UK Armed Forces Monthly News Roundup (September 2026)

Welcome to our monthly UK Armed Forces round-up, our regular look at what Britain's Royal Navy, Royal Marines, British Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Fleet Auxiliary have been up to.

September was a month of ships and submarines on the move. HMS Queen Elizabeth sailed from Portsmouth after her first major refit, HMS Portland and her Wildcat fired the Navy's newest anti-ship missiles at a real warship hull for the first time, and HMS Agamemnon left the shipyard at Barrow after 13 years in build.

Elsewhere, Royal Marines trained alongside US Navy SEALs in Virginia, the Army ordered more than a thousand new drones, the RAF's headquarters took on a new name, a Hawk crew ejected safely over Anglesey, and the keel was laid for the first of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary's new support ships.

Royal Navy: HMS Queen Elizabeth returns to sea as HMS Duncan comes home for her refit

HMS Queen Elizabeth sailed from Portsmouth at around 6.20pm on Saturday 5 September, with more than 800 sailors on board, at the start of a three-month deployment around the UK and northern Europe. It marks her return to operations after the first major refit of her career.

The work began in November 2024 and included significant upgrades to her propulsion system and eight months in dry dock at Rosyth, followed by an intensive spell with the Navy's Fleet Operational Standards and Training organisation to bring the ship's company back up to speed.

She goes back to sea with a new job. In July the 65,000-tonne carrier became the Afloat Command Platform for NATO's Allied Response Force (Maritime), the first time either of the Queen Elizabeth class has held the role, and the battle staff embarked for this deployment will practise commanding allied naval forces from her.

The Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless left Portsmouth the same day.

"Sailing this autumn is a key milestone for both our NATO commitment, as the Afloat Command Platform and also on our journey back to the Royal Navy's 'very high readiness' aircraft carrier, a duty we will resume from our sister ship HMS Prince of Wales in 2027," said her Commanding Officer, Captain Claire Thompson.

Two weeks into the deployment the ship's company had a rather different duty to perform. On 18 September, 250 of her sailors exercised the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh, parading up the Royal Mile with drums beating, colours flying and bayonets fixed.

Led by the Band of His Majesty's Royal Marines Scotland, and there at the invitation of the Lord Provost, Councillor Robert Aldridge, they set off from the Palace of Holyroodhouse and marched past the Scottish Parliament to the City Chambers, while an F-35 Lightning flew overhead. The carrier inherited the honour from the destroyer HMS Edinburgh, and the city council transferred it to her in 2010.

The following day, 6 September, HMS Duncan returned to Portsmouth to begin a long upgrade of her own, having unloaded her ammunition at Crombie in Scotland the week before. She is the sixth and last of the Type 45 destroyers to go through the Power Improvement Project, which fits three new diesel generator sets to cure the class's long-running propulsion problems.

She will also receive a new forward silo for 24 Sea Ceptor missiles, leaving her existing 48-cell launcher free to carry the longer-ranged Aster 30, along with improvements to her Sea Viper system to help counter ballistic missiles. Duncan has earned the rest.

She led a NATO task group in 2023, spent much of 2024 on air defence duties in the eastern Mediterranean, and came home in July from a three-month deployment to the North Atlantic and High North with HMS Prince of Wales.

Royal Navy: new missiles fired off the Hebrides, and five years in the Indo-Pacific

On 21 September the Type 23 frigate HMS Portland fired a Naval Strike Missile at the decommissioned American frigate USS Klakring, out in the Atlantic beyond the MOD's Hebrides range off north-west Scotland. It was the first time the Royal Navy has fired an operational Naval Strike Missile.

The 400kg weapon skims the sea to avoid detection, flies at close to the speed of sound and can hit targets more than 100 miles away. Portland's Wildcat helicopter, from 815 Naval Air Squadron, followed up with Sea Venom, the first live firing of an operational Sea Venom from a Wildcat against a realistic target.

The firings were part of Exercise Atlantic Thunder 2026, a sinking exercise led by the US 6th Fleet that ran from 14 to 25 September. American forces taking part included the destroyer USS Paul Ignatius, the submarine USS Massachusetts and US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles, with maritime patrol aircraft from both the US Navy and the Royal Air Force overhead.

