Humiliation as British brigade ‘destroyed’ in Nato wargame simulation | UK | News
A British brigade was “destroyed” by Ukrainian forces during a major NATO war game in Estonia, it has been revealed. More than 16,000 soldiers from 12 NATO countries participated in the exercise called Hedgehog 2025. According to the head of Estonia’s unmanned systems unit, the exercises simulated a battlefield with a number of different unmanned aerial vehicles. In one particular scenario, a battle group of thousands of personnel, including a British brigade and an Estonian division, was defeated by Ukrainian forces. Military officials described the result as a “horrible” outcome for NATO.
In a battlefield scenario, tanks and troops could advance, mimicking the early stages of the war in Ukraine, rather than the largely frozen front lines where troops are currently fighting. One participant who played the enemy told the Wall Street Journal that the battle group was “just wandering around without any disguise, parking tents, or using armored vehicles” and that “everything was destroyed.”
Maneuvers in Estonia demonstrated the devastating effectiveness of Ukraine’s digital warfare tools, particularly the Delta battlefield management system. This advanced software combines live intelligence with artificial intelligence to visualize the battlefield, track enemy movements, and coordinate rapid attacks. The system automated data analysis and target identification, allowing for a level of speed and precision that effectively caught Western military planners by surprise.
Delta software enables troops to gather instant reconnaissance, using automatic data analysis to detect vulnerabilities and launch precision attacks.
During the exercises, a small unit of just ten Ukrainians – acting as the opposing force – launched a devastating counter-attack and managed to fake destroy 17 armored vehicles and carry out 30 “attacks” in a single 12-hour window. Estonian systems coordinator Aivar Hanniotti, who led a unit during the exercise, evaluated the results and said the results were “terrible” for NATO forces.
He said: “We found car and mechanized units pretty easily and were able to take them out pretty quickly with attack drones.”
A commander reportedly observed the exercise and concluded: “We’re f—d,” The Telegraph reported.
It comes after the UK announced last year it would invest £2 billion in drones to make the Army “combat ready”.
