Safeguarding against maritime drones

By Nat South and first posted at Livejournal

Ed Note:  This is how important this study by Nat South is.  Just a few hours ago from the Russian MoD: 

Last night, the armed forces of Ukraine made an unsuccessful attempt to attack the patrol ship “Sergey Kotov” of the Black Sea Fleet, which was conducting navigation control tasks in the southwestern part of the Black Sea (370 km southwest of Sevastopol), using two high-speed remotely controlled unmanned boats.

During the defense against the attack, both enemy remotely controlled boats were destroyed by fire from the standard weaponry of the Russian ship at distances of 1000 and 800 meters. There were no casualties.

The patrol ship “Sergey Kotov” of the Black Sea Fleet continues to carry out its assigned tasks.

The Sergey Kotov is our Featured Image.

Introduction

The technological nature of land and and sea warfare is unfolding at an unprecedented pace in Ukraine. Although a wide range of unmanned military systems have been developed for a while now, with the U.S. and China taking the lead in this field, these accomplishments have been somewhat sidelined as since 2022, the Ukrainian conflict has taken the limelight.

Key lessons of the Ukrainian conflict are being steadily grasped by militiaries and navies world-wide, (latest example in France).  This certainly the case for the use of purpose-built small fast watercraft by Ukraine, in their quest to strike back, albeit quite asymmetrically against a conventional naval force. The use of maritime drones is going to be a pivotal centrepiece in how naval combat is going to be shaped in the near future.

The threat made by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence (MoD) earlier last week, should not be taken lightly, given the use of various maritime drones, anti-ship missiles and other cruise missiles since April 2022.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —The tally so far for the deployment of maritime drones in the Black Sea region:

Ukraine USVs

• Six attacks on major ports
• Three attacks on naval ships at sea
• One attack on warships off the coast
• One attack on bridge infrastructure

Russian USV

• One attack on bridge infrastructure

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —  — — — —

This is an ongoing effort since September 2022, by Ukraine to curtail the operations and drastically limit the activities of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at sea, by using high-speed naval drones and missiles, such as the USV equipped with explosives.

The Russian Ministry of Defence identified “manufacturing workshops and storage locations of naval drones” in the Black Sea port of Odessa and its satellite port of Ilyichevsk, which Ukraine calls Chornomorsk, as the targets of the latest attacks. These places were subject to a coordinated series of Russian missiles and drones over several days.

Personally, I see it is essentially as a stopgap measure to stop the existing production of drones. This does mean that for a short time, Russia will have some breathing space, time to further consider measures to counteract the maritime drone threat. The unsucessful attack on the patrol ship ‘Sergey Kotov’, (25 July), shows that Ukraine still has the means to launch the USVs, despite extensive airstrikes on USV related infrastructure.

Necessary measures

So what can be done and what could be possibily done to counteract the maritime drone attack threat, (surface drone — USV or submersible version — UUV)?

A chapter is still being written, where the concept of a remotely-controlled boat has morphed from an improvised explosive-laden drone powerboats, (Iran, Yemen, Sri-Lanka), known as WBIEDs, to a customised, purpose-built, semi-submersible, which is also being actually crowd-funded.

The low profile and low radar signature configuration makes it much harder for conventional shipborne radar to detect them further afield. However, other designs were also used, such as a modified water jet-ski that was destroyed near to Sevastopol. These elements integrated in the concept of manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T), makes for a challenging set of scenarios. Future assortments of responses to such threats will likely to be also a MUM-T concept, along with eventual inclusion of AI processes along with machine-learning.

Port defence

There’s the traditional method of port / harbour defensive protection: booms, netting and small-arms positions.  Combined with observation points on land and air patrols, it is only useful for ports facilities that have a naval presence in specific areas.

The high profile USV attacks on Sevastopol in October 2022 was quite a wake-up for the Russian Navy.   Russian naval authorities were obliged to take the necessary steps to protect its vessels in port and various port protection measures have also been place into for Arctic submarine base.