"The successful firing of NSM marks a significant milestone for the Royal Navy, demonstrating our ability to deliver credible, modern maritime strike capability," said Lieutenant Commander Louise Kirkaldy, HMS Portland's Principal Warfare Officer. Petty Officer James Kenyon, who launched the missile, called being the first person to fire a war-shot NSM and achieve a hit "a very proud moment".

On the other side of the world, 7 September marked five years to the day since the patrol ships HMS Spey and HMS Tamar left Portsmouth for the Indo-Pacific. Neither has been home since.

Between them they have covered around 593,000 kilometres, the equivalent of nearly 15 trips around the globe, with each ship logging roughly 15,000 hours at sea. Their crews of about 50 are rotated every six to seven weeks by flying fresh sailors out from the UK, and the ships are maintained mainly in Singapore and Cairns.

In those five years the pair have monitored United Nations sanctions against North Korea, tackled illegal fishing, carried aid to Tonga after the volcanic eruption and tsunami of early 2022, and helped Vanuatu after a cyclone. They even corrected the charted position of remote Henderson Island, which turned out to be about a mile from where the maps had it.

The work goes on: at the end of August HMS Tamar carried out a freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea with the Australian frigate HMAS Perth.

Royal Navy: HMS Agamemnon leaves Barrow, and an uncrewed submarine fires a torpedo

HMS Agamemnon, the sixth of the Royal Navy's Astute-class attack submarines, left BAE Systems' shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness in the last week of September and headed for HM Naval Base Clyde at Faslane to begin sea trials. Her keel was laid in July 2013, so she has been 13 years in the making.

She was rolled out in October 2024, commissioned by His Majesty The King on 22 September 2025 and made her first trim dive the following month.

The Astute class are the largest and most powerful attack submarines the Navy has operated, at 97 metres long and 7,400 tonnes. Agamemnon's Rolls-Royce reactor, built in Derby, will not need refuelling during her service life, and she will carry Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes and Tomahawk land attack missiles with a range of more than 1,000 miles. She is the sixth Royal Navy vessel to bear the name.

"In an increasingly dangerous world, sea power remains fundamental to keeping our country and people safe," said the First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins. "Our submarine fleet is essential to that effort, which is why I am delighted that HMS Agamemnon, the sixth of our Astute-class submarines, has now begun sea trials and will soon arrive at HMNB Clyde to join the fleet.

She embodies the best of British engineering and the professionalism of our submariners and will be one of the most advanced submarines ever operated by the Royal Navy."

There was a first for the Navy's uncrewed submarine as well. On 13 September XV Excalibur, the 19-tonne experimental boat built in Plymouth by MSubs, fired a Mk 48 heavyweight torpedo at the British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre at Kyle of Lochalsh.

The 5.8-metre weapon, developed jointly by the United States and Australia, was carried in a cradle fitted beneath Excalibur's hull. It was the first torpedo firing from an uncrewed undersea vessel carried out by the UK and US together, and it was done as part of the AUKUS partnership.

The month ended with news for Faslane itself. On 28 September the Chancellor announced that the floating dry docks needed to maintain the Navy's nuclear submarines on the Clyde will be built in Britain, subject to a commercial competition.

Royal Marines: commandos train with US Navy SEALs, and return to the Faroe Islands

Twenty-seven commandos from M Company, 42 Commando, spent three weeks in Virginia in September training with US Navy SEALs on Exercise Resolute Strike. They were joined by specialists from 148 Battery, the gunners who direct naval gunfire and air strikes from positions ashore.

The aim was to get British and American teams working as one on the hardest maritime tasks: seizing ships, fighting at close quarters and guiding in strikes on difficult targets. The commandos arrived straight from a month of riverine and jungle warfare training in southern Mississippi.

M Company formed its own maritime task unit within the American force and carried out more than 20 close-quarters missions by day and night, including helicopter assaults on compounds in darkness. The exercise ended with a final test aboard the amphibious ship USS Arlington, from which two Black Hawk helicopters delivered a combined British and American assault team onto a US Navy vessel, which they then seized.

Meanwhile the 148 Battery team worked with East Coast SEAL teams on the Navy Dare bombing range in North Carolina, a 72 square mile training area, calling in F/A-18 Super Hornets against simulated surface-to-air missile sites. They finished the exercise fully certified to support operations.

