Known and Potential Impacts of Unmanned Naval and Air Vehicles on Modern Warfare

In recent years, the world's attention has been focused on conflicts such as the developments in Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the terrorist problem, and the Syrian Civil War, but with the outbreak of the Ukrainian War, all eyes have turned to eastern Europe. While previous conflicts usually did not cause much concern to states other than those with global and regional policies, this war has alarmed the whole of Europe and even the world, both because Russia is a major conventional power with nuclear weapons and because of the fear of the conflict spreading to Eastern Europe.  

For this reason, the Ukraine War has been closely followed by almost all military analysts and various assessments have been made. These assessments mainly focus on innovations on the ground and in the air, such as new generation missiles used by Russia for the first time, air battles, the use of UAVs/UAVs, new generation anti-tank weapons, land mines, improvised explosive devices and the status of tanks on the battlefield.

So far, not much has been written about the struggle in the Black Sea. For a while, Russian ships sunk by Turkish UCAVs and coastal defense missiles dominated the agenda, but this issue has not been focused on as much as land and air battles. However, there have been quite seminal developments in naval conflicts, where new technologies are used with new techniques, tactics, doctrines and concepts. 

The review written by Alix Valenti in the SHEPHARD Magazine on April 18, 2023 provides very interesting information on this subject. The author not only talks about the use of new technologies at sea, but also makes some comments that the developments in the Ukrainian War have influenced China's military doctrine and concepts. 

With these comments, he indirectly implies that the Ukraine War will not be the last war, that there will be new wars in new crisis areas in the future, and that the first of these will be conflicts arising from China's goals regarding Taiwan. The title of the article is "Unmanned attack vehicles - a new disruptive element from the Black Sea to the Taiwan Strait". 

The article begins by underlining that China has been closely monitoring every move of Ukraine and Russia since the first day of the Ukrainian war. In this context, Beijing has learned valuable lessons from every success and failure in Ukraine for its future plans for Taiwan. I will now try to summarize the relevant article.

On October 29, 2022, Ukraine attacked Russia's Sevatopol naval base with 8 UCAVs and 7 Unmanned Sea or Surface Vehicles (USVs). In these attacks, an Admiral Grigorovich class frigate (2000-4000 tons warship) and a minesweeper were sunk. Just over a month later, on November 17, Ukraine used USVs to launch another attack on a critical oil infrastructure facility in the port of Novorossiyk.

While none of these and other subsequent attacks caused a major loss of capacity, they forced Russia to increase security at its ports and naval bases. It also had a marked raiding effect, making its navy unable to move out of certain areas. In response, Russia tried to develop new measures to prevent these attacks. It appears to have been partially successful in doing so and was able to prevent the third UCAV/USV attack in Sevastopol on March 22. 

Even if this attack was thwarted, the Ukrainian offensive had significant military consequences. First of all, it demonstrated that Ukraine can put its neighbor, a much larger military power, in a difficult situation by attacking it even with simple means, which are essentially armed jet-skis.

This has not gone unnoticed not only in Russia, Europe and other places close to the conflict, but also thousands of kilometers away. For example, on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, these attacks and their impact have been analyzed in depth. Military authorities and analysts have suggested that Taiwan could adapt Ukraine's use of UCAVs and USVs to its own circumstances and apply them against China.

However, there are some who disagree. They argue that the same techniques, tactics and concepts are unlikely to be applied in the Taiwan region. According to them, Russia was raided because it underestimated Ukraine's ability to carry out such raids, but this is not the case in Taiwan waters. Both the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the Republic of China Navy (ROCN) have been preparing for a potential conflict for decades, and both sides have long been developing crewless systems.

Partial information about the PLAN's USVs shows that Beijing attaches great importance to the development of such platforms. According to regional media reports, the PLAN has built a new facility for testing USVs and is working on remotely piloted naval vehicles capable of carrying and remotely firing torpedoes.

