NATO’s Dynamic Merlin 26 exercise in the Baltic Sea is adding live, unannounced drone attacks to its anti-submarine warfare scenarios, according to UK Defence Journal’s reporting from Stockholm.
The exercise runs from 9 to 13 November off Sweden, with German and Swedish submarines attempting to remain undetected while surface ships and maritime patrol aircraft search for them. The counter-drone serials will be conducted live, and commanders will not know when they begin. French Rear Admiral Nicolas Molitor said crews will have to detect, react to and destroy the targets, allowing the exercise to assess how effective some existing ship-mounted counter-drone systems are.
The documented answer for robotics practitioners is therefore limited but concrete: Dynamic Merlin will test a crewed naval force’s ability to detect and respond to aerial targets while simultaneously conducting anti-submarine operations. The sources identify live targets, ship crews and existing defensive systems, but they do not identify a drone model, sensor, control link, engagement range or automated decision function. The exercise is evidence of a demanding test setting, not proof of autonomous operation or successful target defeat.
The anti-submarine task provides the complication. Swedish Navy chief Rear Admiral Johan Norlén said ships will train against drones, missiles and submarines at the same time. He also described a layered approach in which individual ships may not defend against every threat alone, but ships can combine different defensive capabilities. The reporting does not say which ship or system will perform each detection or engagement decision.
A separate UK Defence Journal report on Kongsberg Maritime’s Arctic Hunter proposal shows a different stage of maritime robotics. Kongsberg says the proposed uncrewed vessel could remain at sea for up to 60 days and carry sonar and military communications, but deliveries are planned for the end of the decade and no numbers or in-service dates have been set. That is a proposed future anti-submarine platform, not operational evidence from Dynamic Merlin. The current exercise demonstrates crewed ships testing defenses against unannounced aerial targets; it does not demonstrate deployment of Arctic Hunter or establish how either system performs in combat.