US Developing ‘Swarms-Of-Swarms’ That Can Attack From Land, Air & Sea & Overturn China’s Numerical Edge

As reported by Eurasiantimes.com, The US military is looking to acquire a counter-Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) autonomous drone swarm system that can command other swarms in what essentially translates into thousands of unmanned aerial, surface, underwater, and ground drones overwhelming enemy military installations. Similar to the Russian approach to bait and destroy Ukrainian air defenses using drones and cruise missiles, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) envisages the proposed Autonomous Multi-Domain Adaptive Swarms-of-Swarms (AMASS). This operates at a mammoth “theater level,” where the drones can work independently without requiring constant communication and guidance.

China has the world’s most extensive and diverse range of surface-to-surface, cruise, and anti-ship missiles to keep any attacking force away from Chinese shores. Taken together with the plan to base hypersonic and multiple independent warhead-armed medium-range ballistic missiles around Russia and China, this represents the most serious effort to overturn China’s staggering advantage with long-range missilery that has deterred the US military. For details, see Eurasiantimes.com.

Thanks to CDR David Place (USN/Ret), davidplace47[at]gmail[dot]com, and Robin E. Alexander, President ATC, alexander technical[at]gmail[dot]com, for their assistance with this report, the background for which appeared in their 23 - 3 - 3 MARCH 2023 edition of the UNMANNED SYSTEMS NEWS (USN).

David distributes the USN, a free, comprehensive newsletter in PDF format every week or two, as well as serial news flashes, from which this NREF news update was sourced. To be included in his distribution, simply send a subscribe request to davidplace47[at]gmail[dot]com.