At the NAVDEX exhibition in February, China's Poly Technologies Company exhibited its new remotely piloted naval vehicle named A45, which is considered as an indicator of China's work on this issue. This USV is officially billed as an anti-piracy, anti-drug and anti-arms smuggling platform, but it has many capabilities not needed for such missions. Also at NAVDEX, CSSC (China Shipbuilding Corporation) unveiled the 58-meter-long JARI-USV-A system, equipped with missiles, machine guns and rockets capable of firing ship-to-ship and ship-to-air.

While China is working on these projects, it is understood that Taiwan is also preparing in a similar direction. For example, it is known that Singapore's MARSEC USV will be produced by Taiwan's Lung Teh Shipbuilding Company. In addition, it seems highly likely that Taiwan will use vehicles such as jet skis, which are produced for civilian purposes similar to Ukraine, for military purposes.

In addition to unmanned maritime vehicles, China and Taiwan are also known to be working hard on the production of UAVs/SUAVs that can also be used at sea. For instance, between 2017 and 2020, it was reported in the media that China is testing different types of drones and UAVs/UCAVs that can fly in swarms. Moreover, both the 2018 report published by the Beijing Joint Academy of Armament Technology and the country's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) emphasize the importance of UAV/UCAV development. 

In Taiwan, a state-owned arms company invited local media to a factory tour in March to showcase its new indigenous military drones. The systems demonstrated during the visit were surveillance UAVs developed for maritime missions and coastal control. Attack-UAVs (UCAVs) are also in production, but were not on display to avoid leaking sensitive information, the company said. 

Both the PLAN's and ROCN's USV and UAV/UAV development efforts show that both countries are preparing for possible conventional and hybrid maritime conflicts. Therefore, creating a dominant effect for both countries will likely require different tactics than Ukraine's attacks against Russia. According to experts on naval warfare, naval forces can utilize three elements to create a dominant influence: environment, speed and deception.

In the Taiwan Strait, the environment is well known by both countries. For this reason, it is possible to say that defense and security measures have been taken in the best way. Considering that the strait is about 170 km wide, a fleet of USVs or UAVs/UCAVs approaching any target, day or night, can be detected instantly. On the other hand, since these vehicles are remotely controlled, they cannot be used from long distances and unexpected directions. This limits the area and directions where measures need to be taken and facilitates defense.

However, some features of the region that differ from the Black Sea may facilitate attacks. For example, the heavy civilian traffic in the region, from tankers to fishing boats, can be used as an advantage for both sides. If the concealment provided by heavy maritime traffic is exploited, military vessels can use the cover and concealment provided by this traffic to surprise the enemy and launch raiding attacks. Especially in Chinese ports where traffic is very heavy, USVs can be used in this way to help deal a blow.

Another tactic that could be used in this region is what some military experts call "active deception", in which the aggressor misleads the enemy about its true intentions.  In this context, it is possible to use UAVs and USVs together and at the same time, rather than attacking enemy defenses with USVs alone, as was the case in Sevastopol. In this tactic, UAVs can attract the enemy's attention in one area while USVs can strike the enemy in another. Or vice versa.

It would not be wrong to think that the parties are trying to develop other tactics according to many possible scenarios in order to create a dominant effect using unmanned vehicles. However, unlike the situation in the Black Sea, it will not be so easy to create a dominant effect as each side is well aware of the other's capabilities. Nevertheless, this difficulty does not mean that the parties will not make a concerted effort in this regard.

It is clear that Taiwan, in particular, will focus on this issue. This is because it has a smaller navy and needs to take every opportunity to use small units and conduct raid-style attacks to compensate for its weakness in terms of relative combat power. 

These issues, which are taking place in the Black Sea and are being intensively studied in the Taiwan region, are also of vital importance for Turkey. Not only does Turkey have narrow straits like Taiwan, where transportation is intensive, but it also faces a major threat from Greece in the Aegean Sea, with which it has been engaged in an intense struggle from time to time, because Greece has many large and small islands scattered all over the Aegean Sea.

Considering that almost all of the islands in the Aegean Sea are in Greek hands, it will be better understood how important it is for the Naval Forces to be prepared for the possibility of the use of USVs, which are difficult to detect and are generally used for civilian purposes, on these islands. It should be kept in mind that not only USVs, but also hundreds of short-range drones used in daily life can be used to attack our naval vessels.