The plan assigns £210 million to one-way attack drones and £300 million to lower-cost cruise missiles informed by experience in Ukraine. The cruise missiles would initially be air launched, with land and maritime options explored later. A separate £1.4 billion supports Stratus with France and Italy for Typhoons and new frigates. The family includes a manoeuvrable supersonic RS weapon and a low-observable subsonic variant. Earlier service-entry expectations have slipped, so these remain development and replacement plans. The discussion treats the move away from Storm Shadow as part of that successor programme and sees the low-observable weapon as useful for land attack despite doubts about its ability to reach well-defended ships.
Notable Point · 4:49:16-4:53:19
Stratus and cheaper cruise missiles would replace different parts of the strike inventory
The strike plan combines one-way attack drones and lower-cost cruise missiles with the more complex Stratus successor family.