Sea warfare in the era of drones
If you can’t beat them – join them. There’s no question that the entire world’s military strategists are looking at the rampant use of drone warfare in the Ukraine to see how modern battles will be fought.
While casual observers see the switch to low cost drones as a eyebrow raising development – military experts realize it’s a radical re-thinking of a modern battlefield. One in which the large, powerful fighting tools of the past are quickly becoming nothing more than expensive, defenseless targets.
Just like we’re seeing in the Ukraine, instead of wanting a force of slow-moving tanks or a fleet of big fighting and support vessels, you can do a lot more with a ton of unmanned attack drones. It’s the difference between 3 big guys in a bar against 1000 little guys. The tactics of a small, expendable swarm can often overwhelm even the best defended capital ship by sheer numbers. We’re already seeing swarm technology being used to blanket an area. Ukrainian forces have driven a truck full of 117 drones, let them loose, and took out a up to 40 high-end Russian bombers before anyone could react.
Experts have pointed out it would be very easy to develop a system of 100’s of drones that would swarm a building or event with facial detection systems and assassinate key targets – completely autonomously and impervious to even radio jammers. All with off-the shelf parts for a fraction of the cost of normal military equipment. With hundreds of kill bots incoming all at once, it would be hard for any defensive service to protect their key assets from every single one.
The navy is taking note too – with smaller, modular fighting units.
The wish list is now simple: Rear Adm. William Daly, head of the Navy’s surface warfare division, wants to amass a large number of small, modular unmanned boats that can be quickly equip with payloads that fit in common containers and are designed to confuse and swarm the enemy.
The admiral rightly says the new hybrid fleet does not need to include large and/or exquisite un-crewed platforms. He is very clearly saying the old multi-million/billion dollar efforts are a thing of the past. The focus instead is on building lots of these craft very quickly and cheaply.
This isn’t academic, we saw the launch of a Mobile Ship Target (MST) here in Portland this year. It’s designed to mimic the electronic, shape, and other properties/signatures of just about any ship so the Navy can practice using various experimental munitions against it.
It’s a fascinating development – and a somewhat frightening new reality of the kind of drone warfare world we’re entering.
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