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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7889 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 16, 2024

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How do cheap submersible suicide drones solve any of the problems I outlined?

You don't need conventional navy if you sink everything that moves.

How are you going to deploy a "sink everything that moves" drone force from Europe to the Strait of Malacca?

Why do we need to project force in the Strait of Malacca?

Not sure who "we" is, but if you are Europe and you've pivoted to China as your main trading partner, and China goes to war with the US or India (as in the scenario Tree and I cooperatively outlined) the answer may be "to protect trade with China."

Sabotaging the ability of large nations to sabotage the shipping of small ones, I guess. Worst case I suppose shopping by sea becomes generally suicidal for everyone.

If your drones are capable of escorting shipping from Italy to China they are no longer cheap. And since ship interdiction is likely to be via submarine or aircraft, a submersible suicide drone will be useless unless you add on a sonar and radar array. And, you'll either need the suicide drone to fly or you'll need to add on surface-to-air missiles to shoot down the aircraft. But then at that point you might as well not make it a suicide drone and just add on torpedoes as well, to interdict the submarines. And since it's risky to hunt for submarines using only an array that is attached to your own craft and we don't want our suicide drone to be sunk by an enemy submarine, you'll want space to park a helicopter with a dipping sonar to do dedicated submarine hunting.

At which point you've made an escort frigate.

I don't think suicide drones are dumb. But the OG "submersible suicide drone" is called a torpedo, and I think submersible suicide drones are best thought of as extended-range torpedoes, not replacements for ships or submarines.

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