Fear of Russian actions in the Baltic continues to fuel NATO’s military strengthening of the northern border. The interest of the alliance nations is therefore rising in flying, underwater and surface drones as complements to traditional (manned) naval warfare. Military officials envision them as vessels that carry sensors, without constant surveillance from operators, that can be used to repel enemy warships or monitor the health of critical infrastructure on the seabed.
The news came yesterday that the Poland decided to buy three drones General Atomics MQ-9B Sky Guardian, the latest model of remotely operated aircraft to be used as a key intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform. The sale to Poland also includes two certifiable ground control stations and three years of global support. The three Sky Guardian are equipped with an automatic take-off and landing system, fly by satellite control and are capable of operating in non-segregated airspace using the system Detect avoidthat is, they see air traffic and adjust their route to avoid potential collisions. “The purchase of MQ-9B Sky Guardian will provide persistent multi-domain situational awareness, which is critical for Poland”, said the president of General Atomics David Alexanderrecalling that in 2022, the Warsaw Defense had started using the MQ-9A Reapers as part of a leasing contract, and that the success of those missions opened the door to this order.
The Polish Ministry of Defense released the news: “In the presence of the deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysza contract for the supply of MQ-9B unmanned reconnaissance systems was concluded Sky Guardianwhich will increase the capabilities of our Armed Forces in the field of ISR”. The use by the Polish Air Force will be mainly aimed at the Baltic area and the airspace bordering the Ukrainian and Belarusian ones. First customer deliveries of the MQ-9B began in 2022 to the UK Royal Air Force, while contracts have also been signed with Belgium, Canada, the Japanese Coast Guard, Taiwan, India and the US Air Force (USAF). in support of the Special Operations Command. Of the same drone model there is the Sea Guardian variant, into which it can be quickly converted.
In the same hours the German Navy announced the end of the test campaign of the underwater drone BlueWhale (literally, Blue Whale), as a candidate platform for what the sea service envisions as a future fleet of unmanned vessels to combat underwater threats. For two weeks, in the Baltic Sea, these drones scoured the seabed and possible passage routes for NATO, Russian and Chinese vessels that regularly cross the shallow body of water on the bottom of which lie vital communication cables and energy pipelines.
General Atomics
For i BlueWhale the German Navy explicitly envisions an anti-submarine warfare role; the systems are produced by Israel aerospace industries (IAI) and are equipped with various active and passive cameras and sensors that allow them to detect submarines, surface boats and mines, in particular without emitting their own signals that would alert the targets being tracked. Meanwhile the Born is drawing up plans for its own fleet of naval surveillance drones, planning to deploy a network of sensors to keep an eye on vital underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea but also in the Mediterranean, and to do so with devices such as BlueWhale which fall into the category of large unmanned underwater vehicles, with a weight of 5.5 tons, a length of 10.9 meters and a diameter of 1.12 meters; it can operate up to a maximum depth of 300 metres, has an average speed of around 6 km/h and an autonomy of close to a month.
The payload compartment is modular and hosts different technologies depending on the type of mission to be accomplished. Electro-acoustic and electro-optical sensors, radar systems (which are hoisted when the boat is floating) and communications equipment can be installed. While in Italy the leading company in this sector for the civil sector is Saipem (Sonsub), in Germany the specialist company in this area is Atlas Electronicswhich participated in the recent test program envisaged by the Marine 2035+ project which plans to accelerate the development of unmanned technology and rapidly integrate new drones into the command and control schemes of the maritime service, leading to the integration of the Israeli product in the field Born. Last March it was made known that the Italian Navy would also be equipped with three units of this underwater drone, which had been in service with the Israeli Navy for a few years and had taken part in an exercise Born in the Mediterranean. The Italian-Israeli agreement is called Iibw (Italian-Israeli Blue Whale), and falls within the framework of cooperation between the two countries signed by the Defense Secretariats of Italy and Israel in December 2021 (Multi-annual return program no. Smd 17 -2023, called “ISR and ASW capability launchable from a naval platform by means of an autonomous underwater system” – Government Act n°139).
