Among the exhibitors at Turkey’s showpiece international arms fair in Istanbul last week was SpetsTechnoExport – a small, state-owned Ukrainian defence manufacturer with a realistic claim to be pushing back the global boundaries of naval warfare.
That looks pretty impressive. Imagine being on a Russian ship and considering whether dozens or hundreds of some medium tech ship busters might constantly be jetting towards you at any moment.
I don’t think most of the West has much of a need for naval drones. They already have torpedoes which they can launch from ships, submarines and planes. Ukraine can make good use of them because of the little sea connecting them directly to the enemy, but most other nations don’t have their adversaries this close where their relatively small range would be relevant. Maybe something for Japan & Taiwan though.
The west will develop these drones to some extent as they have a huge range advantage over torpedos. Some of the Russian ships targeted have been over 300KM from the Ukrainian coast.
The range advantage is there for Ukraine because they don’t have any mobile launch platform that they could bring in closer, but a few hundred kilometers is just about the distance they need to reach the enemy. For the West their naval would be either thousands of kilometers away or in range of their weapons (including anti ship missiles, which have similar range).