This nice man, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX68_FZl8UE explains how it is that the Russian Black Sea Fleet has been largely confined to port whilst its senior personnel have been fired over losses which their replacements have proven equally helpless at preventing.
Aerial drones are comparatively simple to shoot down ~ unless their numbers prove an issue in itself ~ because they are relatively easily detected by radar, and shot out of the sky by radar-controlled means.
Apparently this is not nearly so easy when it comes to drones that move on water, because the sea is as adept at reflecting radio waves as it is the light waves that make for all of those sunsets captured on our holidays.
What this means is that once within anywhere upto about 1000 metres from a ship, drones are really only detectable by sight... which at night means not at all.
We could be living in an age where lots of big things looking for each other with a view to kill is replaced by lots of smaller, like mammals fighting over territory that dinosaurs once ruled. At the outbreak of both world wars, military leaders were also seen as dinosaurs... and I suspect that they still move among us.
As yet though drones have dominated air rather than sea, building as they do on a rich heritage of RC hobbyists flying model aircraft and more recently multicopters.
In contrast, the reason maritime drones still look like scaled-down boats is that little thought has been expended on how they might be improved.
A situation that may yet be set for a sea-change.
