Project ASGARD; the British Army’s path to doubling lethality

Project ASGARD is a project within the British Army that is designed to speed up the targeting process. It has been shrouded in secrecy until recently, and now more details have been made available through MoD press releases and recent media day. 

In May this year, the 4th Light Brigade of the British Army made its way into the fields and forests of Estonia as part of Exercise Hedgehog 25. They were tightly integrated into the Estonian Defence Force’s division—a first—and also deployed there from the UK in 48 hours, a comparatively rare feat for the British armed forces. Once in Estonia, the 4th Light Brigade undertook many tasks that would be welcome news to observers of British Army tactics; they dug trenches and fox holes following lessons learned from Ukraine, generated two battalion-sized battlegroups, and assaulted trenches under the watchful eyes of small drones. 

But, the 4th Light Brigade (4th Brigade) was also doing something else – something the initial MoD reporting on Exercise Hedgehog left out: They were testing a new targeting web developed under Project ASGARD. The project was launched in October 2024 with the goal of reducing the time that it takes for 4th Brigade to detect, locate, and prosecute a target. The MoD gathered together a team of defence companies to crack this issue, with contracts awarded in January 2025 and the resultant capability tested in May. 

It brought together vendors that are familiar to the British Army, like Systematic, provider of the Sitaware command and control suite from the corps to brigade level, as well as General Dynamics, and CGI which provides the Army’s artillery fire control system. But many of the players are newer companies that bring a different vision to defence procurement and alternate approach to problem solving. This included Helsing, offering the HX-2 strike drone with the Altra targeting software stack, and Anduril UK, providing the Lattice mesh command and control system. A company called Research Innovations provided PRIISM, a digital version of the Joint Air Ground Integration Centre (JAGIC). Others, like Mind Foundry, supported with artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, and BlackTree provided a suite of TrellisWare radios.

The project set out to achieve something that has troubled MoDs for a long time: the time it takes to prosecute a target. Speaking generally, anything that falls outside of direct fire range (i.e., a target that infantry or a tank could shoot immediately) would be passed up the chain of command. Eventually, it would reach a brigade, divisional, or corps level headquarters where decisions are made for that battlespace and according to the prevailing conditions. This typically involves the overall commander deciding which targets have absolute priority and coordinating the battle. There are a lot of moving pieces, the most senior artillery officer will be present providing guidance on what the indirect fire weapons can and cannot do, for instance. A legal advisor will offer guidance on whether it is legal to strike a target based on the potential for collateral damage and the rules of engagement. The JAGIC will coordinate all of this with the air power that is either using that airspace or there to support the formation. 

Once a target is identified, it has to be developed. This means clarifying whether or not it is in range of any friendly weapon systems that can affect it, as well as collateral damage estimates, and target prioritisation. If, for example, the UK’s 1st Division were facing Russia’s 1st Guard’s Tank Army, equipment like T-90Ms would be a relatively low priority for the divisional commander. The infantry and Estonian armour should be able to handle them along with their close support artillery. But the headquarters of the 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, or the air defence systems protecting it would be a much higher priority and warrant divisional attention. In that scenario, the process outlined above would have to be worked through before weapons like an MLRS strike could be released. This would take time as various soldiers in the HQ moved their chairs between each other, explaining what they were seeing and where their piece of the puzzle could fit in. 

Project ASGARD aimed to address this process, which is often called “swivel chairing” or something similar, as it drives the soldiers to swivel their chairs to face each other and share information. The idea was that the process from reconnaissance to strike should be automated as much as possible, in the belief that getting through that process faster would lead to greater lethality. 

The ASGARD network was built partly on existing infrastructure and with the integration of some of the new systems from the companies mentioned above. The existing infrastructure included Sitaware from Systematic, which is used by the British MoD at the corps and division level, and can be taken down to the platoon level if required. Sitaware provided the command and control that many of the other systems fed into or pulled from. The Lattice command and control software from Anduril provided a mesh network, helping to facilitate the transit of information from sensor to shooter, or from reconnaissance to strike. 

The sensors themselves included in-service ISR drones operating Helsing’s Altra, the company’s edge-AI software stack. Altra is used to identify and “fingerprint” targets from full motion video generated by the camera onboard a drone and pass something called a CoT message to third party systems. After passing through the network of systems used by ASGARD, the CoT message was consumed by Helsing’s HX-2 strike drone, which was sent to destroy a specific target.

