The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have expressed interest in the 30-ft.-long Protector, which comes mounted with a machine gun and could be retrofitted for commercial use. (Photograph Courtesy of BAE Systems)Popular Mechanics is featuring an article on drone vessels being considered as a possibility to fight piracy. The article is here.
(Ed. note: Of interest is that Protector Boats are build in New Zealand. I have no idea how the 72 ColRegs would treat drones.)
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Not only does it sound pretty darn cool, it sounds like a good idea in the fight against the growing threat of piracy. Unmanned aerial vehicles have proven themselves over and over again to be invaluable in counterterrorism operations; my own Army unit had three tactical UAV platoons. I can see how there could be some foreseeable problems--but one obvious advantage to using robots like unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned boats, and bomb-disposal robots is that if things go wrong, you lose a drone, not a life. I'm interested to see what roles the Navy and Coast Guard use this technology for--I also think using UAV's adapted for use at sea might be useful against pirates, too, since they would provide visual confirmation of pirates on a hijacked vessel, location, and activity well before an enforcing vessel arrives.
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