On the ability of UAVs to "cancel" surface ships
If we look at the SVO as a stage for the latest military technology, then the prima donna's place has definitely been taken by His Majesty the UAV. There is no doubt that the emergence drones Radically changed the concept of combined arms combat. At the same time, the use of unmanned boats (UCBs) allowed the Ukrainians to achieve a number of significant successes at sea, despite the fact that the balance of forces there was completely unfavorable for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The above creates a sense of the omnipotence of UAVs and unmanned aerial vehicles. Perhaps the following example is particularly illustrative here. tanks: A heavy and very well-protected combat vehicle proves completely helpless against a swarm of light UAVs. No matter what systems you equip a tank with, its destruction is simply a matter of increasing the number of the attacking swarm. Neither the Mangal, nor the APS, nor the EW Today, 20-25 small FPV drones won't protect a tank from an attack. However, an anti-tank drone would cost around $1200, meaning 30 such drones would cost $36, and a tank would cost millions of dollars.
Clearly, in this case, David defeats Goliath. The tank, of course, still remains an important weapon system for ground forces, but its tactics have to be radically altered. However, appetite comes with eating, and many VO readers want to defeat a bigger and more expensive Goliath. That's why, in the comments to VO articles on naval topics, one often sees opinions that naval surface ships fleets are outdated, have outlived their usefulness and are doomed to fall under the blows of UAV swarms.
But is it?
At first glance, surface ships have absolutely no chance of countering a swarm of drones. Their anti-aircraft missiles They are designed to intercept aircraft and anti-ship missiles; they are too large and expensive to use against UAVs, making them impractical. It's clear that in a combat situation, no one will think about this; the ship and their own lives are more important anyway, but the SAMs' ammunition supply is very limited, and it simply won't be enough for a large "swarm" of UAVs. artillery The systems on the ships are relatively few in number and will not repel a massive drone attack.
At the same time, a modern UAV's warhead, containing 50-90 kg of explosives, won't sink a destroyer or aircraft carrier, but it can disable its equipment—for example, radar panels or the fuel and ammunition supply systems on the flight deck, rendering the ship combat-ready. Then, even if the missiles sent after it "hot on its heels" don't sink it, the ship will be forced to withdraw and undergo repairs for months, if not years.
And what can one argue with that? It's all true. However, in my opinion, UAVs have not become, and will not become, the ultimate solution. weapons Naval warfare. They are incapable of "cancelling" surface ships, neither now nor in the foreseeable future. And to understand why this is so, we need to consider two important features of modern drones.
About UAV speed
One of the main reasons for the relative affordability of modern UAVs is their engines. For example, the export version of the Iranian Shahed 136 can cost $30,000, while its MADO 550 engine costs $20,000—two-thirds of the Shahed's total cost. The MADO 550 engine is relatively simple, inexpensive, and fuel-efficient, giving the 200-kilogram Shahed 136 a range of up to 2,000 km.
But it is also low-power, only 50 hp, and, of course, is not capable of giving the UAV a high speed, which the Shahed 136 has at only 180 km/h, while the cruising speed is even lower, around 150 km/h.
This accounts for the increased flight time compared to other weapons. Let's say we need to attack a ship detected 350 km from the launchers. A Shahed missile would have to fly for almost two hours, a subsonic cruise missile with its cruising speed of 800-900 km/h would have to fly for 23-26 minutes, and a hypersonic anti-ship missile with an average enroute speed of 5,000 km/h would cover the same distance in 4 minutes and 12 seconds.
Accordingly, modern UAVs have flight times several times, if not an order of magnitude, longer than those of missiles. And nothing can be done about this, because increasing the UAV's speed would require a completely different engine, which would require a completely different fuel supply, and all of this would have a negative impact on the drone's size and cost.
I'm not saying that half-drones, half-missiles are unnecessary. Today, our country produces, for example, such an interesting munition as the Geran-5, capable of reaching speeds of up to 600 km/h. And the warhead has almost doubled in weight—90 kg versus 50 kg for the Shahed. But at what cost?