The full name for CoT is cursor-on-target; it is an open source system for sharing real-time geospatial information, primarily used in military and public safety contexts to enhance situational awareness. It utilises a standardised XML-based messaging protocol for exchanging information about targets, events, and locations between various systems. Think of it as being like a shared language or form of communication that can be passed between systems regardless of how they are programmed. 

So, Altra would generate a CoT and pass that message to Lattice with the help of the Android Tactical Awareness Kit (ATAK – more commonly referred to as TAK), which is a geospatial tool used by the British Army. TAK is based on Android devices (phones essentially) that are carried by soldiers. They provide a digital map that is updated from other systems on the network with targets, friendly locations and similar elements that help improve situational awareness. Once the CoT had entered Lattice, it could then be fed into several other applications including Sitaware, PRIISM, FC BISA, (Fire Control Battlefield Information System Application from a company called CGI), and Altra Strike – the targeting element of Helsing’s software stack. Lattice was used to coordinate and facilitate the passing of data, and Sitaware for the commander to maintain awareness over the situation and make decisions around what to target and how. 

From Sitaware, targets were passed to PRIISM, which would conduct further development including legal review, collateral damage estimates, and weapon-to-target matching. Once those processes had been completed, a call for fires could be passed through FC BISA for artillery or Altra Strike for Helsing’s HX-2. The data was passed over a radio solution procured through Project ASGARD for the 4th Brigade, using novel procurement methodologies and processes that the MoD has used elsewhere in support of Ukraine. This enabled the solution to be rapidly procured – meaning months rather than years in this context – and delivered to the Brigade. Altogether, this project reflects a targeting web, which is part of the MoD-wide digital targeting web. The Army’s own press release on the matter calls the targeting web ASGARD, which is presumably taken from the project itself. 

“Project ASGARD proves we can do things differently. It’s not just a pathfinder for transformation; it’s a transformation in how we find, fund, and fight with cutting-edge capabilities,” Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Roly Walker said in the Army’s ASGARD press release. The MoD has committed to funding the next stage of ASGARD, the press release adds, which it is understood will aim to equip a corps-level formation with a similar reconnaissance-strike network.

Project ASGARD, lethality doubled?

Project ASGARD is part of Gen Walker’s aim “to double our fighting power in three years and triple [it] by the end of the decade”, through technology and automation, rather than larger forces. It has been widely observed that the British Army would struggle in a major confrontation with Russia, especially 4th Brigade as a light role formation in defence, reliant only on its limited organic indirect fires. Its forces would likely be outnumbered and outgunned at every echelon, even when operating as part of an alliance. In addition, the Royal Air Force would likely be taken out of the fight, supporting instead the NATO-wide mission to suppress and destroy Russia’s defences. It would not be available to support the ground war in the way that it has in Iraq and Afghanistan, so the Army must deliver its own reconnaissance and effects. 

So far so good. A lot of what ASGARD is trying to do makes sense, but there are elements that are less clear. For instance, it appears that Lattice and Sitaware perform similar roles, or at least can perform similar roles. Sitaware is essentially two things, a company representative explained to Calibre Defence in July, it is the front end – the nice graphical interface that users interact with – and the back end. The back end is where the magic happens, the representative explained, and essentially includes the ability to throttle communications up and down, increasing the force’s signals footprint or decreasing it as required. It can choose where and how to send information and what protocol – CoT is one of them, but there are 19 others. Lattice is understood to perform a similar role to Sitaware. There does appear to be some duplication, which is perhaps to be expected as part of an experiment like ASGARD, but will nevertheless have to be resolved in the next iteration.

Another element is communications, which falls into a much bigger project bucket for the MoD. The British Army relies on BOWMAN, the communications system provided by General Dynamics between 2004 and 2008. However, BOWMAN has faced many challenges, not least of which is bandwidth. Think of it like a road system connecting two major cities. With a single-lane road, traffic (data in the case of BOWMAN) can go one way or the other, and only so many cars can fit on it at one time. If that road becomes blocked then traffic will stop and have to find a new route.

