Can sea drones influence the littoral the same way as they dominate the Black Sea? ⬇️

Just before Christmas Beaten Zone Venture Partners advisor Keirin Joyce, GAICD, CPEng snuck in an interesting op-ed published on Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist site looking at the ADF’s progress in introducing uncrewed naval vessels. This is a good quick read and covers some exciting work underway locally on three vessel types.

Given the challenges Australia will have with both our surface and subsurface fleet over the next decade, it makes sense to accelerate and expand utilisation of uncrewed naval vessels of all types.

Ukraine shows what can be achieved with focus and resourcing of uncrewed naval vessels sovereign capability. Clever use of uncrewed vessels has virtually hamstrung the Russian Black Sea fleet and sunk or severely damaged several ships. Independent Defence analyst H I Sutton (find him on X under @covertshores) puts together a great infographic of all the different types of Ukrainian USVs – see below.

While the Indo Pacific littoral offers substantially different conditions to the Black Sea, there is the clear potential to leverage drones and uncrewed naval vessels to augment the ADF’s capability and indeed offset capability gaps.

📷 C2 Robotics Speartooth via Australian Strategic Policy Institute