Our weakened and woke Navy has been having some issues with the Chinese lately, and they’re likely to have more. Recently, a Chinese warship came perilously close to ramming an American destroyer. But the Navy is coming up with a new twist on an old tactic in naval warfare.
Earlier this month, a Chinese warship aggressively maneuvered within 150 yards of a U.S. Navy destroyer, risking a collision. To discourage continued Chinese aggression against U.S. warships, the Navy could turn to nonlethal weapons like unmanned surface vessels (USV) equipped with ramming capabilities.
It’s not a bad idea. It’s cheap, it’s effective, it has the capability to send a message without starting a war – maybe.
How it was done back when.
…another option that might be considered is the development of specialized USVs armed only with a ram. When faced with an adversary who threatens to ram or shoulder your ship, ramming in return is a proportional response. An agile, speedy USV roaming near your ship whose sole purpose is to be ready to ram an aggressor would constitute an effective deterrent.
Ramming by these USVs would not be intended to sink an aggressor ship, but merely to inflict incapacitating, reparable damage through a substantial leak at the waterline. Alternatively, ramming USVs could sport long underwater protrusions to damage sonar and other sensitive equipment under the hull. To achieve this, such USVs need not be large; they primarily need to be able to achieve high speeds over short ranges, since the energy of the collision is proportional to the relative speed.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Granted I was Army, not Navy, but it seems to me a “substantial leak at the waterline” is the kind of thing that sinks ships; you sink ships, after all, not by making holes that let air in, but by making holes that let water in.
In general, I’m in favor of cheap solutions for this kind of thing. But I have a few questions.
It seems like this kind of a USV could be easily countered by something no more high-tech than a .50 caliber machine gun. Are these unmanned surface vessels armored against simple, direct surface weapons? If these can be countered by something that is 19th century technology, that is a problem.
The main advantage cited is to deliver a non-lethal response. What if the USV hits a little too hard, or in too vulnerable an area, and a hostile ship sinks? Then you’ve committed an act of war.
Can we count on today’s Navy to set aside their Diversity, Inclusion and Equity training long enough to learn some technology that is actually mission-enhancing?
OK, that last question is a little gratuitous. This seems, on the surface (pun not intended) to be an interesting and cheap solution to a problem the Navy is now dealing with in the western Pacific. But as I noted, I was a soldier, not a sailor. It would be interesting to see what any former Navy types think of this novel idea.
1 thought on “Return to the Middle Ages: Ramming in Naval Warfare”