- UK soldier-worn counter-IED system (Project Crenic) now due 2028, not 2026
- £45m contract launched Oct 2022 with Team Protect to integrate new kit
- Delay means ~6 years from award to service entry; IEDs remain a major threat
The British military’s new dismounted counter-improvised explosive device (IED) capability will not begin to enter service until 2028 at the earliest, according to newly released information from the UK Government.
Dubbed Project Crenic, the body-worn system was initiated in October 2022 through a £45m ($59.5m) integration contract with Team Protect, a group of UK businesses that included PA Consulting, Leonardo, Leidos Innovations UK, and Marshall Land Systems.
The first stage of the project was intended to deliver replacement vehicle and soldier-carried systems to active operations, sourcing technology from outside the traditional defence industry.
The programme passed its Critical Design Review in summer 2025, which acted as a formal checkpoint to ensure a system’s design is feasible and ready for production.
Whatever system is introduced, it is intended to be upgraded throughout its service life, a practice not unheard of in the EW segment, where adversaries can change frequencies and methods they use to detonate devices or control drones at short notice.
On 16 June, Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness at the Ministry of Defence, confirmed that the “planning assumption for service entry” for the dismounted, soldier worn Project Crenic system was 2028.
In 2022, it was stated that the first deliveries of the Project Crenic counter-IED systems would take placed in 2026, with a view to incrementally evolving protective capabilities as required.
With the service-entry set for 2028, it will now take a minimum of six years from contract award to fielding.
Typically, a body-worn counter-IED jammer is a compact, man-portable electronic warfare (EW) system used by dismounted infantry and special forces to protect foot patrols.
These wearable EW jammers generate a radiofrequency (RF) bubble around troops, blocking signals used to remotely detonate explosives.
“Project Crenic is developing life-saving protection for UK military through new software-defined systems designed to detect and jam radio signals used to trigger improvised explosive devices,” a UK Ministry of Defence spokesperson told Army Technology.
IEDs: a historical threat
The threats of improvised explosive devices have long been present on operations, particularly during counter-insurgency deployments, offering non-state actors the best asymmetric way to target personnel.
In the Iraq (Operation Telic) and Afghanistan (Operation Herrick) deployments in the 2000s and 2010s, the British military sustained thousands of casualties on operations, and over 600 fatalities across the two conflicts.
In Afghanistan, of the 457 British military and civilian personnel who lost their lives during deployment, nearly half (224) were killed as a result of IED strikes, according to the National Army Museum.
