An empty platform at Charing Cross Underground Station has been used in a training exercise by the military(Image: John Keeble/Getty Images)
A London Underground platform is being used by British armed forces as part of a training exercise which highlights the UK’s need to invest more in defence.
The operation, which includes US soldiers, has transformed a vacant platform at Charing Cross Tube station into an imagined underground base in Tallinn, capital of Estonia.
The premise of the wargame is that the troops are part of a UK-led NATO mission in Estonia in 2030, after Russia has attacked the Baltic States in a scenario akin to World War Three, Sky News reports.
Within the underground base, troops use laptops and digital technology to identify Russian targets in a short time span, before launching as many as 5,000 missile attacks at them daily.
A vacant platform at Charing Cross Underground Station has been used in the exercise(Image: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images))
While the operation appear to go well, it soon becomes clear that the soldiers are relying on computer codes that are not yet serviceable across the UK military and weapons which have yet to be commissioned by the government.
In a video played to journalists visiting the military demo at Charing Cross, Lieutenant General Mike Elviss, commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) described how the simulation has been devised to reflect the worst challenges facing the military.
He said: “The scenario you are about to see is very deliberately set in 2030 because that is where we see the threat from Russia to be at its most acute.
“It’s also when we could realistically deliver the modernised technology and increased readiness required to meet that threat, but only with the right investment now, and with the support of industry to build a national arsenal, not just of munitions stockpiles – although that’s critical – but also of the national means of production that can scale in wartime.
“There is huge opportunity here, but peril if we ignore the risk.”
It is understood that if the operation was to be carried out for real by today’s British military, only a few hundred drones a day could be utilised and only for a short period before stockpiles run out.
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