The Japanese Ministry of Defense announced the SHIELD project, which involves a holistic approach to coastal defense, focusing on unmanned systems. SHIELD aims to protect Japan from attacks by enemy ships, submarines and amphibious operations. The project combines five types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and hovering munitions, unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs). The hovering munitions (small, medium and large) will play a central role in the SHIELD project. They will be launched from land and sea and will be aimed at attacking enemy surface ships (warships and amphibious operations).
Unmanned systems, in cooperation with coastal radars, will have as their main role the collection of information and the timely detection of the threat. This data will be transmitted to the command centers, analyzed and a comprehensive picture of the existing tactical situation will be produced. Then, the appropriate guided munitions will be selected (in terms of range and power of the warhead) and will be used to attack the threats. Guided munitions will also have an additional role: That of anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense. UAVs, USVs and UUVs will be deployed either from ships and submarines, or from land.
