Ukraine's attacks on Russian ships docked in Crimea have proven remarkable effective—and apparently unstoppable:
Russia has moved powerful vessels including three attack submarines and two frigates from Sevastopol to other ports in Russia and Crimea that offer better protection, according to Western officials and satellite images verified by naval experts.
....The move represents a remarkable setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose military seizure of Crimea in 2014 marked the opening shots in his attempt to take control of Ukraine. His full-scale invasion of last year has now boomeranged, forcing the removal of ships from a port that was first claimed by Russia in 1783 under Catherine the Great.
This is an isolated incident, and it features ships at dock. On the other hand, Ukraine is not exactly a major military power. It makes you wonder about the sustainability of modern navies in the face of masses of cheap drones.
"Ships at dock" is probably a temporary inconvenience to the idea that large numbers of drones might neutralize a sizeable "traditional navy."
When we (and they) perfect inexpensive submarine drones, the change in naval strategy will be permanent and irrevocable.
Well for the time being... masses of cheap drones can't really get our actually modern navy, which spends a ton of time at sea.
I also wonder if this in-port experience would translate to non-Russia countries at non-occupied ports.
That is a major lesson of this war. Someone in the Pentagon said something like, "We're learning that quantity has its own qualities."
Don't think this is going to stay in war zones. I'm waiting for the first drone bombing of an adulterer or similar, there is going to be a huge civilian market for drone defense once enough people see those FPV drone attack videos... There is going to be a new, ugly violence trend to deal with.
So school-shooters could move on to drone attacks on their fellow students? Wonder how traceable these things will turn out to be.
Well, I guess we will all need drones. After all, it takes a good guy with a drone to defeat a bad guy with a drone. Teachers will need to have their own drones and drone defenses will need to be set up around all schools and sporting events.
And my thoughts and prayers to all innocent people killed in drone attacks. But now isn’t the time to talk about new laws and regulations.
"I'm waiting for the first drone bombing of an adulterer or similar, there is going to be a huge civilian market for drone defense . . . "
Oh, it'll be worse than that. Not long after self-driving cars become the norm, we'll start to see self-driving car bombs.
Drones and self-guided machines of all sorts will remove what is currently a major barrier to violence: the would-be perpetrator has to place themself in harm's way. But as that changes . . .
Russia doesn’t have a modern navy. I’m sure our navy guys are concerned about massed drone attacks, but there’s not lot to be learned from drama involving Russia’s basically off-the-shelf Cold War technology, run by incompetent crooks.
+1
We'll probably see a lot of extra smaller caliber anti-aircraft batteries added to armament for larger vessels à la flak curtains.
It is rather reminiscent of pre-Dreadnaught battleships, with all those secondary and tertiary and quaternary batteries designed to fend off torpedo boats.
Exactement !
In 2014 there was an argument that it was understandable Russia wanted to control Crimea and Sevastopol as they needed it to base the Black Sea fleet. This move underlines that they have other actual and potential fleet bases within Russia.
They do not have other naval bases that are anywhere near as large or well equipped as Sevastopol. Novorossiysk is the closest thing they have on the Black Sea and, not only is it not as well developed, it's not as good a natural harbor.
On the other hand, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is smaller now, and can make do with a smaller home port. Heh.
So, among the reasons for the Russian invasion were 1) preventing further NATO expansion toward Russia, and 2) establishing permanent control over and access to Sevastopol. The results so far include a new NATO member bordering Russia for hundreds of kilometers, and the loss of the use of the naval facilities at Sevastopol. Brilliant, Mr. Putin.
I think the broader narrative is that at scale, cheap, effective drones closes the gap in asymmetrical wars.
What if drones could be further miniaturized, maybe to the size of mosquitoes, and could be produced cheaply by the billions, and would carry lethal viruses which target certain characteristic of enemy troops?
We're moving one step closer every day to the world of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age."
Mass attacks don't need sophisticated equipment to be successful. My father was in the Korean war, and he said that the human wave attacks were terrifying. The enemy was not well equipped and they lost huge numbers of men, but they kept on coming.
He also said that the Germans trained for six years to be officers, but the US trained their own officers in six weeks, and the only reason that the US won is because there were more of us than there were of them.
I think he's wrong here about the reason that the Allies won WWII, but you can see what he was getting at.
Germans trained for 4 years to become officers until they switched to a 2 year program in 1937.
“Despite the problems mentioned above, standards for the training of officers in the German army were extremely rigorous during the interwar period. Becoming a fully qualified junior officer in the Reichswehr took approximately four years, and this training program continued during the Nazi era.