The type of connectivity envisaged by ASGARD would require multiple five-lane motorways between the cities with additional road networks for when congestion builds up. This is achievable, but communications programmes are notoriously difficult to roll out successfully for an armed force. Perhaps ASGARD will demonstrate that commercial-off-the-shelf solutions can address that issue, but it remains a notable frailty in the programme’s ambitions. Moreover, the issue of Russian jamming has not been fully addressed. Russia is known to have advanced and capable electronic warfare capabilities, as well as significant redundancies within its own communications capabilities which enable it to jam its own radios as well as an adversary’s. Project ASGARD relies on these communications links and will not work without them. If they are jammed and degraded, it is not clear how the system would function. 

Finally, there is the question of lethality. Project ASGARD has so far reduced the time needed to go from finding a Russian vehicle to targeting it. But it has not addressed how the Army will target those vehicles. There are many solutions that could be readily provided within this field such as the Altius-M strike drones from Anduril, HX-2 from Helsing, and One Way Effector-Vertical (OWE-V) from Stark, but they would need to be affordable and produced at scale, ideally using British technology and production facilities. Proven use in Ukraine would be an added bonus. And of course increases in conventional artillery ammunition and anti-tank guided missiles could be used to up-arm the 4th Brigade, but there is no evidence that Project ASGARD has pursued any of these routes. Without ammunition and lethal effects to fire at an enemy the British Army will struggle to deter or defeat Russian forces regardless of how quickly they can identify and prioritise the targets that they generate. 

It’s unlikely that any of the above is lost on the MoD or Project ASGARD team. We must appreciate success where it is achieved; if ASGARD can be fully realised, it will revolutionise the type of force the British Army is, but there are some steps to take before it can get there. Time, and the next phase of ASGARD will tell how successful the Army is in doubling lethality. Hopefully, the next stage will include a much greater focus on munitions and exploiting novel ways to deploy them at scale. 

Formation profile: 4th Light Brigade Combat Team, The Black Rats

The British Army’s 4th Light Brigade Combat Team, also known as ‘The Black Rats’, is a rapidly deployable combat brigade falling under the 1st (United Kingdom) Division. Its primary role is to be a quickly deployable force optimized for warfighting in complex terrain, capable of being first to the fight and securing victory. The brigade is comprised of a Light Cavalry Regiment, six light-role Infantry battalions, and specialized units from the Army Reserve, including artillery and engineers.

‘The Black Rats’ are equipped for rapid deployment and manoeuvrability, primarily utilizing Jackal and Foxhound protected mobility vehicles to transport infantry across the battlefield. As a light infantry formation, their focus is on dismounted close combat and operations in built-up environments. While specific equipment details for the entire brigade are not fully public, infantry units are equipped with a range of small arms, machine guns, mortars, and anti-tank weapons like Javelin and NLAW. Supporting elements also deploy with specialized artillery and engineering vehicles. 

Calibre comment

If everything has been integrated as the British Army is indicating under ASGARD, then in theory it should be straightforward to add new systems and weapons to the mix. Moreover, the British Government has committed to addressing the UK’s munitions shortage with £6 billion ($7.68 billion/€7.08 billion) invested in replenishing stockpiles, as well as £1.5 billion ($2.04 billion/€1.785 billion) in an “always on pipeline” and six new ammunition factories. This should help ensure that the Army has the resources it needs, but it is worth noting that £6 billion appears to be spread out across all three services, none of which are well-resourced in terms of munitions at the moment.

For the Army, a mixed capability including conventional and guided artillery rounds – both shells and rockets – combined with loitering munitions would be a sensible first step. There are ambitions for longer-range weapons like Lockheed Martin’s Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), which is likely to be very expensive on a per-round cost, and its use limited as a result. The Army has invested in the Dart one-way-effector from Modini, which has a range of 250 km, under Project ASGARD; but it is difficult to see that munition replacing the lack of tactical strike elements that the Army so sorely needs. This may result from the focus on the “deep fight” that was set out by the 2021 Future Soldier concept. However, it is worth noting that Russian forces in Ukraine have proven quite resilient to multiple seemingly disastrous deep strikes, which raises the question of how effective that concept is in bringing about “an unfair fight”, as the Army hopes ASGARD will.

By Sam Cranny-Evans, published on July 21, 2025. The lead image shows four soldiers portraying a mock HQ and the capabilities that ASGARD would bring a commander. Credit: Corporal Christian P Delice/© MoD Crown Copyright 2025.