The various elements of a protective port infrastructure grew over time.  Although attempts have continued to attack the Russian Navy in Sevastopol and in Novorossiysk,  all have been successfully repelled to date.

Call it old-fashioned, the drones were destroyed by conventional firepower, mainly machine gun fire from harbour protection vessels and units around the harbour entrance.  Although not overly efficient since manually operated shipboard anti-aircraft guns are not best suited in quickly destroying fast and highly manoeuvrable low profile watercraft, using standard non-fragmentation rounds.  Various videos show this to be the case, highlighting the difficulty of tracking and calibrating quickly enough to deal with several incoming USVs.

What’s more, it was reported back in May that a DP-62 Damba system is also part of the defence infrastructure, (article), which is a sort of Grad rocket launcher. Other defence methods include rocket-propelled depth charges from ships at anchor, on picket duty in the harbour.

The swarm USV attacks have raised significant concerns not just in Russia, over the limited measures that can be currently taken against this type of threat, practically all the attacks were close range,

How to counter the USV threat at close range?

USV attacks on port infrastructure and on ships at sea, undoubtedly underscored the inherent difficulties, weakeness in current countermeasures available to navies and maritime authorities.

Potentially suitable, could be a hand-held mini-missile launcher pack, something  similar to the QN-202 Chinese system. Ironically, rocket-propelled depth charges were considered pratically obsolete as ASW weapons until now, might actually get a new lease of life against UUVs and to a lesser extent USVs, ( though largely impractical due to their high-speed and highly manouvrability).

Conversely, USVs can be used for harbour protection, as the U.S. Navy trialed a group back in 2016, as part of a swarm defence exercise, (article 2016).

There are two key technologies involved in swarming patrol boats. The first is the ability for the four patrol boats to share situational awareness taken from radar contact data, and the second is the ability of the boats to cooperatively make decisions.

The key words to take note is “situational awareness”.  Currently, the Black Sea Fleet has at its disposal, picket ships and boats off Sevastopol, along with early-warning aircraft, (principally ASW helicopters).

Another aspect of port protection is not readily visible, the underwater element is equally important,  including anti-diver defence units and patrols, along with underwater surveillance systems. Then there are also trained marine mammals, (Sevastopol has several dolpins pens visible near to the main port entrance).

The netting, layers of booms are really the absolute last resort in protecting naval ships in ports.  As the infographic timeline shows, that there has been several occasions where Ukrainian USVs have dodged coastal patrols and have come against the netting and booms, and in one situation, damaged a boom (as result of exploding against it).

Shipboard

The recent attack on the Kerch bridge have prompted further decisions to adopt further measures to prevent attacks from both USVs and UUVs. This also follows from at-sea attacks in May and June in the southern Black Sea, on the ‘Ivan Khurs’ and the ‘Priavozye, which managed to destroy the drones through small-arms fire, the latter more successfully with its automated close in weapon system, (CIWS).  However, these are actually a last measure against incomning USVs.

The USV attacks accentuated the overall vulnerability of ships navigating far from homeports. The ships didn’t incur any damage and the attacks took place in daylight or just before dawn.  Having either a portable system mini-missile launcher pack, or some kind of small anti-tank missile system, might also be useful as defence measures,  thereyby increasing the stand-off distance a little. These could be particuarly necessary for ships without CIWS.

Another system that could be a good contender in repelling swarms of USVs would be laser weapons. At the moment, this type of weapon is still mostly at prototype stage and also it remains to be seen how effective the systems would be, compared to a CIWS.

As I stated in a previous article, there is an vital need for an effective all round ‘shield’ for ships, (article).  This should include visual optical sensors, radar units and thermal imaging systems.

Moreover, hydroacoustic systems that can cover the USV and UUV frequencies should also complement the other systems. However, all of this is really last measures.  Ideally, as a matter of urgency, the development of an early-detection system needs to be implemented, to provide crucial time-critical data to command centres and ships.

