00:00This week, we saw a big headline emerging from America.
00:04U.S. confirmed that they've used state-of-the-art sea drones
00:07to target some of Iran's shipping infrastructure.
00:11What are these sea drones?
00:13How do they work?
00:15What is the kind of impact they really have on the enemy targets?
00:19Sandeep Unitan joins me with more details on that.
00:22The U.S. Navy carried out its first attack using unmanned surface vessels.
00:28Now, several countries have been using unmanned surface vessels
00:30to carry out attacks like these kamikaze boats.
00:33They're called attack drones, unmanned surface vessels.
00:37But this is the first attack on a target by the United States Navy.
00:42What they attacked was a submarine base,
00:46an Iranian naval submarine base in Bandar Abbas.
00:49Let's take a look at these visuals.
01:15What you just saw was a swarm of three Saronic Corsair unmanned surface vessels.
01:21Now, the Corsair is a boat that's around 24 feet long.
01:31It is a USV or an unmanned surface vessel.
01:38It's got a range of 1,000 nautical miles.
01:42It's powered by diesel engines which can take it to a speed of over 35 knots.
01:50That's over 70 kilometers an hour.
01:53And it has a payload of 1,000 pounds.
01:57That's roughly half a ton.
01:59Now, this could be high explosive.
02:02It could be electro-optical payloads.
02:06It is a modular concept.
02:07So, this boat is steered by Starlink satellites.
02:14It's completely autonomous, meaning that it can either run a mission all by itself.
02:20It can navigate around obstacles.
02:23It can be guided remotely by a man in the loop,
02:29as is believed to have been done in this case when three of these Corsairs
02:35struck that submarine base in Iran.
02:39Now, what is interesting is that this boat was used for the first time in June
02:45to rescue two Apache pilots that had been down in the Persian Gulf.
02:49They were in the water when this boat arrived and it rescued them.
02:53This is the first time in history that an unmanned surface vessel has rescued downed pilots.
02:59And that pretty much tells you where warfare is headed.
03:03You've seen that in the Ukraine-Russia war and now you're seeing it in the Iran-US war
03:08where unmanned surface vessels are boldly going where humans haven't gone before.
03:15They're carrying out the kind of hazardous missions that would put soldiers, sailors, airmen in harm's way.
03:21They're doing the kind of missions, rescue missions.
03:24They're carrying out attack, kamikaze kind of missions of the kind that suicide pilots once had to do.
03:30This is clearly the future of warfare.
03:33Now, the question is, does India have a similar capability?
03:36Yes.
03:37This is one area that the Indian Navy has invested heavily in.
03:40It has a fleet of such unmanned surface vessels like the Corsair that's made by an American company.
03:48And this is something that the Navy doesn't talk about a lot.
03:51But this is one capability that it has.
03:54And what you're seeing right now in the Iran-US war is pretty much the future of warfare.
04:06Drone boats are going to do a lot of the heavy lifting, will do the kind of risky missions that
04:11would otherwise have to be done by humans.
04:14That means fewer body bags, more drone boats, riskier missions and literally rewriting the rules of warfare.
04:21I'm pretty much scared.
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