A discussion begun in a different thread pointed out that Ukraine’s successful naval drone strike on a Russian warship has got to be causing the navies of the world to take notice. The principle of a ‘fire ship’ that rams into a more valuable vessel is nothing new, but the ability to do so using remote control of a relatively inexpensive drone boat is relatively new.
It seems like a number of advancements in weapons technologies - long range anti-ship missiles, sophisticated torpedoes, and now drones are making surface vessels look like expensive and obsolete toys. That said, I’m sure the US Navy is well aware of the aforementioned threats and have likely been figuring out ways to deal with them for some years now. Perhaps someone with a naval background can weigh in.
I doubt it. The Navy will come up with some kind of anti-drone technology. Surface search radars, listening devices, and small cheap missiles that can blow the drones out of the water most likely. I doubt that will change the dynamics of warfare all that much regarding navies in general.
Perhaps some kind of system for, I don’t know, projecting (?), some kind of small, dense objects towards the drones. It might even be possible to make these “projectable” objects carry a smaller explosive payload, so they can blow up the drones.
Crazy idea, I know, but we either give this a go, or we stop fighting wars or some such nonsense.
The US Navy and therefore NATO & Japan have already been working on this.
The biggest worry for the US Navy remains torpedoes.
They feel detection and destruction of drones is doable with current tech.
I will go digging if desired for cites. But I keep up on this.
The other big worry is superfast missiles, but thus far they seem to be more a claim than a reality. The Defensive Lasers are expected to handle these, but there is a fear the missiles become reality before the lasers are up to the job.
Currently the best missile defense is still the Phalanx Machine Guns. These are about 40 years old now and keep improving. They fire basically 3000 heavy high speed shells per minute and can go as fast as 6000. If the Radar detects the missiles, these defensive guns have a pretty good chance to knock the missiles out.
What we have to remember is the US Navy is the best in the world and the Russian surface fleet is very dated and not at all 1st world quality. My understanding is the sub fleet is still a legit threat.
Scenario: the US Navy sends a carrier strike group to respond to a situation occurring in the Persian Gulf. The CSG consists of: a big carrier, two guided missile cruisers, an attack sub and three Arleigh Burke class destroyers.
How does the group protect itself from: diesel subs, attack aircraft, anti-ship missiles, and both air and aquatic drones?
That fleet would also include 2 submarines. Don’t leave them out.
Attack Aircraft are fairly easy. The Squadrons off the carriers and fleet’s Aegis system will handle them with relative ease. Anti-Ship missiles will be dealt with by the fleets Aegis using Phalanx CIWS & Anti-missile-missiles and soon defensive lasers. Drones fall into the same category.
Quiet Subs are the biggest worry delivering high speed advance torps. I know NATO is working on this, but they have been since the beginning of NATO and before. The Navy is happy to show off their surface defenses, they keep Torpedo defense’s close to the vest. The last ditch defense for the Carrier, is sacrificing subs, frigates, & destroyers.
What I do know they’re working on is anti-torpedo drones to launch and take the hit. Torpedo bubbles to protect the hull below surface.
Isn’t the difference between drones and torpedos blurry? And I guess it will become more and more so. My feeling is that we are in a time when due to technology the attacker on sea has an advantage, while the advantage on land is on the side of the defender.
I fear hallucinating computers’ friendly fire, you never know what they will shoot at.
I was talking about surface drones. I think that was the subject of the OP based on the Post that inspired this thread.
Subsurface Drones are a different story. Then it is about detection and follows the same worries as a torpedo.
I’m going to say this one more time in a slightly different way. Judge not the threat to the US Navy in war by the Russian Surface Fleet. Those are old and dated ships with poorly trained crews.
There was the attack on the USS Cole, very simple means, not enormous damage, but a big propaganda success. Don’t know whether that counts as relevant in strictly military terms.
The US Navy’s defensive weapons aresenal also has the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile, which has a 10 Km range and can engage any target a Vulcan Phalanx can, including surface.
So if the surface killer drone is spotted, it can be splashed several miles out.
The main issue is not so much the lack of weapons systems or doctrine to handle future threats. It is more likely weak rules of engagement or surprise in forward-deployed naval forces. The Cole didn’t recognize a incoming small craft as an attacker.
I suspect the main threats that remain in a vessel under battle conditions would be drone swarm attacks or weapons that current sensor systems can’t detect or characterize fast enough for a prompt defensive response.
The general trend in the Ukraine war seems to be one of small, cheap weapons taking out big, expensive hardware. It’s fundamentally the same issue as cheap Javelins or drones taking out expensive tanks.
Personally, my gut feeling is that the big, expensive platforms are already obsolete, but that the US and other First World militaries won’t realize it until we start losing some of our own in these ways.
The ‘explosive motor boat’, which it what this is, is not new and has been around for 100 years (the early ones were wire-guided). You can chew these up with a Phalanx, or Goalkeeper, if you notice them coming in time. Typically the Russians seem to have been asleep at the wheel.
Sure, the general Russian level of incompetence makes them more vulnerable to attacks like this. But I don’t think America is immune. Even if we say that American defenses would be 99% effective at stopping cheap attacks like this, that doesn’t matter if the target costs ten thousand times or more than the weapon: The attacker is still getting a 100 to 1 cost ratio, which is ruinous for any remotely-close-to-peer opponent.
There is a LOT to this. As to airplanes, ships, and tanks. Small high lethality unmanned attackers that are cheap enough compared to their target to be fired in large numbers are a real game-changer.
Yes, every force has countermeasures and are constantly working to improve them. Whether that’s stealth and jamming for airplanes, CIWS and defensive lasers for ships, or reactive armor & lasers for tanks.
Historically long range and high accuracy were antithetical. Historically relatively low cost and high lethality given a hit were antithetical. Historically reliability and accuracy or price were highly highly antithetical.
The terms of those tradeoffs are changing very quickly and very favorably at a time when the target platforms have become almost unaffordably expensive and also simply irreplaceable in the sense that a real war will be over before the first replacements for any platforms destroyed on Day One could be delivered.
Swarming attacks of even modestly capable attack systems can and probably will overwhelm well-operated defensive systems. As the Russians have seen, as did the USS Cole, active defensive systems that are broken, unmanned, or obsolete don’t do much good.