The naval field is undergoing a transformation, with aircraft carriers and destroyers possibly becoming "things of the past."

Initial Results of the Special Military Operation: Changes in the Naval Field, Aircraft Carriers and Destroyers May Become "Things of the Past"

To win the ocean, it relies on unmanned boats, submarines, and... container ships

Naval confrontation was on the periphery during the Ukraine campaign, with little impact on the overall situation. Therefore, compared to the dominant position of drones on the land battlefield, the actions of maritime unmanned systems (more commonly known as "БЭКи") have received relatively less attention.

However, the operational effectiveness of maritime combat robots may be far higher than that of their aerial counterparts.

Certainly, the cost of maritime unmanned systems is higher than most drones, but it is still within the range of tens of thousands of dollars.

In contrast, even the cheapest escort ship among its potential targets has a cost of tens of millions of dollars; destroyers cost hundreds of millions of dollars; and cruisers or aircraft carriers can reach billions of dollars each.

More importantly, even escort ships are considered "single-piece production" scarce items, and their numbers are far fewer than land-based and air-based equipment—there is a gap in both quantity and scale. This not only keeps the absolute cost of ships high, but also causes the relative cost to continue rising: losing any ship is more costly than losing a tank or even an aircraft.

Maritime unmanned systems can carry powerful warheads (especially when compared to drones), so just a few of these unmanned boats can be sufficient to destroy a large combat ship. Looking back at the attack by suicide unmanned boats (controlled by suicide attackers) on the U.S. "Cole" destroyer in the Gulf of Aden will show this:

A single unmanned boat attack caused severe damage to the large ship, which eventually required a semi-submersible ship to transport it back to the United States for repairs. More notably, at that time, the suicide attacker made a mistake, only hitting the middle of the destroyer. If it had hit the bow or stern (where the Mk41 vertical launch system is located), it might have triggered missile detonation, causing the ship to sink.

Maritime unmanned systems are not only limited to being "suicide weapons." They can also be designed as reusable platforms, equipped with various missiles (anti-ship missiles, anti-tank missiles, air defense missiles, and even air-to-air missiles can be used in similar combat scenarios) and drones. This makes them fully functional combat units capable of effectively attacking surface, coastal, and aerial targets.

Ultimately, a fleet composed of maritime unmanned systems—low-cost and numerous—can not only paralyze the operations of the enemy's traditional navy and maritime trade, but also effectively resist enemy attacks due to their small size, speed, and onboard weapons.

Perhaps the only drawback of maritime unmanned systems is their limited range. However, in coastal areas, they can completely dominate, just like drones do on land and in shallow rear areas.

Certainly, some people may mention that torpedo boats during the two World Wars, and missile boats in local conflicts in the second half of the 20th century, achieved significant results in opposing large ships, yet did not "eliminate" traditional ships.

But the reason is that torpedo boats and missile boats are "man-controlled" equipment, their sizes are not particularly small (and at that time, air defense systems were very inefficient). Most importantly, their numbers never significantly exceeded "traditional" ships, so they did not cause a transformation in the naval field.

However, maritime unmanned systems can achieve mass production, and the trouble they bring to traditional navies is at least no less than the impact drones have on traditional air defense systems and ground forces.

Currently, maritime unmanned systems cannot counter submarines — this requires a completely different technical approach. Underwater unmanned equipment cannot be remotely controlled and must have full autonomous operation capabilities. At the same time, modern submarines, as targets, are extremely difficult to identify. Therefore, underwater unmanned equipment needs to rely on powerful advanced artificial intelligence systems for control. The development of such artificial intelligence systems will become a milestone breakthrough in military robot technology (whether in the maritime field or other fields).

Certainly, this breakthrough may bring unpredictable consequences for all humanity. But this kind of change is unlikely to happen in the short term, so submarines will still maintain their traditional combat mode for now. However, the concept of building surface fleets needs to be thoroughly reformed.

Certainly, if the United States, China, and some Asian countries still want to continue building traditional fleets centered around large aircraft carriers, that is their own choice. Russia does not have enough funds to waste, so it must take an extremely pragmatic attitude towards naval development, and resolutely curb the lobbying efforts of traditionalists such as naval officers and defense industry officials.

First, regardless of how maritime unmanned systems develop, underwater forces should always have absolute priority.

Currently, we still need to continue developing traditional attack submarines — whether nuclear-powered or conventional. As for whether strategic missile submarines are necessary to develop, this issue needs to be discussed separately.

Second, we must completely abandon the idea of building aircraft carriers for the Russian Navy. Russia currently lacks the foundation to build aircraft carriers: lack of funds, lack of professional personnel (both builders and crew), lack of technical experience, lack of production capacity, lack of escort ships (which must be built before aircraft carriers), and even lack of carrier aircraft. Most importantly, Russia has no actual demand for aircraft carriers.

Third, we need to immediately stop the construction plan for small missile frigates / destroyers. The construction of the 21631-class frigate seems to have exhausted us, while the construction of the 22800-class frigate continues for unknown reasons. More questionable is whether it is necessary to continue building the 20380-class frigate and its improved models.

The air defense capability of these frigates is extremely poor, their anti-submarine capability is almost zero, and their ability to counter traditional ships and maritime unmanned systems is also questionable, while their costs are quite high. Even before the Ukraine campaign, it was unclear what kind of war these ships were built for; now it is obvious — they cannot meet any practical combat needs.

Therefore, the Russian military command is thinking about how to deploy these already built ships: deploying them to Lake Ladoga? Or the Caspian Sea? The core demand is "as far away from any potential enemy as possible." The "practicality" of these ships is evident!

Evidently, during peacetime, we should focus on building patrol ships for coastal guard, which can be quickly converted into minesweepers in wartime; and all other nearshore combat ships and boats should be designed to be unmanned, with a priority on developing small, fast models (not necessarily suicide types).

At present, if Russia tries to develop long-range unmanned ships (the United States already has related plans), it is clearly unreasonable — the cost of such equipment may not be lower than traditional ships, and their reliability is likely to be lower.

In traditional ships, the Russian Navy only needs to retain frigates (such as the 22350 class or its improved versions), and should not develop larger ships anymore.

Additionally, Russia also needs to purchase dozens of large container ships (considering foreign-built ships, such as products from Asian countries), and through modification, make them into multi-purpose combat platforms: they can serve as helicopter landing ships, weapon storage ships (equipped with vertical launch systems with hundreds or even thousands of various missiles), and drone / maritime unmanned system carriers (this move can also expand the operational range of maritime unmanned systems to the open sea).

The cost of these modified ships is obviously lower, and their combat effectiveness is almost no worse than specially built counterparts. Frigates, submarines, and their onboard / airborne drones can jointly provide protection for them.

What will be the actual effect?... For now, let's wait and see.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7552853632035897875/

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