The navy of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGCN, attempted to capture a Saildrone unmanned surface vessel operated yesterday by the US Navy's 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf. A Navy patrol boat responded to the incident and the Iranians later released the unmanned craft. However, the attempt nonetheless highlights growing concerns about the threat of capture faced by unmanned vessels.
According to the Navy official statement Regarding this, the incident occurred around 11 p.m. local time on August 29, while the service's 5th Fleet was transiting international waters and observing the IRGCN support ship. Shahid Baziar. Being towed in its path was the Saildrone Explorer unmanned surface vessel (USV), on which you can read everything herein what the Navy claims was an attempt by the IRGCN to capture the ship.
In response, the coastal patrol ship USS Thunderclap (PC-12) was redirected from nearby operations and Helicopter Maritime Combat Squadron 26 launched a MH-60S Sea Falcon from an unknown location to get additional support to deal with the situation. The 5th Fleet and Helicopter Maritime Combat Squadron 26 are headquartered in Bahrain and operate from the Persian Gulf. After what the Navy reports was a four-hour exchange, the IRGCN ship disconnected the USV's tow line and left the area without further complications.
Iran tries to seize American drone 2
Iran tries to seize an American sail drone
“The actions of the IRGCN were egregious, unjustified and inconsistent with the behavior of a professional maritime force,” said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and U.S. 5th Fleet (NAVCENT/5th Fleet), as well as U.S.-led Combined Maritime Forces in the region. “US naval forces remain vigilant and will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, while promoting a rules-based international order throughout the region. »
“The professionalism and competence of the USS Thunderbolt crew prevented Iran from committing this illegal action. This incident once again demonstrates Iran's destabilizing, illegal and unprofessional activity in the Middle East,” General Michael Kurilla, commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), also added in a separate statement.
The solar-powered USV Saildrone Explorer is just one of several unmanned systems operated by the Navy's 5th Fleet that has been launched for its first mission in the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern end of the Red Sea in 2021. As part of a demonstration exercise called Digital Horizon, the mission was supervised by Navy personnel assigned to Working Group 59who is one of nine working groups which currently operate under the Navy's 5th Fleet. Task Force 59 is specifically focused on leveraging unmanned systems to help establish greater maritime domain awareness by combining sensors and unmanned technologies for more robust intelligence collection capabilities.
Knowing this from Saildrone's situational awareness role, it can be assumed that the Navy detected the ship's unusual movements, thus prompting the 5th Fleet's response. However, the minimal details provided in the Navy's statement make it not immediately clear whether that was the case. It's also possible that it became disabled for some reason. The war zone has contacted NAVCENT/5th Fleet for more information on this matter, but has not yet received a response.
It is also important to mention that in its announcement, the Navy clearly emphasized that the Saildrone is US government property equipped with sensors, radars and cameras, but is made up of commercially available technologies for navigation and data collection. For this reason, Saildrone fortunately was not storing highly sensitive information or systems at the time of the attempted flight.
The Iranian army is not new seize the naval assets of other nationseither. Most recently, the IRGCN seized a South Korean-flagged tanker carrying 7,200 tons of “petroleum-based chemicals” into the country. Strait of Hormuz. The IRGCN later claimed that the seizure took place after a request to do so was forwarded by the country's Port and Maritime Organization under a warrant issued by the prosecutor's office in the coastal province of Hormozgan for violating environmental protocols. After this week's incident, it will be interesting to see if the IRGCN attempts to claim that Saildrone violated any international agreements.
The absence of human presence aboard unmanned vessels, however, greatly reduces the obstacles to hostile actions similar to those carried out by the IRGCN this week. Without human operators, there is no risk of death, capture, or any other action that could otherwise create a much more precarious international incident.
A a similar kidnapping took place in 2016 when the Chinese crew members Dalang III class salvage and salvage ship Nan Jiu deployed a small boat and retrieved one of two low-buoyancy U.S. underwater glider drones that were surveying the area out of the water, then returned them to the ship for inspection. THE Scout class survey ship USNS Bowditch (T-AGS-62) was right nearby recovering the drones and watched the whole situation unfold.
Shortly afterward, China issued a statement explaining that the confiscation was intended to prevent the device from posing a danger to the safe navigation of passing ships and personnel and eventually returned it to the navy. Although underwater gliders are primarily used for ocean research and are not classified technology, the situation once again demonstrated how easy it can be for adversary nations to intercept, steal, or even neutralize an unmanned system if forced to do so.
There are also similar complications on the response side of the equation, as was illustrated tangentially when Iran shoots down a Navy Global Hawk in 2019 and the United States struggled to decide on an appropriate response to such an attack on an aircraft that resulted in no human casualties or captured prisoners. Although this situation was very different from the Saildrone incident in that it involved the actual destruction of U.S. government assets, it nonetheless highlighted similar problems in determining a proportional response. The United States considered punitive strikes but ultimately decided against them.
This problem will likely only get more complicated as the Navy delivers on its promises to expand its fleets of varying tiers of unmanned ships. The Navy gave us a glimpse of what that might look like during this year's exercise. Pacific Rim PHOTOEX when a line of the service's unmanned test ships sailed alongside navies around the world.
Also known as Unmanned Surface Vessel Division 1, or USVDIV-1, the fleet is made up of Sea Hunter And sea hawk as well as two Overlord of the Phantom Fleet offshore support vessels designated as Nomadic And Put away. USVDIV-1 is part of Surface Development Squadron One (SURFDEVRON), which is the experimental unit so that the three Zumwalt class destroyers, among other unmanned surface ships, are among them. SURFDEVRON will effectively take over from Ghost Fleet Overlord, which the The Pentagon has put an end to earlier this year in hopes of better perfecting evolving high-end unmanned surface vehicle operations and technologies as the Navy attempts to achieve its objective to develop 150 additional unmanned vessels by 2045.
Keeping human lives out of harm's way is certainly one of the most notable arguments for the widespread use of unmanned systems in the military, that's a no-brainer. And unmanned systems, including ships, have many other advantages. However, the removal of flesh-and-blood sailors from ships opens the possibility for illegal operations like that of the IRGCN to proliferate in ways that the Department of Defense may have to manage, at least in some circumstances. And many future unmanned surface ships will be packed with more sensitive equipment and weapons.
Although this recent incident appears to have resolved itself without issue, the future of such acts is more uncertain.
Contact the author: Emma@thewarzone.com
