Naval News website has an article, relevant to the US Navy, about
the French navy installing electro-optical/infrared sensors on various
ships.[1] That’s a nice step but nowhere
near enough. We’ve talked about the future naval battlefield requiring purely
passive sensing systems and individual ships needing a dozen or more such
sensors spaced around the ship for complete hemispherical coverage and battle
damage resilience (redundancy and separation).
Adding one or two sensors to a ship is woefully insufficient and
indicates a peacetime mindset where the threat level is low to non-existent. In other words, it is an action by a navy
that is not serious about war.
That’s quite a list of suitable tasks and none of them have anything to do with combat. Even the French navy’s “high end” threat is laughably weak, as indicated below.
UAVs and USVs? That’s not a threat, it’s an annoyance, at most, for a competent navy. Saturation missile attacks are a threat. Ballistic missiles are a threat. Hypersonic missiles are a threat. Submarines are a threat. Believing that a few tiny, unmanned drones are a threat shows the absence of a combat mentality.
As we’ve previously discussed, the modern battlefield
requires passive sensing. Ships need
long range, hemispherical passive sensors (see, “PassiveHemispherical Sensing”) that can search, detect, track, and provide fire
control. To radiate is to die unless
you’ve got missiles coming at you and, if you do, you’ve already screwed up and
are already on the losing side of the battle ledger. Ships need to be able to sail, establish
situational awareness, search for enemy assets, and engage, all while remaining
passive and undetected (see, “The Passive Warship”).
Ship designers need to regain a combat design
philosophy. Battle damage will occur and
that requires significant redundancy and separation of all key equipment. A single EO/IR sensor is not a combat fit –
it’s a peacetime design failure.
I’m not picking on the French. The US Navy is doing exactly the same thing
and this should serve as a lesson for us.
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According to TRAKKA Systems, … The TC-375M [ed. one of the EO/IR systems the French are using] is ideally suited for long-range naval and coast guard missions including search and rescue, illegal immigration protection, drug interdiction, economic exclusion zone (EEZ) protection, anti-piracy, maritime patrol, naval C4ISR, and naval vessel force protection.[1]
That’s quite a list of suitable tasks and none of them have anything to do with combat. Even the French navy’s “high end” threat is laughably weak, as indicated below.
… the French Navy previously moved to fit Safran’s Paseo XLR advanced electro-optic infra red (EO/IR) system on all FREMM frigates and Horizon type Air Defense destroyers. The decision was taken as part of an “urgent operational requirement” in response to the escalating threat posed by kamikaze unmanned surface vehicles (USV) and unmanned air vehicles (UAV).[1]
UAVs and USVs? That’s not a threat, it’s an annoyance, at most, for a competent navy. Saturation missile attacks are a threat. Ballistic missiles are a threat. Hypersonic missiles are a threat. Submarines are a threat. Believing that a few tiny, unmanned drones are a threat shows the absence of a combat mentality.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/02/french-navy-fits-new-eo-ir-systems-aboard-mistral-class-lhds/
