As I mentioned before, the face of naval warfare is changing. Meet Saronic – a ship building startup that already has $2.6 billion in funding and $500 million in government contracts to build a fleet of cheap, capable, fast to produce drone ships. The company is using cash from investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Joe Lonsdale to create autonomous boats capable of carrying cargo, weapons, or flocks of drones, along with the software for operating them. They started by buying small commercial boats and adding tech to them to prove out the concept.

It’s not just academic or specific to the Ukraine, these tiny ships that are already proving their worth. In early June, two U.S. airmen went down with their helicopter near the coast of Oman; roughly two hours later, they were rescued by 5th Fleet’s drone-focused Task Force 59—using one of Saronic’s Corsair USV drone ships. It was a Navy milestone, and possibly a world first. 

It’s far more than just search and rescue. The war in Ukraine is proving that large multi-million dollar capital ships are vulnerable to sinking by small, homemade $2000 drones packed with explosives. The other achilles heel of smart weapons is that they usually cost millions each and take a long time to produce. They work great for short, strategic engagements, but as the war in Ukraine points out, they simply cannot be produced in quantity fast enough over long periods of time in prolonged conflicts. That’s why the US military is looking at fast to produce, disposable, highly capable drone technology like Saronic who can create whole small fleets of hunter-killer boats for fractions of a capital ship.