Its range is 900 km, or 1000 km according to other sources—a drop of almost half that of a full-fledged cruise missile, despite the Geranium 5's dimensions being very close to those of a full-fledged cruise missile. Obviously, the cost of the Geranium 5 is significantly higher than that of the Geranium 2 (the Shahed's equivalent).
Do we need the Geranium 5? Of course we do. The Geranium 5 may be similar in size to the Kalibr cruise missiles, but its production costs are significantly lower—it has a cheaper engine, a less complex guidance system, and is much lighter. Clearly, the Geranium 5 has its tactical niche: hitting targets that are sufficiently protected from the Geranium 2, but don't require or justify the use of a full-fledged cruise missile.
I'm citing the Geranium 5 as an example not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it perfectly illustrates the point: if we try to give a UAV the properties of a cruise missile, we'll end up with a cruise missile, not a UAV. Given its size, production complexity, and cost, creating a Kalibr, let alone a Zircon, with the Geranium 2's dimensions and price is as impossible as creating a Formula 1 racing car priced like a Lada VESTA (although AVTOVAZ is working on it, and with some success).
The simple conclusion is that if we want to attack the enemy with a large number of drones, then these drones will take a long time to reach the enemy.
About UAV guidance systems
All existing UAVs can be roughly divided into two categories. The first category includes those similar to manned aircraft, and they are distinguished by their reusability. Such UAVs are designed to reach the enemy, fire their munitions, and then return to the airfield or runway—and repeat this cycle until they are shot down or the fighting ends. Examples of such UAVs include the Turkish Bayraktar and the Russian Okhotnik.
The second category of UAVs is a type of flying munitions and is essentially disposable. The purpose of these UAVs is to reach their target and deliver a direct hit. The most prominent examples of this category are our Geran and the Iranian Shahed. Some models of these "kamikaze" UAVs can be equipped with self-defense systems, including short-range air-to-air missiles, but this doesn't change their core purpose.
Moreover, the overwhelming majority of comments suggest attacks on naval formations using Category II UAVs. Let's talk about them.
Perhaps the most obvious guidance system is found in FPV drones. In fact, the name itself is self-explanatory, as FPV stands for First Person View. The drone operator wears special goggles or a helmet, and the FPV drone's cameras become their eyes. For drones with a range of 5-10 km, nothing more is generally required. Perhaps a thermal imager, so that they can operate not only during the day but also at night.
However, for UAVs designed for long-range mischief, cameras alone are certainly not enough. In fact, the first prototypes of these drones had no optical cameras at all, as they were seen as a cheap alternative to cruise missiles designed to hit stationary targets. And for this, a UAV doesn't need much intelligence—it's enough to understand its position in space, which a simple GPS navigator would suffice.
But a GPS navigator is not a panacea. To accurately navigate, it needs to "see" four or more satellites, which isn't always possible when flying at low altitudes. Short-term signal loss, mountains, and, in some situations, even urban development can also interfere. Furthermore, the enemy can employ electronic warfare, including so-called "spoofing," which allows the UAV to receive signals it perceives as satellite signals, but which are not actually satellite signals. This distorts the UAV's position, and it fails to engage its targets.
Therefore, in UAVs, the GPS navigator is combined with an inertial guidance system (INS). It should be noted that INS have been used in missiles for a very long time. Its advantage is that an INS is completely autonomous, so its operation cannot be influenced from the outside. Its disadvantage is that without external correction, an INS always operates with an error that accumulates over its operation. Accordingly, the further a missile, guided by an INS, flies, the greater its deviation from the target will be.
A method for compensating for this INS deficiency was devised back in the last century. To correct this, a radio altimeter was used to scan the terrain over which the missile was flying, and then the resulting terrain "picture" was compared with the flight map loaded into its electronic "brains" before launch. This allowed the missile to independently and autonomously refine its spatial position and thereby correct the accumulated INS error. The missile's route was also planned so that it passed over several "reference points" during its flight, where terrain features allowed for precise location confirmation.
But for a UAV, such a system would probably be too complex, while a combination of INS and GPS is "cheap and cheerful," which is just right. However, the system described above has two significant drawbacks.
