Ukraine showed a British unit that it needs to 3D-print drone parts and be able to do it close to the fight

• A UK military unit has adopted 3D printing, inspired by Ukraine’s drone strategies.
• Ukraine uses them to make drones, drone parts, and bombs quickly and cheaply to use against Russia.
• The unit is increasingly using the tech and wants to be able to bring it close to the battlefield.

Ukrainian battlefield lessons are pushing a British Army unit to adopt a technology that has shown promise in the war against Russia: 3D printing drone parts close to where they’re needed most.

Lt Col Ben Irwin-Clark, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion Irish Guards, an elite infantry regiment, told Business Insider that the battalion’s decision to print drones and drone parts was “definitely a lesson we picked up from Ukraine.”

The battalion has been putting more effort into preparations for drone warfare since the unit linked up with Ukrainian troops during a training rotation, and 3D printing is key to that effort.

The war in Ukraine has shown how quickly armies must adapt, experiment, and replace broken equipment — often faster than traditional supply chains allow.

Irwin-Clark said that in the last few months of working with the Ukrainians, the battalion saw just how important small drones are. It has now trained 78 of its 300 people as pilots or instructors.

And it has also quickly learned that training with drones means breaking them. Rather than waiting on industry or time-consuming formal procurement channels, the unit decided it was faster and cheaper to fix and modify drones in-house.

3D printing can shrink procurement timelines from weeks to hours. That speed matters for keeping training relevant and affordable, but it also has clear battlefield implications, where tactics and equipment needs can change in days, requiring immediate solutions.

The unit’s printer is making things like bomblets and copies of Russian equipment, which the unit had struggled to procure quickly through regular channels.

The effort is part of the battalion’s new and growing “drone hub,” a first-of-its-kind facility within the British Army where soldiers can repair drones and train for drone warfare.

Those efforts are expanding. The battalion printed its first drone body last month — a shell that can be fitted with components such as battery packs, sensors, and motors — offering a low-cost, fast way to assemble new drones, with plans to make production more routine.

Irwin-Clark said that the long-term plan is to significantly expand 3D printing. For now, the focus is on replicating existing technology, which he described as “in its infancy.” Eventually, he said, the soldiers should be able to design and print their own innovations.

He pointed to Ukrainian examples, such as modifying commercially acquired drones to drop munitions by 3D-printing attachment parts, as a model of the kind of bottom-up innovation that he wants British soldiers to emulate.

The aim, he added, is also to make the capability mobile, putting 3D printers in vehicles so parts can be produced close to the fight, in hours rather than days.

That speed close to the fight is crucial, as Ukraine’s fight has demonstrated.

Ukraine is 3D printing weaponry

Ukrainian forces have used 3D printing to produce drone bodies and components near the front, allowing them to build new drones and return damaged ones to service within hours, rather than waiting days for replacements.

Soldiers and other outfits have also printed bomb casings, which are then filled with explosives — a workaround for ammunition shortages when raw explosives are available. One volunteer group told Business Insider that its casings cost less than $4 each, making them cheap and disposable.

Ukrainian companies are also 3D printing spools for fiber-optic drones, the unjammable drones controlled by cables.

Exactly how widespread 3D printing is across Ukraine’s forces remains unclear. Still, it has become an important enabler in a war where cost, speed, and adaptability matter as much as sophistication. Ukraine’s military is far smaller than Russia’s and benefits disproportionately from low-cost, rapidly produced equipment.

Learning from Ukraine

The Irish Guards picked up many of these lessons while deployed in support of Operation Interflex, the UK-led multinational mission involving 14 countries that has trained more than 62,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

While Interflex is designed to share Western and NATO doctrine with Ukrainian forces, British troops have also adapted their own training based on Ukrainian combat experience.

That has included reviving trench warfare training, revising assumptions about how future ground combat would unfold, and adding anti-drone nets across training events.

Ukraine is fighting a war unlike those Western militaries have experienced in decades — a large-scale, grinding industrial war of attrition against a peer adversary. By contrast, recent US and UK operations have largely been counterinsurgency campaigns.

NATO countries have responded by increasing defense spending and investing in capabilities that the war has shown to be especially relevant, including drones and other low-cost systems.

Drones and other low-cost solutions may not play as big a role for some Western militaries, which have deeper arsenals and more advanced airpower. It was a lack of these capabilities that largely drove Ukraine to invest heavily in drones in the first place.

That said, there is an expectation that these weapons will have a part ot play in future fights, so the US, UK, and other militaries are working out best practices on this warfighting technology.

Irwin-Clark, speaking at a training demo recently attended by Business Insider, shared that “it’s really inspiring working with the Ukrainians and training Ukrainians, and I think what I hadn’t anticipated over a year ago when we started our stint on Interflex is how much we would learn.”

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Jeffrey L. Klump

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