NAVAL DRONES

The mystique of Navy SEALs has been heavily celebrated in the media and films due to recent real world exploits.  Yet Naval Special Warfare (NSW) sailors have been heavily engaged in combat operations for more than eleven consecutive years.  Warfare is still a decidely human endeavor, and America's naval special warriors are quick to embrace the truth that "humans are more important than hardware." Nevertheless, today's SEALs, Special Warfare Combat Crewmen, and other supporting personnel in the NSW community have benefited greatly from technology, which increasingly includes unmanned systems. Two primary realizations within the NSW community drove the rapid introduction of UAVs for combat operations in Southwest and Central Asia.  The first realization was that even the best shooters in the world were ineffective if they were unable to locate their targets.  Simply, UAVs are a force multiplier for SEALs and enable an exponential increase in the...

 S-100 Camcopter on DCNS Landing Grid (DCNS Photo)   Unmanned systems have not been excluded from China's rapid naval expansion and modernization program.  Last month, China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA) announced it would establish a string of UAV surveillance and monitoring bases in provinces along China’s coastline by 2015.  The SOA will also use drones to increase surveillance of the disputed Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands in the South China Sea.  In keeping with this announcement, China Maritime Surveillance (CMS), a law enforcement agency under control of SOA responsible for law enforcement within the PRC's territorial waters, exclusive economic zones (EEZ), and shores, awarded two contracts  this week to the French DCNS Group.  CMS will purchase landing grids for two planned CMS 1,500 ton off-shore patrol vessels to be delivered in 2013.  The DCNS landing grids allow helicopte...