Do those things have the capability to attack such tiny targets that are already close in? We're talking about something the size and speed of a bird. By the time you realize it's not a bird it's probably already on top of you. Moreover, they're small enough that they wouldn't represent a substantial threat to a ship in and of themselves (as compared to, say, an explosive-laden dinghy), and so perhaps not necessarily the kind of target that would've been specified for these weapons systems. I would imagine defenses for such small UAVs would be more in the vein of electronic countermeasures.
Yes
> We're talking about something the size and speed of a bird
Birds have nothing on stealthy, supersonic anti-ship missiles.
> By the time you realize it's not a bird it's probably already on top of you
In a war scenario all wildlife gets shot first. Modern systems developed in the past ten years also commonly have the capability to discern bird wings from propellers for this scenario. Hurray cheaper compute, everybody can run a SVM classifier in real-time now. Without spending too much money on your radar (40k USD? parts only) you can classify birds at about 0.5-1km away, who knows the exact capability of people with money to spend on the problem.
> I would imagine defenses for such small UAVs would be more in the vein of electronic countermeasures.
?Porque no los dos?
Citation: personal experience with those sensor systems.
Tracking millions of entities in your general space in real-time is definitely possible today. I have little reason to believe the US Navy cannot do it too.
A shaped charge hitting the EOSS, the radar dome, or parts of the Aegis system’s sensor array could potentially cripple the ship’s ability to defend itself.
That being said, I’d imagine being on the receiving end of 500 1 lbs explosives is still a very bad day.
1) Why would a Carnival cruise ship feel the need to disclaim involvement for anything except a small, COTS drone? (IOW, presumably they at least believed they could have been such small drones.)
2) 4+ were spotted together. Wouldn't those be audible, especially if much larger than COTS drones?
3) The lights ("white light", "red flashing light") suggests COTS drones, especially because the cruise ship also noticed them. If they were special purpose military or intelligence drones, why keep the lights on?
Granted, the supposed distances involved suggest otherwise, but the article never establishes why they believed the drones were necessarily flown such distances. Rather, it seems those distances are based on the presumption that the drones were flown from one of the ships with active AIS. But that's a rather dubious assumption in the context of someone buzzing military ships w/ multiple drones.
Also, the Navy's recent history of situational awareness isn't the greatest. See, e.g., https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/us-navy-crash...
I’d like to understand the rules of engagement- it seems a bit odd we’d just stand around watching them.
i don't think the officers in charge of protecting the ship generally factor the material costs of doing so in to their decisions. they've got standing orders from above, and somewhere far up the chain, somebody traded off costs, lives, reputation, etc, etc. dude at the bottom has a set of rules.
Not sure about mid ranking officers, but captains who are in charge of ships think about such things.
Often times military cost per unit factors in a fixed R&D cost. It doesn't necessarily mean it literally cost 1 million in parts and labor to assemble the single missile.
Additionally, each of those Destroyers have 7 (if I recall correctly) .50 caliber machine gun mounts around the perimeter of the ship, which could also probably handle the drones.