UAVs

[Spinflight]

Whilst it is fun to look at the platforms that no doubt someday will fly from our carriers and helo pads has anyone really thought about how UAVs will affect the role of shipping when used against them?

A2AD is usually thought of in terms of double digit SAMs and Russian behemoth antiship missiles. The high end capabilities.

What though of cheap and plentiful UAVs used in a classic choke point scenario?

Potentially a UAV could provide targeting for shore batteries for instance. It wouldn't take many 152mm hits to mission kill a billion pound destroyer. Probably one.

Also a UAV with a radar reflector could easily be used to mimic a helicopter, some of which can carry ASMs. It isn't a huge stretch of the imagination to see that a swarm of cheap UAVs could empty the VLS silos of a destroyer leaving it almost defenceless against a proper attack.

For instance you can buy a jet powered remote controlled aircraft for a relatively paltry sum, $1000 or so. You can even get them looking just like a Su-34 or whatever model you choose. How would a frigate or destroyer picking one of these up inbound, possibly optically, react?

Or even similar technology used to actually attack. One of the curious statistics to come out of the second world war was that the 50 cal was the most effective anti ship weapon employed. The vast majority of warships were unarmoured hence fighters could literally plug them full of too many holes to plug. If a ship has 32 missiles available plus a medium calibre gun then sending 50, 50 cal armed drones would presumably mission kill the ship even if it did no damage. The nearest port to replenish the VLS might be thousands of miles away.

I doubt any modern warship outside of the Kirovs would react terribly well to mere heavy machinegun fire given the position and vulnerability of the sensors and the thin construction of their hulls.

I don't think it's even a given that bandwidth issues, EW and range make this implausible. Auto pilots, optical recognition etc could make such a system emission free and autonomous, merely searching for the shape of a particular class of warship. A drone large enough to carry a 40kg payload isn't particularly large. In fact our heavy and very expensive ASw helicopters might be vulnerable to such a system too.

Interesting to think though that our capital ships of the past would laugh off such a threat, whereas our capital ships of today might well be extremely vulnerable.

[WhitestElephant]

Good topic. I wonder, does the 5" or 4.5" have any air burst munitions? That would make short work of UAVs.

[Spinflight]

They certainly have VT, though of the two the 4.5 is much more focussed to AA. Or was, the RN doesn't train to use them as AA anymore.

The 5"/62 Mod 4 that we've bought is sold as the Maritime Indirect Fires System ( which tells you it's more NGFS focussed) and was designed to be used with ERGMs, though despite numerous programs no-one has got them to work.

Basically US doctrine doesn't rely on the gun for AA, now we've got their guns I'm not sure what it means for us.

[shark bait]

A network of cheap plentiful drones could be extremely valuable if they can exhibit swarm tactics autonomously.

If implemented well, a single operator could geofence a large area and monitor it though his swarm of drones. That could massively increasing the sphere of influence for a frigate, with a minimal manpower overhead. If the drones are consumable we have something to send into harm's way, possibly for targeting data for long ranged missiles.

As well as surveillance a cheap swarm could be used for attacking, I suspect mostly though deception, perhaps operating to create a lot of noise in the EM spectrum, making it harder for the enemy to find what matters.

An example of that could be sending a swarm at a hostile platform, and amongst it hiding a couple of anti ship missiles. If they look similar in the EM spectrum it could become worrying easy to overwhelm an air defence system. The drones don't need to be armed, but the situation may force the enemy to treat everything as if they are all heavy missiles.

How would a platform react to that kind of saturation attack?

Bandwidth certainly isn't and issue, because they would be doing most of the thinking and control onboard, only periodically checking in with each other if available. That means a EW counter measure is unlikely to be effective.

Missiles are an option, but could likley run out in a saturation attack.

Are lasers the only option? Or perhaps a bigger CIWS like the CTA 40mm?

[Frenchie]

Something like that but on a ship ?

http://www.armyrecognition.com/armoured ... et_uk.html

[ArmChairCivvy]

6 of those, under one central control (and independent, when required)
"CONTROLMaster 60 Command and Control stations. The CONTROLMaster family is based on the GROUNDMaster radars. The CONTROLMaster 60 provides more than 40 km coverage of stealth fighters and is instrumented up to 80 km."
would make a quite nice bde level system against UAVs and helicopters.

You would still need a layered system to deal with fast jet threats with missiles.

[Spinflight]

I'm not sure there is an option...

Is it really credible to expect our escorts to get close to land against such a threat? There's no use specifying increased standoff ranges, amphibious or NGFS logically demand operations close to an enemy shore.

I suspect the barrel life on these high velocity gun systems isn't that huge.