Firstly, the INS + GPS guidance system can only engage stationary targets, such as buildings and structures or, in the naval context, a docked ship. However, it cannot, in principle, engage a ship at sea, because no one knows where the ship will be when the drone approaches.
Secondly, given the use of electronic countermeasures, even against a stationary target, the combination of INS and GPS will not always ensure the required accuracy.
Therefore, modern UAVs are supplemented with INS and GPS cameras and thermal imagers. The operating principle is as follows: using INS and GPS, the drone approaches the target area. The cameras are then activated, and there are two options. In the first, guidance is performed by the operator, who takes control of the UAV. In the second, things are more sophisticated: the operator quickly scans the area, selects, and marks a target for attack. For example, a stationary radar might select its radar surface as a target. Then, the drone's guidance is performed automatically, using artificial intelligence (AI).
The advantages of this design are obvious. Firstly, the UAV's accuracy and selectivity are significantly improved. It can now be deployed not only into a structure but also into a specific element. Secondly, the UAV can be used against not only stationary but also moving targets. And thirdly, the camera and transmitter are significantly less expensive than a traditional radar-based homing head. This, incidentally, is something the missile must carry and consumes considerable energy, further increasing the missile's size, weight, and cost.
Disadvantages as a continuation of advantages
However, it's important to understand that no advantage comes for free. The INS + GPS + optics system also has its fair share of drawbacks. Guidance is difficult at night, visibility is limited by weather and atmospheric conditions, and the main drawback is that guiding the drone using optics eliminates the "fire and forget" principle. To guide the drone to its target, there must be a stable communication channel between the drone and its operator. Here, we have two options.
Option No. 1 - radio control. This is the simplest method when using a drone at a relatively short distance. However, controlling a UAV at long range has two critical drawbacks. First, the UAV's signal is relatively weak, requiring a chain of repeaters in the air, and any disruption to this chain will result in complete loss of control of the drone. Second, such a system is unsuitable for attacking warships equipped with powerful electronic warfare systems.
Even in land combat, the use of electronic warfare systems less powerful than those on ships has necessitated the transition to controlling drones via fiber optic cable. While this method is perfectly acceptable for an FPV drone with a range of tens of kilometers, for a drone flying over seas at 500+ kilometers, maintaining those 500+ kilometers of cable in the air (it can't be placed on water!) is absolutely impossible.
Accordingly, the only thing left is Option #2: Using a global satellite communications system capable of providing broadband internet without any fiber optic communications. In this case, the UAV doesn't need to carry any cables, and jamming the communications is nearly impossible. Yes, we currently have a system that can jam Starlink, but its coverage area is limited—publicly available data suggests 20 square kilometers. At the same time, target acquisition can be achieved from a few dozen kilometers away; beyond that, the drone will operate on autopilot, and Starlink won't be particularly necessary.
Overall, Starlink is a fantastic solution for large drone swarms. It's great in every way, except for one thing: to use Starlink, you need... a Starlink. And how many countries have their own Starlink? Yes, there's Europe with its OneWeb, but that network isn't open to just anyone. There's China, which is building a Starlink-like system and will definitely build one someday. The problem is that building a Starlink is incredibly expensive, requiring both high technology and a massive satellite constellation. Starlink currently has approximately 10,783 satellites, while OneWeb has 654.
So it turns out that UAVs are a cheap weapon, and equipping them with a camera and satellite receiver is inexpensive, by missile standards. But building a space system that would make this "cheapness" possible is simply beyond the capabilities and affordability of many countries.
The Russian Federation is a good example here. The benefits and necessity of "space" broadband internet have never been questioned, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces' successful use of the Starlink communications system for military purposes is crying out for a domestic equivalent. And we have Rassvet.
Everything would be fine, but there are currently six experimental satellites and 31 production satellites in orbit. Thirty-two were launched, but one of the 16 launched in March 2026 has given up the ghost. Of the remaining ones, not all have reached their planned orbit, although, as far as I understand, it's possible they will.
