Britain's drone-frying laser — a directed-energy weapon that burns aerial targets out of the sky for about £10 a shot, accurate enough to hit a £1 coin at a kilometre. After a 2024 high-power trial it won a £316m deal to arm Royal Navy destroyers from 2027.
Britain's cheap, fast-build frigate — a 5,700-tonne general-purpose warship designed to a fixed ~£250m price on a proven Danish hull, lightly armed at first but built with the space and power to grow. The Royal Navy's bet that hull numbers and flexibility beat gold-plating.
Britain's troubled recon vehicle — a tracked, sensor-heavy armoured scout with a 40mm cased-telescoped cannon, meant to be the British Army's digital eyes. Eight years late and beset by noise-and-vibration injuries that hospitalized crews, it finally began entering service in 2025.
Shoulder-fired, single-use anti-tank missile with overfly top-attack and fire-and-forget PLOS guidance — the weapon that defined Ukraine's close-quarters tank-killing in 2022.
The British Army's sole main battle tank since 1998 — a heavily armoured, 62.5-tonne brute with a unique 120 mm rifled gun, set to be replaced by the smoothbore-armed Challenger 3.
A rising share of UK defence companies are being refused overdrafts and working capital, Make UK Defence told the Treasury Committee, blaming the stalled Defence Investment Plan.