I think there's potential for China to play to their industrial strengths with a possible drone carrier. China has large solar, smart phone, battery, 5G, and electronic drone industries, as well as world class competence in AI. I think China could make a drone that could be their version of the Sherman tank, to be stored, released, and commanded in hundreds or thousands from a large fleet of relatively cheap drone carriers, with total production runs for the drones in the hundreds of thousands or millions. A solar powered electronic drone, with something like a commercial smartphone for brains and cheap sensors (like a DJI drone), running a suite of software able to do things like identify targets itself using ML, navigate thermals like a land bird or utilise wind shear like an albatross, with a battery to get it through the night, flying in swarms of thousands using flocking and swarming algorithms with 5G or laser interlinks to form a mesh network resistant to jamming, could be a very potent weapons platform.
They could be armed with relatively small shaped charges designed to disable or destroy CIWS systems or radars, or thermite payloads designed to melt through a surface vessel's deck and into VLS cells or through the runway rather than just puncturing it. I think Chinese industry could produce a drone like that with functionally infinite range, between solar cells and dynamic soaring algorithms that fly the drones like they're electronic albatrosses, taking energy from the wind shear just a few metres above the ocean surface to travel with barely any energy expenditure of their own, while their battery cells charge in case a large climb and glide through the night is necessary to avoid moderately bad weather. The drone carrier itself would be for severe bad weather, which would be a definite weakness of drones like these. The drones would be slow and not have much of a payload, but they could swarm in thousands to mission kill and render surface vessels very vulnerable to follow up AShM/ASBM fire, and they would still be faster than surface ships or island air bases like Guam.
I think if China produced drones like that at a very large scale, it could push costs down below a $5000 or $2000 unit price, like a more capable version of that Mugin drone or a more militarised DJI drone. If they could get costs that low, with multiple repurposed civilian factories pumping them out a little slower than phones, you could field thousands in a swarm for like $10m, which makes the economics of stuffing a cheaper ship to the gills with weapons more feasible.
They don't have to be just loitering munitions/kamikaze drones either. They could communicate to a small degree with satellites like a mobile phone can, so they can report the precise location of anything they find to ASBM batteries on the mainland or surface vessels with AShM/ASBMs, or if satellites aren't feasible they could regularly split off small groups of drones to fly back towards friendly forces to report information, or daisy chain an impromptu communications line. You could put small radar reflectors on them and try to use them to overwhelm enemy radar systems with spurious returns, or don't do that and let their relatively small size, non-metallic construction, and sea-skimming nature make individual radar returns problematic. If the enemy tries to develop laser CIWS systems to counter them, you could give them ablative or mirrored coatings to increase the amount of energy and time a DEW would need to disable any individual one, ensuring the swarm as a whole can reach surface vessels and disable their protection systems like CIWS before they are destroyed themselves.
What do you guys think? Stupid idea? I may have put a bit too much thought into a lot of specifics. But at minimum, I think starting to do some research on extending electronic drone endurance through things like ML terrain analysis to ride thermals, dynamic soaring algorithms to gain and conserve momentum with minimal energy expenditure using differential airspeed, and thin film solar cells on drone wings would be a very good idea. I know the PLA is already working on swarming algorithms, but I haven't heard of any research into the rest. I would be super interested if anyone knows of any projects like this.
They could be armed with relatively small shaped charges designed to disable or destroy CIWS systems or radars, or thermite payloads designed to melt through a surface vessel's deck and into VLS cells or through the runway rather than just puncturing it. I think Chinese industry could produce a drone like that with functionally infinite range, between solar cells and dynamic soaring algorithms that fly the drones like they're electronic albatrosses, taking energy from the wind shear just a few metres above the ocean surface to travel with barely any energy expenditure of their own, while their battery cells charge in case a large climb and glide through the night is necessary to avoid moderately bad weather. The drone carrier itself would be for severe bad weather, which would be a definite weakness of drones like these. The drones would be slow and not have much of a payload, but they could swarm in thousands to mission kill and render surface vessels very vulnerable to follow up AShM/ASBM fire, and they would still be faster than surface ships or island air bases like Guam.
I think if China produced drones like that at a very large scale, it could push costs down below a $5000 or $2000 unit price, like a more capable version of that Mugin drone or a more militarised DJI drone. If they could get costs that low, with multiple repurposed civilian factories pumping them out a little slower than phones, you could field thousands in a swarm for like $10m, which makes the economics of stuffing a cheaper ship to the gills with weapons more feasible.
They don't have to be just loitering munitions/kamikaze drones either. They could communicate to a small degree with satellites like a mobile phone can, so they can report the precise location of anything they find to ASBM batteries on the mainland or surface vessels with AShM/ASBMs, or if satellites aren't feasible they could regularly split off small groups of drones to fly back towards friendly forces to report information, or daisy chain an impromptu communications line. You could put small radar reflectors on them and try to use them to overwhelm enemy radar systems with spurious returns, or don't do that and let their relatively small size, non-metallic construction, and sea-skimming nature make individual radar returns problematic. If the enemy tries to develop laser CIWS systems to counter them, you could give them ablative or mirrored coatings to increase the amount of energy and time a DEW would need to disable any individual one, ensuring the swarm as a whole can reach surface vessels and disable their protection systems like CIWS before they are destroyed themselves.
What do you guys think? Stupid idea? I may have put a bit too much thought into a lot of specifics. But at minimum, I think starting to do some research on extending electronic drone endurance through things like ML terrain analysis to ride thermals, dynamic soaring algorithms to gain and conserve momentum with minimal energy expenditure using differential airspeed, and thin film solar cells on drone wings would be a very good idea. I know the PLA is already working on swarming algorithms, but I haven't heard of any research into the rest. I would be super interested if anyone knows of any projects like this.
