German Navy Confirms Its Supersized Frigate Will Avoid the Red Sea | Hacker News Reader

German Navy Confirms Its Supersized Frigate Will Avoid the Red Sea

twz.com

16 pointstomohawk14 comments

US Navy Admiral Hyman G. Rickover was said to have observed, "There are only two kinds of ships: submarines and targets".

In the modern era of low-cost drones and missiles, all surface ships are sitting ducks. The US Navy has missiles to shoot down aircraft and missiles, but these were designed to shoot down expensive Soviet aircraft. I think these missiles cost $1-2million each. A modern inexpensive attack drone goes for <$10,000.

A $2M missile vs. a $2,000 drone: Pentagon worried over cost of Houthi attacks - https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/missile-drone-penta...

Warships that can deploy helicopters are still useful for disaster response: When Disaster Strikes, Send the Enterprise: https://sendtheenterprise.org/

Edit: "According to the U.S. Navy, the Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group expended 155 surface-to-air missiles, 135 land-attack cruise missiles, nearly 60 air-to-air missiles and 420 air-to-surface weapons during what it called a "historic" combat deployment." - US Aircraft Carrier's Near Miss With Missile Fired by Middle East Rebels, https://www.newsweek.com/us-news-aircraft-carrier-missile-fi...

> In the modern era of low-cost drones and missiles, all surface ships are sitting ducks

This is a blip. Anti-ship missiles were expensive and sophisticated so we had expensive, sophisticated defeneses.

Drones disrupted that calculus for a minute. Now low-cost anti-drone technologies are being deployed. There is a reason the world's largest navies are building ships at a record clip.

Also - weapons like supercavitating torpedoes have presented serious, autonomous and lethal threats to submarines since the 70s. This is a silly assumption that wouldn't have held up in WWII, let alone 2024.

Feed the seababies and the mic?

Apparently not completely sitting ducks, since no American naval ship has been damaged by drones. But the "conventional" anti-aircraft weaponry is like shooting a fly with a howitzer (almost literally). More CIWS systems and a rapid-fire laser or two seem like they might be effective and perhaps lower-cost.

I think it's a sign of playing too much factorio, that I heard the soundtrack of the laser turrets firing when I read your comment...

Modern anti ship drones are just converted speedboats/jetskis cough Cole cough.

Ukraine has a nice array of platforms.

>A modern inexpensive attack drone goes for <$10,000.

This is a popular meme on HN, but in reality this amount won't even buy you the disposable drones militaries use for target practice. If you want anything that carries a payload, you'll need more than $30k.

Yeah this has been an interesting development regarding drones.

I guess some sort of laser thing is probably most viable now if you consider a swarm of say 50-100 cheap drones. I would imagine they'd be susceptible to relatively lower levels of laser power than e.g an ICBM, although they they are of course a smaller target

It's best to always avoid sending your warships into a war zone. They might get damaged, after all!

Last time they shot few times at the wrong thing

https://cimsec.org/analyzing-the-german-frigate-hessens-near...

and then realized there is no more ammo

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/03/missile-woes-fo...

They might have a ship, but it has nothing to shoot targets with.

Just like nobody wants their new car or couch to get dinged or damaged until it eventually happens and you learn to just accept it.

> According to the Spiegel, “other nations operating with warships [in the Red Sea] reported that escort was currently not possible.”

So, basically "Dear German Navy - Unfortunately, our warships are too busy protecting non-warships to protect your warship. Sincerely, Your Allies"

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