Royal Navy fires torpedo from uncrewed 'Excalibur' submarine for the FIRST TIME in warning to Putin
From the Newshound archive · first published 22 September 2026 · last updated 23 September 2026.
Britain and the United States have fired a heavyweight torpedo from an uncrewed undersea drone for the first time in history, under the AUKUS alliance with Australia. The 12-metre XV Excalibur, built in Plymouth and battery-powered, launched a US-Australian jointly developed torpedo in UK waters last week. Defence Minister Luke Pollard called it "a substantial increase in our lethality", warning Russia that hostile states can no longer predict where Britain's lethal capability lurks beneath the waves.
Russia has been deploying spy ships and covert underwater assets to surveil UK undersea cables and pipelines, stoking fears of deliberate sabotage.
The Royal Navy's manned Astute-class submarines are stretched so severely that some have conducted patrols exceeding 200 days, returning to port with barnacle-encrusted hulls.
Excalibur can dive deeper than manned submarines and reach deep into the North Atlantic on a single battery charge, according to naval insiders.