A dozen of these satellites form an orbital chain stretching from the Arctic to Antarctica (or vice versa, but that's not important), roughly following the east coast of Africa and then across Eurasia. In the Western Hemisphere, the orbit passes over the ocean. The coverage is relatively limited, but the Moscow region is included. And so, according to A. Gritsenko, CEO of JSC "Northern Crown" Information Space Center:
When a subscriber is located in the Moscow region, this orbital structure will provide a total of up to 3,2 hours of radio contact per day. The maximum continuous radio contact time will be 52 minutes, and the maximum standby time will be up to 10,7 hours.
What does this mean? On the one hand, it means that even in its truncated form, Rassvet is useful for striking stationary targets in Ukraine. We simply need to time the launch of our UAVs so that by the time they reach the target, one of Rassvet's satellites is providing broadband communications over it. If our Geraniums are deployed to the attack area in a timely manner, a few dozen minutes will be sufficient to destroy a stationary target.
On the other hand, according to calculations by Rassvet's creators, 250 satellites will be needed to provide basic coverage. Compared to Starlink, it's a pittance, but when will we even achieve that? In 2023, the plan was to launch 150-180 satellites per year on 10-12 rockets starting in 2025. In fact, nothing was launched in 2025, and in 2026, only two rockets and 32 satellites... I think we'll get our own space broadband internet sooner or later. But it's more likely to be late than early.
And so it turns out. The US has broadband internet, and China will have it, but European countries couldn't handle it on their own and have banded together to achieve their goal. We're just getting there, and we'll get there someday. What can we say about all the other countries?
So what if we don't have our own Starlink equivalent, what's left? That's right, we'll go begging for it. And, of course, some country friendly to the US and NATO will gain the right to use that same Starlink for military purposes. And they will, but only as long as the US and NATO consider that country friendly and its military goals responsive to the needs of the "golden billion." If, however, the country suddenly ceases to be useful, let alone enters into direct confrontation with NATO, then Starlink terminals will very quickly become useless, good only for bashing the helmets of enemy infantry...
Accordingly, building an entire weapons system on a resource that can be taken away at any moment is frankly a poor solution, and such considerations will undoubtedly hinder the creation of naval drone swarms worldwide. Especially since the current "holders" of satellite communications systems providing broadband internet—the US and Europe—have no real need for such swarms, as they still maintain maritime dominance.
But let's assume that wireless broadband internet becomes universally available one day. What will happen then?
On the problems hindering the successful use of UAV swarms against surface fleets
Today, all esteemed readers of "VO" can be roughly divided into two groups. The first group is convinced of the omnipotence of space reconnaissance and believes that enemy ships and naval formations can be tracked 24/7. The second camp knows that space reconnaissance is far from omnipotent and does not provide omniscience. But I'm not going to argue now whether one camp is right or the other. Let's consider the use of a drone swarm against a carrier strike group (CSG) in both scenarios.
Option 1 - we control the movement of the AUG. Let's assume we have a satellite system capable of tracking enemy ships' movements in real time. Then, of course, we'll be able to deploy a drone swarm of the required number to the AUG and overwhelm it. Defense and cause damage to its ships, including the aircraft carrier. But... Why, and most importantly, why?
Although the AUG is the fleet's most powerful multi-purpose formation (or rather, the AUS is the most powerful, but that's a scaled-up version of the AUG), it's by no means invincible. Strictly speaking, if:
1. The coordinates of the AUG are known,
2. The AUG is within range of our shore-based anti-ship weapons,
3. We have enough weapons to penetrate the AUG's air defense/missile defense.
The carrier strike group will be destroyed. And the question arises: why bother harassing the carrier strike group with drone swarms if we can simply destroy it with hypersonic anti-ship missiles? War is not a time for half measures. If there's a chance to either damage the enemy's ships or destroy them, the choice is clear: destroy them!
