The Russian war economy is too tight to support military R&D on top of the existing war effort. GDP per capita is way too low and military brass aren’t willing to discuss the subject of their own vulnerabilities to Putin. Their use of oil money to buy Iranian drones is a necessary kink in their supply chain since they don’t have the means to build their own drones at scale and they can’t develop industrial capacity for the same without jumping face first into the woodchipper of sanctions.
Remember when Putin said the invasion would take 3 days? Deception can be tactically useful but not when you’re the one lying to yourself.
There’s still stuff that I think that they could have done. If they’re trying it, I don’t believe that they’re doing a very effective job of it.
In World War II, the US’s response when it was clear that aircraft were going to be a lot more dangerous to ships than originally-anticipated was to weld AA gun platforms everywhere they possibly could onto the ship, including hanging off the sides. The guns weren’t intrinsically any sort of tech wonder, but the more lead they were putting out, the greater the chances of a hit in the time that the aircraft was closing. I’ve definitely seen video of Ukraine running USV attacks successfully while Russia was shooting at the drones and not hitting them.
In this case, I’d think that they could have put something like autocannon platforms or quad-mount heavy machine gun mounts on the thing or the like. Maybe they aren’t integrated with the ship’s fire-control system, have to have someone physically go out there, but this doesn’t require amazing accuracy so much as throwing more lead downrange.
They could have had patrol boats or some other kind of smaller, less-capable vessel screening the larger ship. That’s historically the response that was taken to the introduction of torpedo boats, which historically had a somewhat-similar role to these USVs – relatively-inexpensive, small vessels that could hit hard enough to take down a much-more-expensive ship. The torpedo boat destroyer, which ultimately became the destroyer, was introduced to fill that role; it wasn’t a very large vessel, but it was enough to stop a torpedo boat.
My guess is that it’s possible to use laser-guided ATGMs to hit boats. Norway uses TOWs in a man-portable form, IIRC on a tripod launcher, for coastal defense to counter boats. That doesn’t require any modification to ships, just sticking someone trained to use them on the ship and some ATGMs.
If the problem is not picking up on the fact that the USV is there until too late – I didn’t see any shooting at the USV this time – they can increase the number of people on watch and their equipment. I believe I saw a searchlight on one in the past, and they could probably stick more floodlights on the thing.
I mean, that costs something, but they know what ships they’re putting in the danger zone, where to put resources, and losing these ships to really inexpensive USVs has to be far more costly to the Russian Navy.
If the Russian Army is canablizing old Naval weapons, there is a chance the Russian Navy doesn’t have a lot of manpower or weapons to requisition from stocks. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/03/04/desperate-russian-forces-are-adding-80-year-old-naval-guns-to-70-year-old-armored-tractors/
In addition to all those great suggestions, the addition of surface-scanning radar would do wonders. Seeing small blips slowly approaching your position would be plenty to alert the ship that they need to ID the blips and man the guns.
I don’t know what the USVs are made of. If it’s fiberglass, they may not provide much of a radar return.
googles
https://christinedemerchant.com/radar.html
Not all substances reflect Radar equally well. Electrical conducting materials such as metals are better than insulators such as wood or fiberglass. Carbon fiber is better than Kevlar or fiberglass. Flat surfaces reflect better than curved surfaces.
Wood and fiberglass boats are not very good radar reflectors and tend to disappear. Even if small craft have materials that should reflect radar, it is often located quite low or even below the water line making it more difficult to see. Motors should reflect but because they are low they tend to not. Round masts even if metal tend to scatter radar signal and not provide good echos. In order to be more visible to radar small boats often install radar reflectors.
They already have a very low profile, need to put their camera on a mast to reliably see the target.
It’s not about the economy. It’s the soviet era again, the dictatorship, which is extremely antagonist to research and innovation.
For innovation to happen, you need many people, and especially high ranked ones, to admit that something can improve. And then you need the system to highlight true solutions rather than favour your friends and family.
USSR was plagued by these kind of problems. Russia seems somehow even worse.
Russia, USSR and the Russian empire are basically the same geopolitical entity.
They’ve never not been a dictatorship and you don’t need admissions or highlights to innovate. And even if they did, i addressed failures of leadership in my last comment.
I guess you could argue that the dual problem of having a tight war economy and an idiot dictator are like twin dragons, one can’t resolve the other without undermining itself.