…
This training system was continued until 1937 when a shorter two-year program was put into effect, but the stringent requirements for obtaining an officer’s commission were retained.”
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Online-Exclusive/2021-OLE/Arensdorf/#:~:text=Despite%20the%20problems%20mentioned%20above,continued%20during%20the%20Nazi%20era.
Most of the US officers did a 12-17 week training program.
“ Combined, the first three produced less than half of officers during WWII. The most common pathway was an OCS program. Created in 1941, OCS turned enlisted men into officers through twelve- to seventeen-week courses.”
https://americansoldierww2.org/topics/assignment-promotion#
Also, both programs had the candidates serve as enlisted men for a period of time before starting the officer training. A minimum of six months for the German program. That time period is included in the 2 and 4 year time frames for the German training programs, but not counted in the time frames for the American one, so if that time period were included the process would be closer to a year time frame.
Pretty sure that the US beat Germany because we had a vastly larger economy, were nearly a decade ahead of them in technology by the time we entered the war, and had the entire industrial and resource might of North America safely in our back pocket, whereas the Nazis were trying to turn coal into gasoline to keep the wehrmacht fueled.
That, and waves upon waves of Russian troops were a big part of the equation.
My present opinion on why the Allies won WWII is informed by Phillips Payson O'Brien's book:
https://www.amazon.com/How-War-Was-Won-Cambridge/dp/110871689X
It is well worth reading.
The Russian approach to war is to inflict maximum pain upon the civilian population of Ukraine, while the Ukrainians are waging a war to shut down Russia's ability to get material to the front.
Guess which approach will win?
Why the Allies (and specifically, the USA) won WWII was told by Admiral Yamamoto to Emperor Hirohito before the war ever began.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/opinion/a-reluctant-enemy.html
I wouldn't say we were ahead of them in technology at the start of the war. We didn't have much of an army no real air force at the time. The navy was being built up.
Now we did have huge industrial capacity and a lot of raw materials...
Oh, maybe the quotes weren't real....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto%27s_sleeping_giant_quote
The huge industrial capacity and the reserves of raw materials were recognized by military people in Germany and Japan, but they struggled vainly to convince their politicians of the folly of dragging the USA into the war.
I remember reading something and it was quoting a German soldier after the war. He said (something to the effect of) that he knew Germany wasn't going to win when he saw the allies after the invasion and they didn't use any horses. He was amazed that they had such huge supplies of petrol that far from their own countries.
I read a surviving Japanese pilot's observations that toward the end of the war "...the very sky was black with American aircraft. There was no way we could win."
Today we multiply our numbers with incredible intelligence (satellite, drone, airborne radar, etc) and the ability to operate at night. Couple that to cruise missiles and drones and we only need ten guys at most.
(｡•̀ᴗ-)
Admiral Yamamoto knew there was no way Japan could win even before the Pearl Harbor attack. He warned the emperor of that, but the politicians were caught up in the momentum of their own ultranationalist rhetoric.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/opinion/a-reluctant-enemy.html#:~:text=Isoroku%20Yamamoto%20foresaw%20that%20the,would%20suffer%20ruinous%20air%20raids.
Victory disease.
Ukraine has occupied all the oil rigs in the Black Sea west of Crimea, Russia had apparently left those things entirely unmanned, which is where the drones are coming from.
They were also used by Russia as a radar web that could give warning to anti-missile batteries and vessels.
You'd think they'd have been more interested in defending them.
The fact of the matter is that Russia is strapped for material as much as Ukraine is, the distribution is just uneven. The technical know how and investment for maintaining, supporting, and operating a major surface asset is nothing to sneeze at. And it probably is sucking way too much away from the auxiliaries to defend them. It's a dilemma, support the big decks and risk them decorating the bottom defending points on a chart while your auxiliary craft molder ooorr risk your auxiliaries in a toe to toe fight that the Russians haven't been able to pull off since Kyiv.
And with the Crimean S400 batteries ineffective... there might be a sizable Marine campground somewhere in the south of the Russians aren't careful.
Unfortunately, Russia is threatening Ukraine grain ships.
Are they, though? They've only boarded one ship, soon after the grain deal had ended. Since then, multiple ships have gone into and out of southern Ukraine ports with grain. With Ukraine now controlling Snake Island and several offshore rigs, it's become a very risky choice for Russia.
That was the aim of the operations to displace the naval units out of Sebastapol. Now only stand off cruise missiles Kalibr and Zircon, can be used. And this is why the Ukrainiens have been bitching about air defense systems the whole time.