Here, of course, one could argue that drones are much cheaper than hypersonic weapons. But this low cost is only apparent, precisely because of the long flight time. If a carrier strike group reaches its attack point, say, 550 km from the coastline, then Geranium 2 missiles would have to fly well over three hours to reach it, and Geranium 5 missiles – over an hour (our launchers aren't located on the beach, after all). During this time, the aircraft carrier would have time to launch several groups of aircraft, which would carry out an attack regardless of whether we damage the carrier with Shahed missiles or not. However, a strike with hypersonic missiles, capable of traveling 600-700 km in 7-9 minutes, could hit the carrier strike group before it can launch its missiles. Aviation into the air, thereby preempting its attack. So yes, hypersonic missiles will be more expensive than drones, but they will inflict far greater losses on the enemy and, under certain circumstances, could disrupt its attack, "saving" us the loss of people and various assets that would be killed or destroyed during such an attack.
And here someone might object that yes, of course, it's better to be healthy and rich than poor and sick. And that hypersonic missiles are wonderful, but what about countries that don't have the money for them? To this I would answer that if a country has the money for its own space communications network with broadband internet and a second network of reconnaissance satellites capable of monitoring the ocean 24/7, then the money for hypersonic missiles will somehow be found.
Option 2: We do not control the movement of the AUG and can only establish short-term contact with it, the time of which, again, we cannot choose in advance.
In this situation, it would be useful to turn to the Soviet Navy's experience of "catching" enemy carrier-carrying groups that were conducting training missions off our Far Eastern coast in the 80s. And this experience was completely disappointing for drone swarms.
What happened? They detected the strike group's movement toward home shores, but lost contact. Our forces are being put on alert, including a regiment, if not an entire division, of the Pacific Fleet's naval missile-carrying aviation. Satellite reconnaissance is being intensified, reconnaissance aircraft are scrambled, ships are heading to sea, and those already at sea are being assigned new combat missions. The fleet is forming a "hunting net" to detect the naval formation of our "sworn friends" from another continent.
But the enemy is cunning; it knows the transit times and orbits of our satellites and hides from them. It also manages to evade reconnaissance aircraft. But it's not omnipotent, and the sonar system of one of our submarines managed, albeit at the extreme range, to identify the noise of a nuclear aircraft carrier.
AUG found!
And then, with all possible and impossible speed, a regiment of Tu-22M3 missile carriers, which had been waiting for the signal to “take off at low start,” that is, in full readiness for takeoff, takes off into the air.
And he goes to greet his dear guests, but it turned out... differently.
There were times when the "welcoming committee" literally fell on the heads of the Americans, who hadn't had time to prepare for it. But there were also times, and more than once, when our missile carriers approached the area where the strike group was supposed to be, only to find only empty sea and civilian transports. And there were also times when our missile carriers even ran into the "welcoming committee"—enemy carrier-based fighters. The Americans had a tactic: they used not one, but two aircraft carriers, one operating completely covertly, while the other allowed itself to be "discovered." Then the "discovered" carrier would evade attack at full speed, while the second scrambled its Tomcats and F/A-18s and met our aircraft in the air...
In other words, it was a game of cat and mouse, with both sides losing. About half the time, we won, but the other half, the Americans did.
Now, remembering all this, let's ask ourselves a question. If an entire regiment of Tu-22M3s, capable of flying to the carrier strike group's location at transonic speeds and armed with highly powerful onboard radars capable of detecting an aircraft carrier at a range of 200-300 km, often failed to cope, then what chance would a swarm of Geranium 2s, with a cruising speed of less than 200 km/h, or even Geranium 5s with their 600 km/h and optics, have?
Of course, all of the above applies not only to flying drones, but also to unmanned boats, or BECs.
It's important to understand that surface ships in general, and aircraft carriers in particular, can afford to operate openly, relying solely on brute force, only against countries with patently weak and insufficient naval capabilities. In all other cases, they operate on a "hit-and-run" basis, meaning a quick and stealthy approach to the attack line, a strike, and an equally quick retreat.
Final World
Their long flight times and relatively modest homing systems allow UAVs to remain inexpensive, thus ensuring their proliferation. This is an inevitable evil, the eradication of which would transform UAVs into cruise missiles. But it is precisely these inherent qualities of UAVs that prevent them from becoming the ultimate weapon of naval warfare, which they will likely never become. And UAVs certainly don't have the power to "zero out" surface ships.
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