Today the majority of most modern surface ships are based on a mixture of systems that met the requirements of naval warfare twenty years ago, where the threats were the so-called classic ones, ie enemy ship, enemy submarine and enemy aircraft.
This threat view was sorely tested on October 12, 2000, when in the Gulf of Aden, the USS COLE, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, was struck while refueling in port by a small polyester craft loaded with C4 explosives, in which two AL-QAEDA suicide bombers were on board.
This admittedly successful attack, lacking the high-tech elements of targeting and direction, nor the glamor of a strike from a top-of-the-line hypersonic anti-ship missile, was indeed quite similar to the prankster tactics of yesteryear.
The result of this attack was 17 crew dead and 37 wounded and as an incident it demonstrated the inability of the powerful ships of the time to defend effectively against early asymmetric threats as the damage to the ship was significant.
The first thing to do was clearly to increase tactical situational awareness, that is, for the commander to know immediately that the vessel is under threat and take appropriate action. In the field of lethality, significant improvements were made by upgrading existing systems and adding new ones. So we saw RAM missiles gain HAS (Helicopter, Airplane, Surface) capability, Phalanx CIWS systems receive the PSuM upgrade, with the addition of a FLIR sensor and a longer barrel, to deal with surface targets.
In the new systems, heavy machine guns and light guns in respective external manned armament stations to deal with fast craft began to slowly reappear. Evolution of these, are the modern Remote Weapon System (RWS), such as Kongsberg’s Sea Protector, which are now considered ESSENTIAL in any modern warship design.
Corresponding moves were made in every Western navy, since the warships were also assigned tasks of protecting commercial shipping in the context of anti-piracy operations.
Modern Warfare because developments impose the new reality
But again, the development of technology, since it is rapid, comes to create a problem for systems and organizations that have not learned to evolve or are not designed to do so.
Thus, in the modern battlefield, as reflected in the two most recent military conflicts, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Azerbaijan’s invasion of Armenia, drones of all kinds now play a dominant role.
From simple small ones like the DJI Mavic for reconnaissance, self-made, loitering munitions, to larger armed UAS and of course unmanned surface vessels, which are now in the spotlight, after the successful attack of the Russian frigate Makarov inside the port of Sevastopol, drones are the present and future of any war operation.Their relatively low cost and their ability to be quickly produced compared to conventional weapon systems, allow the use of adversary defense saturation tactics, combined with their ability to operate in a swarming regime.
The solutions provided in the past decades in the field of asymmetric threats are now obsolete precisely because of the overabundance of targets. The asymmetric threat is no longer only 5-6 boats loaded with explosives, but also another 40-50 targets of different capabilities.
Therefore, the new generation of warships entering or preparing to enter service will have to take these threats into account and of course adapt the mix of hard-soft kill weapon systems to deal with them. But the big bet for dealing with saturation attacks can be won with the use in the near future of Directed Energy Weapons, according to DEW world.
Directed energy weapons, the solution to asymmetric threats
Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) are a relatively new category of weapon systems, compared to the existing ones, and their essential difference is the use of energy as such. While in existing weapon systems any form of generated energy is used to propel a munition towards the target, in DEWs the energy used is itself the means of striking the target.
As an example, to date, to hit a target, we launch a missile whose engine burns fuel to produce kinetic energy that will carry the missile’s warhead precisely to the target, using complex control and steering devices. Even if we don’t launch a rocket, but simply use a cannon or machine gun projectile, the philosophy remains the same, as the propellant charge is required to burn in order for the projectile to gain kinetic energy.
The use of DEWs comes to change exactly that, to abolish the classic projectile form, utilizing highly focused energy as a means of destroying the desired target. Of course, the energy required for this does not come from burning any propellant. So we have the following categories:
1. Microwave Systems, which utilize a frequency range between 300 MHz and 300 GHz (wavelengths from 1 meter to 1 millimeter), thus producing highly focused beams of energy to destroy the electronic parts of a target.
2. Laser weapons, which, depending on their power and type, aim either to disorient a target, or to physically destroy it.
3. Plasma weapons, which utilize high energy beams produced by particle ionization and have the ability to physically destroy a target.
4. Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD), which use acoustic frequencies to transmit messages and are a non-lethal weapon used primarily for crowd control, as well as on surface vessels as a means of defense against piracy.
Advantages of DEWs
Directed energy weapons have a high degree of stealth as the radiation does not produce sound and is invisible if outside the visible spectrum. In addition, light, for practical reasons, is not affected by gravity, nor by wind or the Coriolis effect, thus achieving an almost perfectly flat orbit. The accuracy of hitting the target within the visual line of sight is excellent and is limited only by the diffraction and spread of the light beam.
Laser beams in particular travel at the speed of light and have a long range, commensurate with their power, while potentially DEWs as a whole eliminate many logistical problems in munitions supply, as long as there is enough energy to power them.
We will typically mention as an example the possibility of destroying an anti-ship missile with an anti-missile missile of the RAM system. In addition to the specific stockpile of missiles, there is also the issue of cost, with each missile reaching one million euros. On the contrary, the number of shots of a DEW is practically inexhaustible and the cost of each shot is negligible, judging by the use of the AN/SEQ-3 LAWS laser weapon, with a power of 50kW. While stationed aboard the USS Ponce, an Austin-class amphibious assault ship, it fired thousands of test shots at a cost of just… 59 cents each!
From these it is easy to understand that directed energy weapons are ideal for dealing with saturation attacks against surface ships. We can imagine the combined attack on a warship by unmanned vessels worth a fraction of the value of a frigate, by drones worth a few thousand Euros and of course by mobile munitions that can be launched from any point and means, at zero cost.
