BAE sees forward-deployed naval drones doing air defense for warships

LONDON — Future air defense for naval vessels and combat armor may include a defensive escort of uncrewed vehicles equipped with electronic warfare measures or drone-killing cannons, according to the technology director at BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense company.

The logic follows lessons learned from recent naval engagements that dance around the sweet spot of hitting targets from a safe distance, with sufficient reliability, while spending as little on interceptions as possible.

Relatively inexpensive drone countermeasures already fielded, such as electronic warfare or cannon fire, tend to be shorter range or have lower success rates, Robert Merryweather, group technology director at BAE, noted at a briefing on layered drone and missile defense at the DSEI UK show here.

The solution may be to push them out to be a first line of defense, with more expensive high-end systems as a backstop, he said.

The cost asymmetry of defending against drones has been an issue for Western warships protecting shipping in the Red Sea, with navies initially using million-dollar, surface-to-air missiles to destroy Houthi drones, before changing doctrine to allow some UAVs to close in to the range of onboard cannons and EW measures.

“The cost per shot of your electronic warfare is lowest, but also probably your confidence of success is lowest, and also the range is shortest,” Merryweather said. “At the moment, the exquisite thing works furthest, so you’ve got to use that one first and that isn’t workable in terms of an attritional situation.”

Armed forces currently face the “horrendous decision” of whether they allow a drone threat to approach within the range of electronic warfare, which has the lowest probability of success but is the most sustainable capability, compared to expensive missiles, according to the executive.

The French Navy installed electro-optical sensors on its frigates to identify threats at greater distances, giving crews the option to allow threats to approach within range of the onboard cannon rather than using an Aster missile.

One solution may be uncrewed vessels or vehicles equipped with electronic warfare capabilities or 40-millimeter cannons with airburst shells, operating at distance from a frigate or tank to tackle threats before they get too close, according to Merryweather.

For electronic warfare, which has maybe a 1-kilometer range, “we can start to mount that EW warfare on drones, we can project it forward, we can then deploy that effect in advance of the kinetic fallbacks,” Merryweather said.

For a 40-millimeter cannon with an effective range of about 4 kilometers, “you’ve got to let the threat get relatively close before that layer of the system can become on board, unless of course you can project that effect further forwards and start to push that upstream of the threat, which is certainly things that we are looking at in the maritime domain.”

Low-cost drone defense systems might be pushed out 15 kilometers from a naval ship for maximum use, though even three or four kilometers “is still better than we have today.”

The Type 26 frigates being built for the Royal Navy will have a mission bay that could carry several unmanned surface vessels big enough to mount a 40-mm cannon, as well as USVs equipped with EW which could be deployed for high-risk parts of a mission, according to Merryweather.

Meanwhile, in the land domain, one of the first use cases for BAE’s autonomous, eight-wheeled ground vehicle Atlas might be in the forward-deployed air defense role, the technology director said.

The concept of forward-deployed air defense may be easier to deploy in the land domain, “because you’ve got more flexibility over your force mix,” Merryweather said. “If you’re in the naval domain and you’re sailing through the Gulf, you need to have decided before you left Portsmouth, largely speaking, what you want to have with you.”

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

伦敦——据欧洲最大的国防公司 BAE Systems 的技术总监称，未来海军舰艇和战斗装甲的防空能力可能包括为配备电子战措施或无人机拦截炮的无人车辆提供防御护航。

这种逻辑遵循了从最近的海战中吸取的教训，即在安全距离内以足够的可靠性打击目标，同时尽可能减少拦截成本，从而找到最佳平衡点。

英国航空航天系统公司 (BAE) 集团技术总监罗伯特·梅里韦瑟在英国防务展 (DSEI UK) 上举行的关于分层无人机和导弹防御的简报会上指出，目前已部署的相对便宜的无人机对抗措施，如电子战或炮火攻击，往往射程较短或成功率较低。

他说，解决办法可能是将它们作为第一道防线，用更昂贵的高端系统作为后备防线。

对于在红海保护航运的西方军舰来说，防御无人机的成本不对称一直是一个问题。最初，各国海军使用价值百万美元的地对空导弹摧毁胡塞武装的无人机，之后改变了作战理论，允许一些无人机接近舰载火炮和电子战措施的射程。

“电子战的单次攻击成本最低，但成功率也可能最低，而且射程也最短，”梅里韦瑟说。“目前，最精密的武器射程最远，所以你必须优先使用它，但这在消耗战中行不通。”

据这位高管称，武装部队目前面临着一个“可怕的决定”：是否允许无人机威胁进入电子战的射程之内。电子战的成功概率最低，但与昂贵的导弹相比，它是最可持续的能力。

法国海军在其护卫舰上安装了光电传感器，以便识别更远距离的威胁，使船员可以选择让威胁接近舰炮射程之内，而不是使用紫菀导弹。

梅里韦瑟认为，一种解决方案可能是使用无人驾驶的船只或车辆，配备电子战能力或40毫米空爆炮弹，在远离护卫舰或坦克的地方作战，以便在威胁过于靠近之前将其消灭。

梅里韦瑟说：“对于射程可能只有 1 公里的电子战，我们可以开始在无人机上部署电子战，我们可以将其向前投射，然后我们可以在动能打击之前部署这种效果。”

对于有效射程约为 4 公里的 40 毫米火炮来说，“你必须让威胁相对接近，然后才能启用该系统的这一层，除非你能将这种效果进一步向前投射，并开始将其推向威胁的上游，这当然是我们在海上领域正在研究的事情。”

低成本无人机防御系统可能会被部署到距离海军舰艇 15 公里以外的地方以最大限度地发挥作用，尽管即使只有三四公里，“也比我们今天的情况要好”。

据梅里韦瑟公司称，为英国皇家海军建造的 26 型护卫舰将配备一个任务舱，可以搭载多艘足够大的无人水面舰艇（可安装 40 毫米舰炮）以及配备电子战系统的无人水面舰艇，这些舰艇可以部署到任务的高风险部分。

与此同时，技术总监表示，在陆地领域，BAE 自主八轮地面车辆 Atlas 的首批应用案例之一可能是前沿部署的防空角色。

梅里韦瑟表示，前沿部署防空的概念在陆地领域可能更容易实施，“因为你的兵力组合更灵活”。“如果你在海军领域，并且正在穿越海湾，那么基本上来说，你需要在离开朴茨茅斯之前就决定好你想携带哪些兵力。”

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。