Navy: Self-guided unmanned patrol boats make debut(bigstory.ap.org) |
Navy: Self-guided unmanned patrol boats make debut(bigstory.ap.org) |
And what can a patrol boat do? It can't board another boat, take over its controls and redirect it. It can only choose to shoot it (with onboard remote-control gun) or not. Very much limited in mission capability.
Whereas a very-much-cheaper drone boat of 1-2 meters in size would be harder for other combatants to detect, could travel in novel ways (submersible? High-speed hydrofoil?), and could act as a torpedo if needed to disable another combatant. Kind of like quad-coptors vs full-sized helicopters.