Will the Navy build a fire support ship that includes drones as part of a wide-ranging arsenal? Why am I getting Arsenal Ship vibes with tail fins, chrome, and more marketing?
This is interesting, to be sure:
As the Navy seeks to accelerate its “drone” explosion, the service continues to contemplate a wide range of weapons applications and operational formations for unmanned systems…..one of which could involve the creation of an armed, maritime “mobile fire base” capable of employing a wide range of sensors, countermeasures and weapons as needed in surface warfare.
How would it be equipped?
Tomahawks, torpedoes, over-the-horizon missiles, 5-inch guns and SM-3 interceptors might all integrate onto and arm a single, mobile surface drone warship … capable of merging reconnaissance missions with defensive and offensive weapons operating under human supervision.
This concept seems like the old Soviet "heavy aviation cruisers" designed to evade Turkish Strait limits on aircraft carrier passage. While it had a lot of weapons that made the aviation element a minor part of its firepower, it is still a massive concentration of power in a single hull.
In an era when big expensive ships are targets and we should be working to mass effects from networked smaller vessels, subs, aircraft, and shore batteries, we get a proposal for an expensive Arsenal Ship with better marketing (DRONES! IT'S UNMANNED!) that is simply another high-value target for an enemy. It in no way supports this concept (back to the initial article):
This thinking related to better “arming” the surface fleet goes back to 2015 and before when the Navy launched its “distributed lethality” concept, a strategy intended to much more fully arm surface warships with short and long-range weapons, layered defenses and targeting systems.
What is distributed about one more high-value target? Distributed lethality is network-centric and not platform-centric for the purpose of massing effects.
If the Navy wants drone carriers with or without other weapons and systems, make cheap crewed auxiliary cruisers using containerized systems with or without a drone flight deck that creates a CVE that can be sent to sea in larger numbers.
NOTE: The image was made from DALL-E.
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