Nyan, BAE Systems' combat-proven autonomous strike drone, was launched from a Royal Navy vessel underway at sea for the first time on July 3 during Exercise Neptune Reach. A catapult launcher was installed on the deck of XV Patrick Blackett, the Navy's dedicated experimentation ship, and operators programmed Nyan to fly autonomously to a specific target. Nyan has been used extensively in British Army exercises on land, but had not previously been fired from a ship.

The Read: The launch is a concrete step in the Royal Navy's stated transition toward what it calls a "Hybrid Navy," a fleet architecture the UK's Strategic Defence Review describes as a "high-low mix" pairing crewed combat aircraft with expendable single-use drones and long-range precision missiles that can be fired from ship decks. It also points where surface-vessel autonomous strike is heading in Western navies: rather than building purpose-built missile-carrying USVs of the kind Hanwha showed at Eurosatory, the Royal Navy is adapting a fielded strike drone to an existing hull, using an experimentation ship to iterate quickly on the launcher, the C2 chain, and the tri-service command arrangements. The wider force-design bet is that the Royal Navy can extend precision strike across surface combatants without waiting for a new class of ship, and can complement F-35B carrier air wings with autonomous platforms rather than replace them.

Nordic Air Defence held the first public live demonstration of its Kreuger 100XR drone interceptor in early July, with media watching the Stockholm startup's system detect and destroy target drones in a live operational setting. The K100XR is a small kinetic interceptor: roughly 30 cm (12 in) long, 450 g (1 lb), carbon-fibre construction, propeller-driven rather than rocket-powered, capable of exceeding 354 km/h (220 mph) with a 3+ km (1.9 mi) intercept range and a 20-minute loiter. Onboard AI handles autonomous detection, classification, and tracking through a thermal-IR seeker, letting the interceptor operate in a radio-silent mode against jamming, and the company prices each unit at "a few thousand dollars" against a $480,000 Stinger and the fighter-jet sorties NATO has flown against Russian drone incursions over Poland. Nordic Air Defence has partnered with Volvo Defense on a vehicle-mounted VIPRO protection pod, signed letters of intent with Poland's WB Group and Tantalit and Swedish maritime firm Polar Mist Technologies, and is positioning the K100XR for European drone-wall procurement now targeted at 2027 initial operational capability.

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