From Partner to Node: Denmark, the Royal Navy and the Hybrid Fleet in the North

Posted on | by Robbin Laird
11/11/2026

By Robbin Laird

The navies of northern Europe are changing how they think about building fleets. For decades the question was how many frigates a nation could afford, crew and keep at sea. Now the question is how crewed warships, uncrewed vessels, sensors and data can be combined into a single fighting network. And that network increasingly crosses national boundaries.

Denmark is near the center of this shift. Danish and British naval leaders, industry and policymakers are converging on a common idea: a “hybrid fleet,” in which crewed ships command dispersed autonomous systems. This fleet would be organized less as a set of national navies working side by side and more as an integrated northern maritime force. The vehicle for this is not formally NATO, but the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). The JEF is designed to act quickly on NATO’s northern flank and to feed into NATO plans.

This article looks at what has been announced, what has been demonstrated, and what remains to be decided.

The British Driver: The Hybrid Navy

The Royal Navy has made the hybrid fleet its central reform. In a September 2026 speech titled “Battle for the Atlantic,” First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins called the move to a Hybrid Navy “the most radical and far-reaching reform” the service is undertaking (GOV.UK). His case rested on recent combat. In the Black Sea, uncrewed systems and long-range strike destroyed a Russian fleet that had looked dominant. In the Red Sea and the Gulf, drones and missiles showed how quickly global trade can be disrupted (GOV.UK).

His conclusion was blunt. Traditional platforms still matter, but a vast, contested ocean can no longer be defended by crewed warships alone. The answer is a ship that commands a network of large uncrewed escorts, drones and autonomous sensors. Such a fleet, he argued, would be bigger, more lethal and harder to target (GOV.UK).

The North Atlantic part of this is called Atlantic Bastion. It is meant to be a “defensive net” of crewed and uncrewed ships, drones, sensors, artificial intelligence and weapons, working above, on and below the sea. Its job is to protect the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent and the undersea cables, pipelines and energy networks that allied economies depend on (GOV.UK).

The program now has hardware designations and money behind it. Four uncrewed classes are planned:

  • Type 91: an uncrewed missile platform
  • Type 92: an uncrewed underwater sensing platform
  • Type 93: an extra-large uncrewed underwater vessel
  • Type 94: an uncrewed radar platform

These sit alongside a future crewed Common Combat Vessel. The Defence Investment Plan commits at least £1.3 billion to the effort (UK Defence Journal). The timeline is a caution, though. The Ministry of Defence told Parliament in October that its planning assumptions support introduction from the early 2030s, with no service-entry dates set (UK Defence Journal). For now, the Hybrid Navy is a direction and a budget line, not a fleet.

Making It Allied: The Northern Navies Agreement

What matters most for Denmark is that London does not intend to build the hybrid fleet alone. Jenkins described a “family of Northern Navies, led by the UK” as the way to make the Hybrid Navy real with allies. He said the UK has been working with JEF members on a new Northern Navies agreement, to be finalized this year (GOV.UK).

The ambition goes beyond the usual round of exercises and port visits. Jenkins called for a persistent, integrated maritime force: navies that train, exercise and plan together and, if necessary, fight together. That requires common systems, shared digital networks, common doctrine, and shared logistics and stockpiles (GOV.UK).

Then he gave the example that should interest any Danish naval planner. The goal, he said, is to ensure “a Danish frigate can seamlessly takeover from a British warship in the Atlantic, while also taking control of our flotilla of uncrewed ships and sensors that will remain in position for months on end” (GOV.UK).

That sentence describes a real change. In the traditional model, a Danish frigate joining a NATO group brings its own sensors and weapons and coordinates with others. In the hybrid model, the frigate becomes a command node. It takes over a standing network of uncrewed assets that may belong to another nation, may have been at sea for months, and will stay on station after the frigate leaves. The value of the crewed ship lies less in what it carries and more in its ability to plug into, direct and exploit a shared architecture.

The JEF is the institutional home for this. In an interview with the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, Jenkins said the JEF expects to sign an agreement in Oslo in November to establish new combat units. JEF navies would form their core, combined with aircraft, helicopters, marines, special forces and extensive use of aerial and maritime drones. He explicitly called this approach a “hybrid fleet” (ERR). He also said wartime plans for JEF naval operations have already been drawn up, and that deploying these units would not necessarily require NATO’s Article 5 to be invoked (ERR).

