Why are small maritime drones (USVs) perfect for controlling maritime chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz?

Last year, I whipped up a deep dive on small USVs x strategic maritime chokepoints - research now critical today.

TLDR - here are my top 5 takeaways:

1) ~1000 sUSVs can control most of the world's critical sea chokepoints. Renewably-powered sentries provide surveillance, while speedboat interceptors can quickly respond from land (Check the table counting all of them)

2) Hormuz is the perfect chokepoint for sUSV control - except for one thing! - Narrow canals (e.g. Panama) can be controlled from land - Big straits (e.g. Taiwan-China) require hundreds of USVs to cover hundreds or thousands of square miles - But medium-sized chokepoints like Hormuz are the perfect size for sUSVs to patrol - These chokepoints are smaller than the Black Sea battlefield where Ukrainian sUSVs have been terrorizing Russia's fleet

3) What's hard about Hormuz? Basing of short-range sUSVs. They need a launch point right on the chokepoint. For the United States, basing killer drones in the UAE, Oman, or similarly neutral countries that own the key littoral geography - this is the legal challenge. In today's conflict, with Dubai under attack, the Emiratis seem happy to host our forces. I wrote the deep dive in the context of a conflict with China or Russia, whom the Emiratis are closer to, and would not "side against." Today, with a full-scale conflict, a chokepoint like Hormuz could probably use more sUSVs than I estimated in the attached table.

4)This market is saturated. In January, the US Navy's top admirals (at Surface Navy Symposium) said the Navy would have 500 sUSVs in the fleet by the end of 2027. This sounds like a lot? But it's not. The US Navy has already purchased 600+ sUSVs - having only 500 at the end of next year means they're not buying any more. This creates tough market conditions for great companies building this tech. Last year, I estimated that the total market for sUSVs was $250M - the news from this January suggests that this is only a ~$100M (US DoD) market. Maybe even smaller.

5) Why aren't we seeing USVs used in Hormuz, or in the current conflict at all? The Iranians and Houthis have been using suicide / interceptor USVs for 5+ years. The US DoD has spent almost $1B on sUSVs while Silicon Valley has poured another $1B into the technology, and spent years building companies to produce the tech. Every month I see new companies launching a small USV product. But now we have a conflict - and no USVs are in use?

Analysis: Surely, the Navy is risk-averse. Even with aggressive risk taking, integrating new boats into a complex force architecture would take time. BUT - the success of LUCAS - a piece of tech copied from the Iranians AFTER we started copying their sUSVs - shows that maritime drones are lagging. We must aggressively test and iterate. This is the only way we'll learn faster, adopt smarter, and build the future fleet better.