Summary and Key Points: The Ukraine war has highlighted the transformative role of low-cost drones in modern warfare, showcasing their ability to neutralize expensive conventional weapons like tanks at a fraction of the cost.
-Kamikaze drones, costing as little as $500 each, have demonstrated significant battlefield utility by forcing militaries to rethink tactics and resource allocation.
-The U.S. Navy, already considering this threat, recognizes drones’ potential to disable or severely damage high-value naval assets cheaply and efficiently.
-With drones increasingly advanced and accessible, naval vessels face growing vulnerabilities, emphasizing an urgent need to develop effective countermeasures against drone threats in future warfare scenarios.
Could Drones Neutralize a U.S. Navy Warship?
The Ukraine war, which began with an unprovoked invasion by Russia in February 2022, has today become a massive laboratory for experimenting and learning what future war will look like. More significantly, the war has shown the kinds of weaponry that will characterize the battlefield as we progress through the third decade of this century.
Ukraine’s ability to design, build, and field drones has created a deadly weapon available at a very low price and has provided destructive force at a scale that has never existed before. The definition of “low price” is so low that these weapon systems are now something the ordinary consumer can afford. Case in point: the cost of a kamikaze attack drone can be as low as $500 apiece.
Even if it takes 4-5 drones of this type loaded with explosives to kill a Russian tank, that is only a fraction of the cost of the tank platform. It also permits the Ukrainians to reserve the use of their high-value anti-tank weapons like the US-made FGM-148 Javelin to those scenarios where it is the only viable option.
Considering the Javelin’s price per unit is $220,000 or more, the drones are quite a bargain. They also reduce the survivability of almost all the major weapons systems in any nation’s arsenal.
By necessity, naval strategists are usually ahead of the game when it comes to future warfare. Unsurprisingly, naval minds have been thinking about where this technology is headed and its implications. For almost two years before the Ukraine war even began, specialists in naval warfare were already asking whether drones could sink a US Navy vessel.
Drones in The Years Before The War
The Islamic State first used explosive-carrying drones in 2016, and an attack of made-in-the-garage drones in a large-scale swarm attack took place in Syria in 2018. At that time, any terrorist group could purchase a high-end commercially available drone for about $2,000.
According to an article on the subject, it was also impossible to determine who was making these purchases. They were covering their tracks by making purchases sporadically over a period of weeks and sourcing them from multiple stores or dealers—or by making purchases with cryptocurrencies at online retailers.
In 2020, a high-quality consumer-grade drone like the DJI Mavic Pro 2, famous in the early days of the Ukraine war, had a range of up to ten nautical miles and could fly at a maximum speed of 40 knots. It had a small payload capacity, but it could only navigate via waypoints. The speed and range of the drone would both fall off if it was equipped with an explosive payload, but the range would not be the limiting factor. It was primitive compared to the drones of today.
In 2025, the capabilities of drone systems, their range, the quality of their navigation systems, and their imperviousness to electronic warfare attacks—all the aspects of a drone design that are central to its utility in a military application—have all improved geometrically in the past three years.
What has also changed in recent years is the resources available to track the movements of a US Navy ship. Any terrorist organization, any non-state actor, or an entity that has the ability to design and launch an attack drone can also learn the location and movements of any Navy ship. This information is all accessible through websites specifically designed to provide that information.
Vulnerability of US Naval Vessels
Another reality is that a drone attack on a US Navy ship need not sink the vessel to put it out of action. The weapon systems on board US ships, the radars and other sensors that provide the information they need to use that weaponry, the comm links, etc., are all appendages mounted on the upper deck and are vulnerable to drone attacks. Once they no longer function, the ship becomes essentially useless.
This vulnerability is such that for a very small sum—compared to the cost of a major naval vessel—a drone attack can be mounted against a US naval vessel. With the number of ships in the US service declining and the increasing need to be able to respond to threats in specific conflict zones, drone attacks could represent a severe potential disruption to the Navy’s operational schedule.
“This threat is real and growing and there is currently no solution. The current state of drone defense is beyond inadequate,” was the assessment of several retired naval intelligence officers I spoke to.
(Feb. 18, 2025) The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64) sails in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. (Official U.S. Navy photo)
One year ago, retired US Navy admiral James Stavridis described drone attacks on naval vessels as a seminal moment in military history, like Agincourt or Pearl Harbor. “As cheap drones go to sea in [increasingly] serious numbers, expensive manned surface warships will be threatened.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
