Maritime drones from Stark: Vanta-4 and Vanta-6 mark the company's entry into the maritime domain

With two unmanned boat systems, Vanta-4 and Vanta-6, Stark is entering the maritime domain and expanding its portfolio. The German loitering munition specialist presented the two maritime drones in a press release.

According to Stark, the systems are intended to give NATO and its partners a “decisive means of protecting Europe's sea areas against growing threats”. The boats are designed for cost-efficient series production; their range is up to 900 nautical miles, and they can be deployed in swarms. This is intended to allow several operational areas to be monitored at the same time and threats to be kept under permanent control, while significantly reducing the risk to own personnel.

Why Stark is betting on maritime drones

Stark justifies the move to sea with its strategic importance: around 95 per cent of global data traffic runs through undersea cables, and around 90 per cent of global trade in goods is carried by sea. The European NATO states alone have to secure a sea area of more than five million square kilometres, larger than the land mass of the entire EU. According to Stark, conventional ships can no longer manage this.

Vanta-4 and Vanta-6 were presented at the NATO exercise “REP(MUS)” in Portugal. There the boats have already completed numerous missions, including escort, harbour surveillance, reconnaissance of suspicious contacts and night patrols.

Stark's partner in introducing the Vanta family is British shipbuilder JD Marine International. Thanks to the company's own command software Minerva, the boats are said to be designed from the outset for complex, cross-domain scenarios. Stark says: “Minerva ensures interoperability with reconnaissance and effector systems and gives NATO the capability for seamless operations on land, in the air and at sea”.

Philip Lockwood, Managing Director of Stark International, stressed the importance of the issue: “If undersea cables are cut, payments come to a standstill. If shipping lanes are blocked, supermarket prices rise. The sea is not just part of our security, it is its foundation. We cannot afford any vulnerability in this area.”