'The era of collaborative combat is still in the early stages'

• Defence
• Naval

What do you see as the biggest challenges for naval forces today?

As well as achieving greater operational availability, the resilience and lethality of naval capabilities need to improve. Naval assets need to be more modular and interoperable, and the overall mass of combat equipment needs to be ramped up, in part through hybridisation strategies. At the same time, as the tempo of operations rises, naval personnel need to be able to engage larger numbers of increasingly agile targets in ever more complex conditions. So collaborative combat has a central role to play.

Why is collaborative combat such a game changer in tactical terms?

A saturating attack from threats at either end of the spectrum - frequently by a combination of drones and missiles, as we have seen recently in the Middle East - can no longer be defeated by force of arms alone. The key to operational superiority today is to boost overall performance through coordinated actions. Threats of all types must be detected, classified and then engaged as early as possible and in an orchestrated fashion, while ensuring that each unit preserves sufficient combat capabilities for future engagements. Pooling resources by fusing data across both sensors and effectors, backed by robust C2 and connectivity, and augmented by AI, will provide the extra performance and resilience needed to react effectively and really make a difference in complex situations.

Eric Chaperon, Thales's Naval Defence Advisor © Alex Black - Thales

In your opinion, how will collaborative naval combat evolve in the coming years, and what technological breakthroughs could transform maritime operations?

The era of collaborative combat is still in the early stages, partly because the technologies needed are still being developed, but also - and possibly most importantly - because naval forces have a long way to go to complete the switch from analogue to digital, which is the key enabler of collaborative combat. So this is the core issue today. How do we move ahead without waiting for the entire fleet to complete this digital transformation, which will take decades? In other words, how do we support navies step by step so they can enhance their performance incrementally?

There are several possible ways to achieve these incremental improvements. Data from sensors, effectors and systems needs to be collected, labelled and exploited faster and more efficiently, with greater use of simulations as well as actual data to develop advanced processing and prediction software. And the potential of AI-powered big data processing needs to be fully exploited, initially focusing on surveillance (fusion of data from radars and electronic warfare sensors, for example), and later including threat engagement, based on use cases determined by the navies themselves

The development of a naval cloud will provide real-time access to data shared between all units in all locations. And all of this will require robust, high-performance connectivity based on meshed networks and LEO/GEO satellites.

New electromagnetic spectrum management tools will be needed for planning and conducting manoeuvres in contested environments, with greater use of connected naval drones and UAVs with swarming capabilities as force multipliers for both defensive and offensive operations. There will be a constant need for better cybersecurity protections and resilience to cyberattacks. And last but not least, collaborative combat will need to progressively become a multi-domain, multi-field capability.

To achieve all this, we will need to rely on broader collaboration with industry partners at the leading edge of innovation in technologies of interest to naval forces, and anticipate future requirements by offering modular solutions with the development headroom to adapt quickly to new threats.

Recent AI collaborations and tie-ups with our partners Dassault and Naval Group in the cortAIx accelerator clearly point to the need to offer government customers ways to achieve additional military superiority by processing data faster and more efficiently.