"Resolute Strike was not only an exceptional Maritime Special Operations training opportunity, but it also proved vital integration with our US partners," said Major George Eatwell, who commands M Company. More joint training is planned for the winter, this time in the cold, where the Royal Marines' Arctic expertise comes to the fore.

Closer to home, commandos went back to the Faroe Islands for the first time since the Second World War. As part of Exercise Lion Protector 26, which brought together the ten nations of the Joint Expeditionary Force between August and October, the UK Commando Force trained with Danish forces and Faroese maritime agencies.

They practised boarding, searching and seizing vessels, landing on steep coastlines from small boats, and climbing cliffs to set up observation posts. The islands sit in the middle of the gap between Greenland, Iceland and the UK, the route Russian ships must take between the Arctic and the Atlantic.

The last time Royal Marines were there was April 1940, when 250 of them were landed from HMS Suffolk after Germany invaded Denmark. "Defending the Atlantic is fundamental to our economy, national security and way of life," said the First Sea Lord, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins.

British Army: a thousand new drones, Challenger 3 on show, and Yorkshire's regiment turns 20

The Army's big announcement of the month came on 16 September at Defence Vehicle Dynamics, the annual military vehicle show at Millbrook in Bedfordshire. Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, confirmed a £16 million order for more than 1,025 small surveillance drones from three British-based firms.

It is made up of 245 FOXE-NATO drones from Evolve Dynamics in Hampshire, which weigh less than 250 grams and carry infrared cameras for use at night, 670 Skydio X10 drones supplied by Marlborough Communications in Surrey, which can be in the air in under a minute and fly at up to 45mph, and 110 SONORA drones for training.

He also confirmed the contract, worth up to £400 million, for the Tekever AR5, the long-endurance surveillance drone that replaces Watchkeeper, in service since 2014. The AR5 can carry up to 50kg of cameras and sensors and has already been used by Ukraine against Russian forces.

Six have been ordered to begin with, rising to 24 by 2029, and they will be built at Tekever's factory in Swindon.

"Our soldiers deserve the best technology, and that's what we're delivering," Mr Pollard said. "From small drones giving troops eyes on the enemy, to the AR5 offering commanders better intelligence over the battlefield, we're transforming the Army's ability to see, understand and act first."

The same show gave visitors a look at the latest prototype of Challenger 3, the Army's next main battle tank. A total of 148 Challenger 2s are being rebuilt to the new standard in an £800 million programme, with a new turret and a 120mm smoothbore gun in place of the old rifled one, which allows British crews to fire the same ammunition as their NATO allies. The first 18 tanks are due to be ready for service by 2027.

There was a celebration in York on 12 September, when the Royal Yorkshire Regiment marked its 20th anniversary with a parade and family day at Imphal Barracks. Serving soldiers, veterans, cadets and families gathered for a Drumhead Service, an infantry display and regimental music.

The regiment was formed on 6 June 2006 from the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire, the Green Howards and the Duke of Wellington's Regiment.

The day was also the first big occasion for its new Colonel, Major General Sam Humphries. "To take over the responsibility on any day would be special," he said. "But I feel particularly proud, and very humbled, to be able to mark The Royal Yorkshire Regiment's incredible and storied achievements, over its twenty years of distinguished service, as the Regiment's new Colonel."

One item will interest many of our readers who have served. The Ministry of Defence has announced an exercise next year to test how quickly former servicemen and women could be recalled in a crisis.

The Strategic Reserve, a pool of up to 95,000 veterans, will be "activated on a scale not seen in recent years", in the words of Armed Forces Minister Louise Sandher-Jones. The exercise will test how former personnel are contacted, mobilised, equipped and deployed.

Alongside it, the upper age limit for recall is rising from 55 to 65.

Royal Air Force: a new name at High Wycombe, Cobra Warrior, and a Hawk crew's safe escape

On 1 September the RAF's headquarters at High Wycombe was renamed Air and Space Command, reflecting the Service's role as the lead for space across UK Defence. The Royal Air Force itself keeps its name.

Only the headquarters has changed, the latest step in a line that runs from Bomber Command, which moved to High Wycombe in 1938, through Strike Command in 1968 and Air Command in 2007. "Control of the air is fundamentally dependent on our freedom of action in and through the space domain," said the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth.

From 14 September to 2 October the RAF ran Exercise Cobra Warrior 26-2 from RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, described as the largest test of the UK's homeland defence.

