Better suited to at best launching 30km ranged systems or simply running up to and ramming something. Better suited for that.
Yes, 100% agreement over USVs being used as Kamikaze Vehicles (Ingenuine Guided Missile) and/or as a platform to deploy old tech unguided munition or even massively produced guided munitions (e.g. ATGMs).
I see no reason why to put a long range large system on a smaller vessel with inherent stability issues due to their size.
One of the earliest challenges Pakistan faced when thinking of a triad was how to create a stabilized platform for launching systems like the Ghauri or Shaheen off its ships(funny story on how typical attempts at obfuscation got them insulted by a foreign expert they were consulting with on this).
The same will apply to smash - think a more stable frigate versus a small usv.
Yes, the stability of these platforms has been and still is a design challenge which makes such unmanned platforms unfeasible for now. However,
even if steel man the idea with an assumption that the design is perfect and also discount any modern upcoming counter-measures (Jamming, EMP Suicide Drones, Directed Microwave Weapons) - the idea still runs into operational challenges that I mentioned earlier.
Members mentioned "Redundancy of Systems" but that only applies to Aeriel Vehicles and Underwater Vehicles and not to Surface Vehicles. Any delivery platform design has to take into account multiple operational variables, of which,
Resistance to Attrition is a significant variable, and that alone either justifies or doesn't the practicality of a design e.g.
For aeriel vehicles as delivery systems,
an additional role for the machine is to also act as a medium to keep the human alive. Whereas the human doesn't add value to the resistance of attrition. For example, despite any systems redundancy, an aeriel vehicle still has a single point of failure per Physics i.e. disruption to it's flight - which can happen due E/M malfunction, environment such as a bird strike, and conventional counter-measures such as a missile strike. In any of those cases,
the human pilot can not climb out of the cockpit and fix the problem - even in minor cases e.g. a missile strike lightly damaging the wing is enough for the aircraft to lose flight.
Hence, taking the human out of the machine to pilot it remotely makes perfect operational sense because the resistance to attrition value of the vehicle remains the same while the production cost is greatly reduced - meaning losses can recovered more frequently.
For surface vehicles as delivery systems,
it is the human's role to keep the machine operational - which adds to the value of resistance to attrition. Even though, per Physics, for surface vehicles (water) there is again a single point of failure i.e. disruption to buoyancy - it is not effected by the E/M systems (so any such technical fault can be fixed by a human on board to keep the machine operational - and the human fix is available for environment and counter-measures variables as well e.g. a missile strike causing a hull breach can be repaired by the human (depending on the damage)
and the machine can stay operational.
Hence, taking a sailor out of the ship reduces the resistance to attrition of the system. So even if all forms of design and production challenges are perfected - a human still adds value to the system in comparison to an aeriel vehicle where they don't.
Now, for underwater vehicles. The
human machine relation is more mutual than other form of vehicles. Both work to keep the other (alive). However, compared to surface vehicles the
human added value is reduced. For example, sub-marines are compartmentalized and if there's a breach in a section, then depending on the section it can be closed up and machine can be kept operational - and depending on the section a human can repair the breach
but there aren't many sections which can be repaired. Hence, in case of underwater vehicles taking the human out of the machine still makes a lot of operational sense as the value lost in this case can be recovered via the reduction in production cost and more UUVs can be built which balances the resistance to attrition (albeit using a different route).
So until and unless, robotics are improved to a point where the AI Robots (drones and human like) can independently employ Microcapsule Composites and/or Polymer Networks -
larger USVs and UUVs that can deploy top tier missiles remains inaccessible - and even in that case we have just replaced the human with a machine but the "damage control" role doesn't change.
