Today’s media-related stories include the news that the RAF estimates it has killed more than 1,700 Daesh terrorists. There is also further coverage of the Royal Navy’s Unmanned Warrior exercise.
Unmanned Warrior
Following yesterday’s BBC One Show coverage, The Daily Mail runs a feature on the Royal Navy’s Unmanned Warrior exercise, calling it ‘an incredible armada of robotic military machines. The piece notes that the unmanned futuristic spy vessel can race across the seas at 54mph (86km/h) and spot people traffickers or terrorists posing as refugees and carrying weapons.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:
The sheer scale of this exercise demonstrates how our Armed Forces are leading in developing futuristic technologies to keep us safe at sea, or in the air. This is part of our new approach to harnessing innovation, backed by a rising Defence budget, to ensure we keep ahead of our adversaries.
You can read more about Unmanned Warrior here.
Daesh
The Mirror, The Sun and The Daily Express report that RAF airstrikes have killed more than 1,700 Daesh terrorists, according to an MOD Freedom of Information release.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said:
Daesh is being defeated. It is being driven back. It now occupies less than 10% of Iraqi territory.
So two years on we’re making significant progress. This remains a hard fight. Yet Britain will not waver in our efforts to defeat the evil of our age.
You can read more about UK airstrikes in Iraq and Syria here.
The Freedom of Information request is here.
Babcock
The (Glasgow) Herald reports that hundreds of Scottish jobs have been safeguarded after Babcock International was awarded the contract to make 22 tactical missile tube assemblies as part of the UK Successor programme. The contract award also features on BBC (Online).
UK Defence Minister Harriett Baldwin said:
I am delighted that Babcock have secured this critically important project. This contract is a strong endorsement of our highly skilled and globally competitive defence industry and will secure around 150 jobs in Rosyth. With Faslane set to be home of all the Royal Navy’s submarines by 2020, this is further evidence of the benefits that defence brings to the economy and to Scotland.
“It is this kind of British expertise that will see the Successor programme deliver billions of pounds of investment across the UK, sustaining thousands of jobs from Scotland to the South of England.
Picture of the day