Aircraft and personnel from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States joined RAF Typhoons, F-35 Lightnings and P-8A Poseidons, with Voyager tankers refuelling them in the air, Chinooks of 27 Squadron from RAF Odiham working out of RAF Leeming, and German personnel based at RAF Cranwell.

The exercise tested how quickly allied forces can come together, defend their own bases and keep fighting in contested skies. Sir Harv Smyth did not understate the reason for it: "The return of great power competition across the globe and the significant, and growing, threat posed by Russia to the UK and NATO makes this, by far, the most dangerous period in my 35 years of military service."

Further east, an Atlas C1 transport of 70 Squadron deployed to Powidz in Poland, where its crews practised low-level tactical flying, airdrops and operating from grass runways alongside the Polish Air Force. The point is a simple one.

If an established air base were put out of action, heavy transport aircraft would still need somewhere to land. "Giving our crews the chance to practise unprepared runway operations ensures the RAF remains ready to fly and fight," said Wing Commander Doug Grove, Officer Commanding 70 Squadron. "Seamless interoperability with our NATO partners is of particular importance to reinforcing the cohesion of the Alliance."

The month's most dramatic moment came on Wednesday 23 September, when a Hawk T2 of No 4 Flying Training School crashed shortly after taking off from RAF Valley on a routine training flight. The aircraft came down on farmland near the village of Pencarnisiog on Anglesey.

Both pilots, a trainee and an experienced instructor, ejected and were treated for minor injuries, and nobody on the ground was hurt. "Both pilots are doing well, they are in extremely good spirits and expected to make a full recovery," the RAF said.

All Hawk flying was paused as a precaution, which also grounded the Red Arrows. On 27 September the RAF confirmed that the Hawk T1, the version flown by the Red Arrows, had returned to the air following "detailed analysis and a series of precautionary inspections".

The Hawk T2 remained grounded at that point while a formal investigation into the accident continues.

Royal Fleet Auxiliary: keel laid for RFA Resurgent, and a royal visit to RFA Tidesurge

The keel of RFA Resurgent, the first of three new Fleet Solid Support ships, was laid at Navantia UK's Appledore shipyard in North Devon on 3 September, which was fittingly Merchant Navy Day. The first block of the ship, a section of her bow, was lowered into the dry dock, with a commemorative coin placed beneath it in keeping with shipbuilding tradition.

Apprentices from the yard and from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary set the operation in motion.

At the ceremony the head of the Service, Commodore Sam Shattock, announced that Resurgent's two sister ships will be named RFA Reliant and RFA Resourceful. "The commemorative coin placed beneath the keel continues a proud maritime tradition, linking this modern programme with generations of shipbuilders and seafarers who have gone before us," he said. "I am delighted that apprentices from both Navantia UK and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary have been part of this occasion, representing the future of UK shipbuilding and the future of the RFA."

At 216 metres long and around 39,000 tonnes, the new ships will carry ammunition, spare parts, food and stores to warships at sea, the work that allows a carrier strike group to stay deployed for months. Each will have a core crew of 101 with room for 80 more.

Resurgent is due in service in the early 2030s, and the programme is expected to support around 1,200 shipyard jobs at Appledore and Belfast. "The Royal Fleet Auxiliary are the backbone of our Royal Navy and these new ships will keep our navy ready to operate at range for longer," said Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry.

Until they arrive, an old hand is being brought back. The Navy confirmed in September that RFA Fort Victoria, the Service's only ship able to deliver heavy solid stores at sea, is being refitted at Birkenhead so that she can return to service next year.

She has not carried out a replenishment at sea since the Carrier Strike Group deployment of 2021 and has been laid up since October 2024. She was towed across the Mersey from Liverpool in August, and her main task will be to rebuild the skills of handling and transferring stores before the new ships are ready.

The same yard had a royal visitor on 25 September. The Duke of Edinburgh, Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, toured the tanker RFA Tidesurge to thank the sailors and shipwrights working on her.

The 201-metre ship is part of the way through the major refit she has every five years, which includes 42 days in dry dock, around 1,200 separate maintenance jobs and 38 improvements to her equipment. She is due to be finished before Christmas. "It was a pleasure to host His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh in refit," said Executive Chief Officer Christopher Lowe.

All images courtesy of the UK MOD © Crown Copyright 2026