Early-detection

Although the Ukrainian USVs were relatively ineffective against Sevastopol’s harbour defences, they are likely to be more effective against commercial ships trading with Russia or even Russian naval auxiliary ships. It isn’t a case of bluff by the Ukrainian MoD, if these USVs are used against commercial shipping near to Crimea or in the roadsteads off Kerch or Novorossiysk. This is where the urgent need for long-range early-detection systems becomes critical.

One of the reasons for Russia suspending the UN Grain Deal, is that the Russian MoD concluded that group of USVs were able to be launched under cover of the shipping route used by grain ships, which reduced the navigation time to the intended targets. There are also reports of purported use by Ukraine of unassuming motherships, in the designated Humanitarian Maritime Corridor.   This is another headache for maritime and naval authorities since the reaction time to deal with incoming hostile threats is shortened.

Sea surface clutter and low profile means that the Ukrainian USVs are difficult to detect using shipboard sea surface warning radar systems, with a limited detection range, (from 6 km to potentially 20 km depending on various factors, including the  power, meteorological conditions and height of the radar unit).

The current use and format of real-time, long-range sea surface sensors by the Russian military is unknown. It is difficult to ascertain how exisiting ASW systems, particularly airborne systems on helicopters, can also be effectively used round the clock, or at the very least, have a sort of Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) aircraft or large dedicated armed drone on standby, if suitable long-range systems detect incoming USVs or UUVs.

Suffice to say that continuous “Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance” (ISR) missions are premordial elements to have ample prior warning of incoming hostile maritime drones.   At the core of maritime situational awareness is

• radar,
• sonar,
• optronics
• and electronic warfare

These systems provide the necessary elements for detection, classification and tracking of various threats.

In areas that need specific monitoring, a consideration could be the use of picket ships, converted from fishing vessels with radar units containerised hydroacoustic sytems onboard, so as to extend the surveillance coverage by at least 6 km out to sea.

Electronic systems

Electronic warfare measures also have a vital role to play in preventing attacks, however, it can only be successful if drones can be detected early enough, to activate the systems that are in range.

EW products are able to interfere with command and control, GNSS and satellite communications and stop the transmission of USVs.

One means of detection was unveiled last week by the Russian company, Ruselectronics Holding.  It has developed a portable radar, the Mini-Radar,  capable of effectively detecting unmanned maritime drones at a distance of up to six kilometers. The unit weighs less than 25 kilograms, (including the rotating unit and batteries).  Originally designed to protect critical infrastructure from aerial drones, the units are reported to be adaptable for coastal use as well.

Camouflage

Since the Ukrainian USVs use a beyond-line-of-sight, (BLOS) navigation and steering, as such there is a human operator that controls the USV onboard camera.  However, it is not known whether these are autonomously navigated to a preset position, using GPS navigation, before control is done by a human operator.

Taking into account the last stage visual guidance and the frequency of pre-dawn attacks, this has resulted in the Russian Navy painting a kind of camouflage paint on the bow and stern of several ships in the Black Sea Fleet. Again, I stress that this really a last resort measure.

Not quite the disruptive camouflage patterns used in WW1 and WW2, as it is a more simplier configuration. This means the ship appear shorter from side on, and it would render the manual targeting more onerous, especially in low visibility. Likewise, the dark paint is also applied on the deck, as an apparent strategy to complicate detection by satellite imagery. Although, this would only be beneficial in the visual range, as IR or SAR-based satellite isn’t affected. Maybe this is done also to hamper time-critical visual tracking by aerial reconnaissance aircraft or drones.

Other means of defence

a. Hydroacoustic and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) systems

It is likely that timely detection of incoming Ukrainian USVs by conventional sonars could be problematic owing to the small size and shape.

This could be less of an issue with the use of dedicated seabed or coastal unit (passive sonar) systems, which itself is limited in range and scope.  Potentially, modified towed array sonar, (low-frequency active sonar), might be able to detect in the range of the frequency of USVs and UUVs, although this will require the  ships that can deploy these.  Multi-frequency ASW sensors can also be used.

As with oceanographical buoys, it could be possible to develop specialized warning buoys or types of undersea ‘sensors’ as part of an integrated coastal hydroacoustic system.

b. Airships and long-endurance aerial drones.

