43: The Royal Navy Needs a New Dreadnought Moment

In the second and final part of their discussion defence expert Lee Pilgrim and host Iain Ballantyne resume their survey of the Royal Navy and how to fix it.

They ponder the need for a new ‘Dreadnought moment’ under a leader as radical as the legendary Admiral Jacky Fisher who introduced war-winning tech and a new mindset.

Fisher pushed through construction of the all-big-gun, steam turbine powered HMS Dreadnought, which in 1906 made all other battleships obsolete.

Lee suggests it will also require a latter-day Julian Corbett, the civilian naval visionary who helped Britain forge a strategy for the immensely powerful Royal Navy of the early 20th Century.

In their lively chat, Lee and Iain weigh up the worth of the UK’s new Atlantic Bastion concept, and the part uncrewed systems will play in it, along with the need to keep humans in the kill chain if drones are to be a major part of policing the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap. 

The latter is the main gateway to the broader Atlantic used by Russian submarines since the Cold War, but Iain and Lee wonder if a less passive, more forward leaning strategy is needed.

Also touched on in the discussion is the utility of drones as part of the UK Carrier Strike Group and the  F-35B jet as a fighter-bomber compared to how the Royal Navy used to do things the last time it had big carriers (in the 1970s).

•Lee Pilgrim has worked in defence and intelligence - for government and industry - for over 30 years both in the UK and overseas, so has some useful insights into a whole load of interesting things. His social media posts on X are well worth a read. Follow him on that platform @MtarfaL He has also written several articles for Warships IFR and contributed to our forthcoming ‘Guide to the Royal Navy 2026.’

•Iain Ballantyne is the founding and current Editor of Warships IFR (first published in 1998) along with its ‘Guide to the Royal Navy’ (since 2002) and ‘Guide to the US Navy’ (since 2018). Iain is also author of the books ‘Hunter Killers’ (Orion) and ‘The Deadly Trade’ (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), both about submarine warfare, plus ‘Arnhem: Ten Days in The Cauldron’ (published by Canelo). In 2017 Iain was awarded a Fellowship by the British Maritime Foundation, which promotes awareness of the United Kingdom’s dependence on the sea and seafarers. Visit his web site Bismarckbattle.com and follow him on X @IBallantyn

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The ‘Guide to the Royal Navy 2026’ mentioned in this podcast episode is published on 18.9.25 and can be ordered here https://sundialmedia.escosubs.co.uk/store/products,guide-to-the-royal-navy-2026_640.htm