Makes one thing just how effective simple ramming could be. Not to even talk about explosives... Take a basic steel boat. Fill with say styrox, mount large engines and remote controls. Just drive it at full speed to warship.

You could mass produce something like that for less than 100k from stock standard parts.

▲

jjmarr 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

Japan used explosive motorboats during World War 2, building thousands. They were not as effective as planes, I'd guess due to difficulties in evading defensive fire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinyo_(suicide_motorboat)

I'd imagine a larger boat would be even easier to sink.

	▲	Ekaros 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		If you do not need the internal volume you could fill it with something which even with hole would still float. I think you could find some reasonably buoyant material that could take some beating. And on other side I think there might have been changes in ship construction and armaments which might still make this approach valid for a while.

▲

ehnto 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I suspect the logistics of having such a ship close enough to the conflict at the right time would be the biggest challenge. You wouldn't want to drag them around with you on larger ships. I think you're right though, there's probably an appropriate balance of range, size and location where it makes a lot of sense, especially during wartime where it's harder to spin up complex weapon pipelines and simple stuff can be churned out faster.

	▲	Ekaros 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think it might work in coastal areas. You could transport them to suitable locations on very basic trailer. Or just on board of a truck with simple crane lift. In general such things would only travel relatively short distances, be relatively simple to conceal and probably relatively easy to have not too big radar cross section.

▲

antonymoose 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You’ve mostly described big part of the Iranian naval strategy. Small, fast attack boats that can Zerg-rush larger vessels.

The drone aspect, however, is not in play I don’t believe.