Maybe a solution to protecting specific areas could be the use of dedicated airships, just as they had a role in WW2 in monitoring and detecting sea threats back then.  Even tethered airships with onboard radar and infrared sensors could provide sufficient early warning coverage for ports and critical infrastructure. Likewise, long-endurance Aerial Unmanned Vehicles (UAVs), with relevant array of sensors, could also be vital in the ISR chain and early-detection measures.

These air patrols, combined with integrated surface and undersea sensors, integrated as part of an AI network, could be a formidable shield for ships and critical coastal infrastructures.

c. USVs and UUVs

Although USVs and UUVs are seen as a threat, they are can be used in a defence role, to remove the tediousness of human-operated patrols and also enhance sensor monitoring.  These would be specifically useful for designated restricted sea or water areas, such as anchorages, with a host (mothership) ship acting as a picket vessel or jointly integrated with coastal station.

d. Satellite imagery

Probably one of the easiest long-range measure as while as the  hardest one at the same time.  Even commercial imagery can be immensely useful if the timeframe lends itself, as well the range of launched of incoming USVs in the open sea.

This is the crux of the matter with imagery obtained in almost a real-time situation, with analysis, classification and reaction to likely threats done sufficiently promptly.  Satellites are highly effective for maritime surveillance,  if the information provided, is quickly accessible and passed on to command centres. To a certain extent, machine learning could provide the necessary insight, to speed up surveillance of anomalies, vessel tracks and behaviour and also detection of threats at a greater range.

Conclusion

There is a steep learning curve in the deployment of combat USVs and UUVs, as well as putting into place various countermeasures.   Certainly, high-spectrum IT and electronic technology, including AI will have a significant role to play in the future.  What is missing from the equation, is the willingness and readiness of high-level military command structures to acknowledge the threats in a tangible manner, and incorporate those technology incubators, that are paving the way in development technology equipment, in their development and procurements processess.

The current conflict clearly shows where drone technology is heading, evolving extremely rapidly. The initial design, testing of prototypes very often carried out by small groups of experts or and purposely created groups taking the initiative to develop the equipment and resources to cater for a demand on the battlefield.  It is quite possible that elements of USV and UVV countermeasures will take the same route.

Another major concern is how such small-scale systems and equipment could be subsequently copied, adapated and used by non-state entities, thereby widening the threat to maritime infrastructure and navies, even wider than it is currently.

The conflict is certainly a test bed for all kinds of equipment, tactics and integration of various hardware. Although the U.S. and NATO have developed USVs  and UUVs for a while now, Ukraine is the catalyst, not only by testing prototypes, but also learning from those actions against the Russian military, to subsequently advance certain concepts, actions and designs and then deploy them operationally in a relatively short timeframe.

The development and deployment of USVs in the Black Sea gives an insight on how such systems could be adapted and deployed on a level to influence events. However, this can only be an decisive advantage if unmanned systems are integrated with information sphere, to have full situational awareness.  This is partially the case, given that the U.S. and NATO provide a wide range of satellite data, moreover ISR flights regularly take place in the region, to provide Ukraine with the necessary intelligence.

By identifying and incorporating the essential technological elements, Russia could greatly enhance its capabilities to repel marine and air threats. However, the systematic bureaucratic constraints that impede such use of measures, need to be swiftly acknowledged and removed.

It is easy to say that low-end equipment is overwhelming the use of high-end equipment, such as is the case on the battlefield, (drone versus a tank or an USV versus a multi-million warship).  However, this assertion isn’t quite what it seems, because the low-end equipment do contain elements of high-tech, (e.g. remote-guidance, optics), and it is this hybrid that will shape parts of military tactics, including naval ones.

Taking into consideration the above mentioned factors as integral elements, (automation, maritime situational awareness, readiness to have tech incubators, hybrid equipment), are all jointly key to shaping the new naval battle space environment.

References:

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/CRIMEA/gdvzwrmrlpw/