operate and develop drones replicate many of the characteristics of the solutions generated to manage the early evolutions of air power.
As an example, the evolution of UAS types and their development from the provision of observation, through delivering ground lethality and finally into near-surface supremacy platforms mimics the development of aircraft technology and concepts of employment from the Great War through to the end of the Second World War. Naval warfare was revolutionised further, such that air power rapidly became the primary method of power projection at sea at the expense of surface capabilities – this more transformational revolution seems closer to the opportunity offered by near-surface platforms and their capability development trajectory. As such the historical case studies examined included the evolution of air power in the Great War, examination of the Desert Air Force/Tactical Air Force of the Second World War, and the study of the Central Pacific campaign of the Second World War. Aligning these possible models with the feedback from Ukraine, the analysis of Project Velocity and the emerging technological opportunities presented by developments in power, automation and communication formed the key dialogue for our thinking. The following key deductions emerged:
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The primary find-and-fires systems in the next conflict would continue to be largely reliant on near-surface capabilities.
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Ground manoeuvre was at best incredibly costly and at worst close to impossible without a specialised counter-reconnaissance capability to blind enemy sensors.
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The evolution of near-surface capabilities mapped well to the evolution of air capabilities (land and maritime) in the First and Second World Wars – of these it was the carrier battlegroup model which resonated best in terms of basic wargaming and thoughts on future force design.
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Battery tech growth would support not just range and payload, but the use of more advanced automation and communication systems. This would make near-surface systems more lethal and also more resilient to adversary counter-measures.
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The growth in range, resilience and lethality would further extend the distance between the opposing forward lines of troops, reducing the relevance of ground manoeuvre and the majority of fires systems in all but the most deliberate of actions.
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Near-surface systems would become the “supported” manoeuvre capability, with ground assets “supporting”.
PUTATIVE DOCTRINE
Noting the capabilities offered by near-surface platforms are not fundamentally new, the concept of fighting from and in the near-surface is a continuation of 20th century Western military doctrine which placed primacy on the delivery of air power. This primacy exploited Western technological/industrial advantage to control altitudes which make the enemy’s battlespace transparent and deadly whilst obscuring and protecting one’s own. The resultant relative information advantage could then be used to defeat (or set the conditions for the defeat of) adversary surface forces ahead of the advance of one’s own surface forces (maritime or land). Air power was the primary tactical weapon of the Allies during the Second World War and the generation of air supremacy defined the victor of each campaign as the war unfolded – this has remained the Western pre-condition for victory in conventional conflicts since then. However, the evolution of uncrewed near-surface capabilities has presented an opportunity for our adversaries to deliver tactical air power of their own and subvert the advantage provided by Western air dominance. Dominating this altitude defensively is now a necessary minimum to maintain the asymmetric advantage provided by the otherwise still advanced Western air power. Dominating this altitude offensively multiplies the air power dominance of Western forces significantly. Near-surface warfare currently remains a responsibility of the surface commands (land and maritime) and so the generation of near-surface supremacy must become the primary (supported) aim for land manoeuvre resource and doctrine, and a key effort for maritime forces. A putative doctrine is outlined below, covering organisation, capability design and battlespace integration. It concludes with an offer of two models of formation manoeuvre.
Any doctrine must start with ownership. The integration of airpower with land power is traditionally managed at the corps level. Noting the increasing ubiquity of near-surface assets and their current range limitations, this centralisation at a corps level offers the worst of both worlds – generating huge complexity but failing to offer the ranges to enable deep battle. The brigading of near-surface capabilities to sit as a divisional asset is the recommendation of the Brigade and conforms with the current aviation doctrine. This echelon is able to provide the necessary command and control capabilities to manage the complexity of a multi-domain force including the generation of a recognised near-surface picture – it also places the capability at the echelon that can deliver violent effect across the adversary’s near-surface system rather than just local effect. Brigading near-surface assets also provides a focus for capability development at this nascent stage of evolution, akin to the Machine Gun Corps of the Great War.
Brigading the assets also enables a scale that can resource a multi-domain battle, which will require a multitude of integrated capabilities. To capitalise upon this, scale must be matched by systematic capability design. The brigade system must include a balance of near-surface capabilities that cover all of the tactical functions and enables the concurrent delivery of effects in multiple domains (for example, electronic warfare, cyber, surface and air). Carrier air wings are built as packages that include aircraft focussed on command and control, air-defence, sub-surface, sustainment etc. The same approach must be taken when designing the various “near-surface wings”.
If counter-reconnaissance is the primary aim, then integration with the altitudes above are essential to prevent being “flanked” by adversary sensors. Critically this defines a battlespace to control that is conal (reflecting the lines of observation at each altitude). The same is true in attack, where better integration across altitudes will enable the flanking of adversary defensive systems – with each altitude/domain enabling the success of the other. The gaining of altitude dominance and the consequent generation of a more transparent adversary battlespace is already allowing Ukraine to create “drone walls” within which all adversary capabilities are destroyed and whilst these currently sit at 15 kilometres from the forward line of Ukrainian troops, their aspiration is to have these walls manifest at 80-150 kilometres within the next year. However, their ability to build a doctrine around integration with other altitudes is limited by their own lack of air or space dominance.
Thinking from a NATO perspective, where air and space are well resourced to compete, two centres of opinion are emerging on near-surface manoeuvre; one bold and one conservative. The more conservative opinion recognises near-surface capabilities as the supported arm but talks in terms of traditional land manoeuvre where they are used akin to a 21st century version of the tank to generate breakthroughs that can be exploited by echelon (ground manoeuvre) forces. The second approach is bolder but perhaps more logical and approximates near-surface capabilities not to armour but to air-power and speaks not to breakthrough but envelopment from the sky. An example of this in practice is the Battle of Shushan in the Nagorno Karabakh War. In simple terms it is a mimic of the way the US carrier fleet fought alongside the US Marines in the Pacific during the Second World War – isolating and degrading Japanese forces on islands to set the conditions for amphibious assaults by US Marines. In this model, integrated multi-domain near-surface task groups would develop supremacy over all but the most complex terrain, isolating degraded adversary capabilities in these “islands” where they could be “mopped up” by follow-on ground manoeuvre forces.
▲ Figure 1: A demonstration of the organisation and integration of capabilities in a conal battlespace
CONCLUSION
It is our belief that Nagorno Karabakh was indeed the “dreadnought” moment for near-surface/drone warfare but the lessons were not properly heeded. However, they can’t be ignored now. Seen more broadly, this possible revolution in land power could present a significant opportunity for our Army to leapfrog the expensive modernisation of its legacy force and instead generate a world-leading force by placing a bet on a future which looks to be moving from “well-informed” to “certainty”. 11 Brigade’s programme over the next year looks to exploit this, with force structures under review this year, direct relationships with independent artificial intelligence companies already established, a financial stream supported by Project Rapstone and elements of Project Asgard, and an exercise programme to test these developments at unit and formation scale. Whisper it quietly, but a bold new future might be upon us… it will be exciting to see how it develops.
Hugo Cartwright, Major, works in Capability Strategy in the MOD. In his previous role he was Chief of Staff 11 Brigade and a member of GOC 1(UK)XX’s divisional initiatives group.
Lauren Cox, Major, is currently studying at the Defence Academy before becoming a Military Assistant to Commander Field Army. She has recently come from the capability development role within 11 Brigade HQ.
Laurence Thomson, Major, is the Chief of the General Staff’s Visiting Fellow at RUSI. As part of the Military Sciences team, his research is focused on land power lethality, contemporary conflict and British Army modernisation.