UK Minister Takes the Helm of STARK's Vanta 12, a Drone Boat Armed With Sea Venom Missiles

A drone boat carrying a missile that the Royal Navy normally fires from helicopters was put through its paces in Oslo this week, with a British minister at the controls. Luke Pollard, the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, tested STARK's Vanta 12 uncrewed strike boat during a demonstration, the company said.

Vanta 12 is a 12-metre boat built near Plymouth and armed with MBDA's Sea Venom, a lightweight anti-ship missile already in service on Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters. STARK says it combines surveillance and strike in one hull: a radar tracks air and surface contacts, and the boat can stay at sea in hard conditions for weeks. It can carry up to two tonnes of payload, including Sea Venom.

What it is for

STARK pitches the boat for jobs that have become urgent in northern Europe: shadowing suspect tankers through the Baltic, the Channel and the North Sea, and guarding undersea cables and pipelines. The company calls Vanta 12 the first uncrewed vessel to bring together anti-ship missiles, loitering munitions and surveillance, and says it is already being exported to NATO allies from shipyards in the South West of England. The boat took part in REPMUS, NATO's largest exercise for uncrewed maritime systems, in September.

Arming a drone boat with Sea Venom matters because it gives a small, cheap platform a real anti-ship punch. Most drone boats used in the Black Sea have been explosive boats that ram their target. A missile-armed boat can engage from a distance and survive to fight again.

The Vanta family

Vanta 12 sits in the middle of a range. The 6-metre Vanta 6 is a harbour defence boat; in September the first one built in Plymouth was delivered to the German Navy, becoming the first uncrewed surface vessel taken into service by the Bundeswehr. At the top is the 24-metre Vanta 24, an aluminium-hulled escort with a 30 mm gun and a 3D radar that can exceed 35 knots.

STARK was founded in 2024 in response to lessons from Ukraine and is headquartered in Berlin. Its Plymouth yard fits the UK government's plan to make the city a hub for marine autonomy, backed by a £50 million Defence Growth Deal announced in April. "Plymouth is the national centre for marine autonomy," said Pollard, who is also the local MP. "Plymouth should be very proud of the innovation we are building."

The question now is whether the Royal Navy itself will buy. Britain is building a hybrid fleet of crewed ships and drones and has just set up its first autonomous squadron, but so far the missile-armed Vanta 12 is a British-built boat selling abroad first.