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European shipbuilding: “In the future, we will need to be able to strike more targets at longer ranges”
The SEA Naval alliance’s chairman, present at Euronaval, provided an analysis of the changes in naval warfare and the challenges facing Europe’s naval industry. Among the issues that will shape tomorrow’s naval capabilities are USVs, interoperability, industrial sovereignty, and firepower.
- Illustration of the Mast-o-drone autonomous platform developed through the European E=MCM project.
- The E=MCM system develops solutions to detect drifting mines.
© E=MCM
In the future, naval capabilities will continue to centre around surface vessels and submarines. What will change is that their effectiveness will depend on their ability to interact with other units, USVs, and digital systems. For Europe, naval warfare will require two things: mastering these new technologies and maintaining an industry capable of designing, developing, and manufacturing its own equipment.
According to SEA Naval chairman Reserve (2S) Admiral Stanislas Gourlez de la Motte, traditional platforms won’t disappear, but they will be used differently. “It won’t be a question of replacing the platforms we are familiar with. They will still be very useful. The issue is to maximise their effectiveness,” he said.
From ship to system of systems
The uptake of digital technology and USVs has highlighted the need to connect ships to each other and to nearby USVs to enable ships to operate more effectively, either autonomously or as part of a naval force.
The technologies that are becoming the most important are perhaps the least visible. Digital architectures, integration systems, and solutions that strike the right trade-off between speed, power, available space, and combat readiness will be crucial. SEA Naval’s white paper identifies 21 strategic enablers that support this transformation.
Other crucial factors include interoperability to ensure that different units can work together – such as through NATO standards – and industrial partnerships to share R&D resources, align with navies’ requirements, and develop common technologies.
Maintaining a sovereign DTIB
For SEA Naval, an alliance of European naval shipbuilding stakeholders, sovereignty depends more than anything on a strong industrial base. This means shipyards, technical expertise, a skilled workforce, and the ability to integrate complex systems on time and on budget. Given these challenges, having a broad diversity of manufacturers in Europe is an asset, as it stimulates competition and helps ensure more resilient production capacity. And competition doesn’t rule out the kind of cooperation we are already seeing in European naval programmes and in research projects financed by European institutions.
The balance between competition and cooperation is delicate in a highly competitive global market, however. This is why it is so important to maintain our entire maritime industrial base. “A strong naval shipbuilding industry requires a strong maritime industry,” Stanislas Gourlez de la Motte said. The European Commission’s 2026 European Industrial Maritime Strategy (EIMS) aims to safeguard Europe’s industrial capabilities and support the development of tomorrow’s maritime technologies.
Better-armed navies for Europe
Europe’s navies will have to undergo an industrial and technological transformation. However, they will also have to reinvent themselves operationally, with a focus on armaments – a need that operations in Libya, Syria, and the Red Sea have brought to light. The ability to protect merchant vessels and strike targets at long range will likely accelerate the trend toward vessels that can unleash more firepower over greater distances and operate within collaborative combat systems. “In the future, we will need to be able to strike more targets at longer ranges,” Stanislas Gourlez de la Motte said.
SEA Naval: Two European projects to accelerate collaborative naval combat
Transforming naval warfare will require more effective cooperation between manned platforms, autonomous systems, and digital tools. SEA Naval has identified two European projects that illustrate this approach: the E=MCM project on naval mine countermeasures (MCMs) and the SWAT-SHOAL project on underwater operations in shallow waters.
E=MCM: European mine countermeasures
E=MCM, supported by the European Defence Fund (EDF) and coordinated by Naval Group Belgium, involves 21 partners from eleven countries. The purpose of the project is to develop and test a modular, autonomous system-of-systems based on cooperation between manned platforms, autonomous systems, and digital tools to effectively counter naval mines.
In addition to keeping operators out of hazardous areas, the solution will also support the more effective coordination of mission resources. The E=MCM approach is to integrate these capabilities into a shared system that includes operations planning, task allocation, and situation reporting. Interoperability will be facilitated by standardised interfaces and secure data exchanges. Analytics will transform information gathered during operations into actionable insights.
Manned vessels will continue to play a central role, deploying and operating autonomous systems and managing data. E=MCM is evidence of the shift toward collaborative naval warfare, where effectiveness depends not only on the equipment’s capabilities, but – just as importantly – on the equipment’s ability to work together.
SWAT-SHOAL: modular teams for underwater operations
The European SWAT-SHOAL project, coordinated by Aitor Facio Valero, Head of AI & Cybersecurity at Navantia’s Centre of Excellence for Naval Systems, applies this collaborative approach to underwater operations in shallow waters. The objective is to enable manned and autonomous underwater and surface vessels to work together in teams suited to each mission’s requirements.
By making the most of these vessels’ complementary capabilities, larger areas can be covered, and tasks can be allocated according to the operational situation. And using these vessels simultaneously creates the ability to reallocate tasks if one platform fails, for example, making the whole system more resilient and operations more efficient. “Coordination and cooperation – not brute force – are what you need to respond to challenging environments and constantly-changing threats,” said Facio Valero.
Operations management systems, resilient communications, and human-machine interfaces (HMIs) that enable operators to stay in control of critical decisions underpin the project. SWAT-SHOAL will bring flexibility to naval forces by creating teams and allocating tasks for the requirements of each mission.
- Linda Verhaeghe