Ministry for the Future featured the concept of attacks using small rocks on huge numbers of drones, converging on the vessel from many different directions (3D), and thus essentially unobservable until just before they collide with the ship. I don't know if this is an accurately imagined thing, but it *felt* like it.
Speaking of how drones have revolutionized warfare, several weeks ago, the head of the Ukraine intelligence service said that Ukraine would seek out Russian troops everywhere in the world.
"At least 100 killed in drone attack on Syrian military academy"
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/drone-attack-homs-military-college-causes-large-number-casualties-syrian-state-2023-10-05/
Meanwhile in Sudan, https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/africa/ukraine-military-sudan-wagner-cmd-intl/index.html
It makes you wonder about the sustainability of modern navies in the face of masses of cheap drones.
Except that the damage done to the Russian fleet in Sevastopol wasn't produced with cheap drones. It was the result of attacks with very expensive Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
Cheap drones are absolutely changing the nature of war along the front lines, but those drones don't have the range to be a threat to enemy naval bases. The only use of cheap drones in Crimea has been the first wave of an attack on an S-400 air defense system, in which drones launched by local partisans destroyed the radars before cruise missiles took out the launchers. It's the effectiveness of those partisans, and the ability of the Ukrainian intelligence services to supply them with the drones, that should have the Russians really worried.
You're right about the Storm Shadows, but the drone boats have worked well too.
This is not an isolated incident. This is a systemic neutering of Russian naval assets with the tools available. The largest Ukrainien surface asset is a 120' missile boat inherited from the Russians followed by three 110' patrol gun boats inherited from the US Coast Guard. Everything else is small and cannot operate in a missile environnement - hell none of these vessels can.
Using missiles, guile, drones, special operations, and some balls, the Ukrainien Navy has sunk a Guided Missile Battlecrusier, retaken Snake Island, degraded forward radar sites on oil rigs if not captured them, damaged several other large vessels, killed high level leadership and forced the rest to flee back to Rostov, and eliminated the utility of the Black Sea repair drydocks at Sebastapol. The Western Black Sea is not completely the Ukrainiens' but it sure isn't the Russians'.
Carrier task forces are used to project power. But most of the task force is used for force, i.e. carrier, protection. (a bit of an over simplification)
Think exponentially. Sure, its a few drones now with limited range and damage potential. In a world where you have a giant aircraft carrier holding a lot of eggs in the proverbial basket, I dont think it will take much looking at drones expanding capability in an exponential way. I mean, how long before some shitbag terrorist groups thinks about buying a DJI Mavic 3 Pro and flying it into a plane thats taking off.
At this point, the writing is on the wall for manned fighter planes, big fleets of boats and aircraft carriers. I would guess that a drone mesh attack method is being developed right now. Imagine 10000 drones each of which has an explosive payload? All flying together like a flock of sparrows, and I think the issues are pretty clear. What about 100,000? 500,000 deployed out for defense/offense could be pretty amazing.
Interesting times.
Yes, swarming will be the Next Big Thing. Not flying like a flock, though, but each on a unique vector, just to overtax target acquisition and tracking radars/optics.
Drones can be very effective but they are still relatively new in combat. They have a big weakness which is that they either need to be controlled remotely or by on-board software. An artillery shell or rocket propelled grenade doesn't have this problem.
I know the US military has come up with a lot of ways to detect and confound remote controlled drones. Those video feeds require a bit of bandwidth and that makes them vulnerable to detection and countermeasures. Those communications can also reveal the location of the operator.
Drones controlled on board are vulnerable to GPS spoofing and adversarial AI attacks. Current GPS systems are not particularly secure. It isn't that hard to generate a signal that distorts the location. A lot of major actors have been testing these systems. Having the on board software find the target requires some sophistication, but the kinds of algorithms that can be run in real time on board are limited.
It's like everything in warfare. The German blitzkrieg of the late 1930s was unbeatable. Now, blitzkrieg like advances are called exposing one's flanks. Tanks used to be unstoppable. Then came RPGs. Then doctrine changed and tanks worked with infantry, remote artillery and now drones. The low price of drones is deceptive. A low price gets one low range and limited payloads, so it makes sense for artillery spotting, but you still need that artillery. A swarm of drones has to be coordinated, and that opens up all sorts of vulnerabilities.
The US has been fighting some war or another for decades now. The downside is that we've been fighting some war or another for decades now. The upside is that we've been keeping up to date on how to fight wars.