The JEF’s ten members are the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (ERR). For Denmark, the arrangement puts its navy inside a UK-framed force that can act quickly below the Article 5 threshold. This is exactly the space where sabotage of undersea infrastructure, shadow-fleet activity and gray-zone pressure now take place.

The Norwegian Template

The UK–Norway relationship shows how far this integration can go. In December 2025, the two countries signed the Lunna House Agreement. Under it, the Royal Navy and Royal Norwegian Navy will operate an interchangeable fleet of at least 13 Type 26 anti-submarine frigates, eight British and at least five Norwegian. The fleet is backed by a £10 billion warship deal, and the two navies will share maintenance facilities, technology and equipment (GOV.UK).

The agreement also commits the UK to join Norway’s program to develop motherships for uncrewed mine-hunting and undersea warfare systems. The Royal Navy will adopt the Norwegian Naval Strike Missile (Naval Technology). A Norwegian state secretary for defence summed up the logic at RUSI: Lunna House “is not just a procurement programme”; the aim is to make the forces interchangeable through common training, maintenance, equipment, personnel exchanges and procedures (RUSI).

Jenkins presented the shared British–Norwegian frigate force and the Danish frigate example as two parts of the same Northern Navies design (GOV.UK). Norway has shown that a common platform can anchor deep integration. The open question is how Denmark connects to that model.

Denmark’s Own Turn to Autonomy

Denmark is not simply being drawn in by British ambition. Copenhagen has been building its own uncrewed capability and, importantly, testing it at sea.

The Danish Navy Plan agreed in April 2025 included capacity to monitor critical undersea infrastructure through a vessel, drones and sonar systems. It also set up a program to test and develop underwater drones and other autonomous units for surveillance above and below the surface (Danish Ministry of Defence). The broader package was valued at about DKK 4 billion, funded through the Acceleration Fund and the Defence Agreement (PortNews).

The most useful evidence so far comes from operations, not plans. The Danish defence acquisition agency DALO had four Saildrone Voyager uncrewed surface vessels operate for the Royal Danish Navy in the Baltic for six months (Saildrone). The small fleet sailed more than 20,000 nautical miles (The Defense Post). It recorded more than 170,000 unique contacts and kept 92 percent operational uptime in difficult Baltic weather (DroneLife).

The first four Voyagers have since been registered under the Danish flag. Saildrone says the Danish government is working on a new contract for more vehicles (Defense News). Saildrone has also made Copenhagen its European headquarters (The Defense Post).

Denmark is also building the crewed “mothership” side of the equation. In December 2025, Danish procurement authorities bought the Norwind Helm, a former wind-farm service vessel. With modest changes, it will carry and operate underwater drones and sensors for monitoring critical infrastructure, with delivery expected in 2026 (Naval News).

There are also contributions from the multinational level. NATO’s Task Force X-Baltic deployed and tested 70 air and maritime drones alongside allied ships between March and October 2025. In February 2026, Denmark and seven other Baltic allies agreed to speed up acquisition of new multi-domain capabilities for naval operations (NATO). Earlier, in February 2025, Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 tested how uncrewed surface vessels could work with a maritime task group on a range off Denmark, with Royal Danish Navy ships taking part (Naval News).

This record matters. Denmark has done more than endorse hybrid concepts. It has operated uncrewed surveillance at sea for months and shown the persistence that the British vision depends on.

The Industrial Bridge

The third strand is industry, and here the Anglo-Danish link is being built deliberately. At DALO Industry Days in Herning in August 2026, Babcock signed memoranda of understanding with two Danish technology firms, STORMBORN and CUBEDIN, to examine future hybrid naval capabilities and autonomous systems integration. Babcock framed these deals around a vision of a hybrid Danish fleet in which crewed ships and uncrewed systems operate together (Naval News). A third agreement, with SH Group, covers ship and naval platform systems (Naval News).

The two technology partners show what a hybrid fleet needs in practice:

  • STORMBORN designs and operates the X-Wave uncrewed surface vessel, built to stay at sea continuously for up to a year (Navy Leaders).
  • CUBEDIN specializes in standardized hardware and software interfaces that let containerized “cubes” of sonar, radar and weapons be integrated as modular capabilities (Navy Leaders).

Persistence and plug-and-play integration are exactly what Jenkins’s Danish frigate would need to take over a British uncrewed flotilla.

Babcock also signed a letter of collaboration with the Danish consortium Danske Flådeskibe. The consortium brings together OMT, Terma, PensionDanmark and Semco Maritime, and the goal is a joint UK–Danish industrial approach to new Royal Danish Navy frigates (Janes). Babcock estimates the arrangement could support around 2,000 jobs in Denmark (UK Defence Journal).

