The average warship crew is composed of amateurs compared to the average cargo ship crew. Even more power may be installed for redundancy marine engines may be shut down for maintenance during a cruise, and having more engines at hand means that a ship repairing one of its engines would not necessarily slow down a convoy or fall behind. Engines cannot be run on 100% output for days, so more power would be installed to achieve 20 kts of cruise speed than is actually necessary to reach 20 kts. Towed sonars are still be usable at 17.19 kts at most, depending on type.Ī higher cruise speed is very difficult to achieve with a small hull (relative to the much bigger container ships and tankers) and a given set of equipment requirements. A design for 17.19 kts cruise speed (with towed sonar array and towed decoys deployed) would thus make much sense. The cruise speed on the other hand should keep the pace with the large cargo ships, which may cruise at 12.25 kts. The top speed of a warship doesn't look terribly important nowadays. A submarine that's running away from a convoy before having done harm is a submarine that was protected against anyway. That's now less of a concern since so much about ASW has become helicopter-centred. To keep drones outside during a storm leads to high drone attrition and/or slows the convoy down as small surface craft become slow in high sea states (albeit wave-piercing hull shapes may help to maintain speed at medium sea states).ĭuring the Cold War there was an argument that ASW frigates needed to be fast in severe weather to keep up with nuclear attack submarines trying to escape. They would also be recovered ahead of high sea states, so the ship would need to be able to carry all its drones at the same time. Drones would need to be recovered, maintained and refuelled by the warship's crew to achieve the endurance and appropriate cruise speed for a transoceanic convoy action. Their systems would not be maintained by a crew since drones are by definition unmanned, and they would likely have little if any redundancies in order to keep them cheap and small.

This is not an issue with towed decoys, but freely moving surface drones on picket duty for early detection of sea skimmers and such would have a fuel consumption on a 15.25 kts transoceanic cruise that's out of proportion to their size. Smaller craft are much less fuel-efficient than larger ones, and drones should be small. Warships should have little trouble with such a requirement, but especially the fuel supply of and for drones may be an issue. Missiles and torpedoes are so expensive that the national stocks don't exceed the inventories on board the ships by much (if at all) anyway. An exception to this rule was the rare torpedo resupply efforts for German submarines at sea in the Second World War. Replenishment of munitions at sea is possible as well, but the effort was widely judged to not be worth it. Warships can be replenished at sea, and this is done primarily with fuels and food. In the end it may be advisable to have a few commandeered civilian helicopters with the convoy, ready for rescue missions only (large cabin, equipped with winch). Even worse those boats may be wanting for an evacuation effort if their ship gets hit in the meantime. It may for this reason be impossible to just send small boats to pick up survivors without any ship staying behind for the effort. To detach a warship for the rescue effort would put the remaining convoy at increased risk and it might take a long time to catch up afterwards if the convoy's cruise speed is high. The problems with SAR are that it may divert helicopters from submarine search efforts and slowing a convoy down to care for survivors of one or multiple ships might endanger it. The combination of naval helicopter (FLIR used for identification of ships helps with searching and the boarding equipment helps with rescue), boats with outboard motor and ship-mounted infrared sensors (needed to improve the detection of sea skimmers) is a powerful one.

SAR is a noble task and purpose for any ship or boat, and most warships would be particularly well-equipped for it.

Most modern warships