There is a historical irony that gives the British bid emotional weight. Babcock’s Arrowhead 140, the design behind the Royal Navy’s Type 31 frigates, was derived from Denmark’s own Iver Huitfeldt class (UK Defence Journal).

The Frigate Decision as the Hinge

All of this comes together at Denmark’s next major naval procurement: new air defence frigates to replace the Iver Huitfeldt class. The decision is not settled.

A snap election in March 2026 stalled the process. Bloomberg reported that a supplier choice is now likely to slip into 2027, with Babcock and France’s Naval Group as the main contenders and German, Spanish and South Korean yards also competing (Bloomberg). Copenhagen has not yet fixed the number of ships or secured the funding (Investing.com, citing Bloomberg).

Some reporting suggests Naval Group’s FDI frigate has emerged as a favorite as Denmark–France ties strengthen. Navantia’s F110 and Rheinmetall’s GMF 140 are also credible options, and no formal competition is yet under way (Shephard). Hyundai Heavy Industries has offered to cut costs by 20 to 30 percent and deliver the first ship 3.5 years after contract (Militarnyi). European Security & Defence reports that the decision also depends on NATO capability targets, and that no decision is expected before 2027 (European Security & Defence).

This is where the hybrid-fleet debate becomes concrete. If Denmark assesses the frigates mainly as hulls, radars and missile cells, the competition will turn on air defence performance, price, delivery speed and local work. Those are legitimate criteria, and several bidders are strong on them. If Denmark instead assesses the frigates as command nodes in a JEF hybrid network, the criteria widen to include:

  • Compatibility with British uncrewed systems and data standards
  • Shared logistics and stockpiles
  • Ability to take over allied flotillas seamlessly

That is the case Babcock’s partnerships are designed to make. As Shephard observed, the agreements have sharpened the question of whether Copenhagen is moving toward a hybrid navy, but they do not show that Denmark has committed to one (Shephard).

Meanwhile, Denmark is improving the frigates it already has, in ways that also deepen Nordic links. It is buying additional Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles through a government-to-government deal with Norway to replace Harpoon on its frigates (Naval News). That is the same missile the Royal Navy is adopting under Lunna House (Naval Technology). A shared missile across the British, Norwegian and Danish fleets is a modest step, but a real one, toward the common stockpiles Jenkins described.

What Is Demonstrated and What Is Promised

It is important to separate what exists from what is intended.

Demonstrated:

  • Months-long uncrewed surveillance in the Baltic under Danish control, with high uptime and large numbers of contacts tracked.
  • Allied testing of uncrewed surface vessels working with a NATO task group off Denmark.
  • Dozens of drones fielded through Task Force X-Baltic.
  • A binding UK–Norway framework for interchangeable frigates and joint work on uncrewed motherships.

Promised or planned:

  • The Northern Navies agreement and the new JEF combat units, which are not yet signed.
  • The British Type 91 to Type 94 uncrewed classes, expected from the early 2030s without service-entry dates.
  • Denmark’s choice of frigate and partner.
  • The idea of a Danish warship taking command of a British uncrewed flotilla. This is a statement of intent, not a demonstrated procedure.

The hard problems are less about vehicles than about the connections between them:

  • Command authority: who has the authority to task another nation’s uncrewed systems.
  • Data sharing: how data is shared and secured across national networks.
  • Responsibility: who maintains, recovers and pays for assets that stay at sea for months, and who is accountable if they are lost or misused.
  • Use of force: how rules of engagement are reconciled when an autonomous system under allied control encounters a hostile actor below the Article 5 threshold.

These questions, rather than the platforms, will decide whether a northern hybrid fleet becomes real.

Conclusion

The Anglo-Danish hybrid-fleet story is about a change in what membership in a northern naval coalition means. The Royal Navy is betting that its future strength depends on a shared allied architecture of crewed and uncrewed systems, not on numbers of hulls. The JEF’s Northern Navies concept is the political framework for that bet. Norway has already signed up through a common frigate. Denmark brings real operational experience with persistent uncrewed surveillance, a growing domestic autonomy industry, and a frigate decision that could tie it closely to the British model or keep it more independent.

For Copenhagen, the choice is less about which ship to buy than about what role the Royal Danish Navy wants in the North: a capable national navy that joins coalitions, or a node in an integrated hybrid force that can take over the watch from an ally without missing a beat. The Oslo agreement in November and the frigate decision expected in 2027 will show which path Denmark takes.

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