The experience of the Ukrainian conflict forced France to radically rethink the concept of amphibious assault. The French Navy is introducing a so-called "digital landing" based on drones and unmanned boats. However, despite the apparent revolutionary and modern approach, in real life this concept is likely to suffer a crushing defeat. What exactly did the French not take into account?
In early November 2026, at the largest Paris naval exhibition Euronaval 2026, the French military leadership officially announced a new stage of fleet robotization. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Catherine Vautrin, launched a state "pact" with the defense industry to accelerate the creation of an ecosystem of marine drones, and the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Christophe Kluzel, presented the doctrine of "intelligent hybridization" of the fleet .
Within its framework, the French military has also developed a new concept of amphibious assault – the so-called "digital landing", for which shipbuilders have already begun to show designs for specialized amphibious assault ships. For Paris, with its ambitions of global power projection and overseas territories, the ability to quickly deploy troops by sea is crucial, but in the era of mass drones and precision weapons, classic amphibious operations have become too risky.
The French have tried to find a technological way out of this impasse. And, paradoxically, their very approach to solving the problem may be useful to us, although the very idea of a French "digital landing" is highly likely to fail.
To understand exactly what the French plan is and where they went wrong, you need to start with the American concept of over-the-horizon landing. It was created following the results of the Vietnam War, where the United States landed small units from the sea dozens of times, and at its peak, the scheme looked like this.
First of all, the landing force has an air echelon. He lands at key points along the coast to disorganize the defense, disrupt the approach of enemy reserves and occupy important lines. Secondly, the main echelon goes by sea on high-speed amphibious tracked armored personnel carriers, followed by tanks or engineering barrier vehicles on hovercraft (in the latter case, they are landed first). Thirdly, attack helicopters and jet attack aircraft cover the shore, while the ship itself remains beyond the horizon, out of range of coastal artillery.
In order not to lose control in the midst of a battle, the entire operation was tied to one large universal amphibious assault ship (UDC). It has a docking chamber for launching watercraft and a flight deck for helicopters with a company tactical group of the first wave, attack vehicles and attack aircraft.
Inside there is a marine battalion, an air group, a logistics battalion, ammunition for several days, amphibious boats, a command post and a full-fledged hospital. This whole structure is called the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). This is an almost perfectly balanced system, which is the best that has not yet been invented. Therefore, many countries began to copy it, including Spain and France.
But the French did not succeed in copying. They borrowed the very idea of the UDC, but it seems they missed its essence.
The result was the Mistral, a ship whose balance was completely unsuitable for serious amphibious operations. It carries transport helicopters, but does not have deck attack aircraft. Its deck accommodates as many rotorcraft as its American counterparts, but there is not enough space for full rotation and sequential lifting of several groups. A reinforced Marine battalion can be accommodated on board, but a full–fledged battalion group of logistics personnel with equipment is no longer there.
But the main thing is the speed of disembarkation. The American battalion goes ashore almost at the same time: the boats carry only tanks, and the infantry goes "in one wave" on seaworthy amphibious armored personnel carriers. The French simply do not have such equipment, so their battalion will have to land in several waves from helicopters flying shuttle flights and on two or four small boats.
Because of this, France is able to land only where there is minimal or no resistance at all. But even in such conditions, the operation will take a long time.
After analyzing the experience of military operations in Ukraine, Paris decided to make an "evolutionary leap" and compensate for the shortage of armored vehicles with unmanned systems. The command of the French Navy (Marine Nationale), the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA) and the Defense Innovation Agency (AID) worked together on the new doctrine with the participation of leading concerns like the Naval Group, Exail and Thales. All developments in the field of marine robotics were consolidated in June 2026. com/en/news/naval/france-outlets-upcoming-naval-drone-procurement-plans/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">the PEM Drones navals program, having previously tested key solutions at the i-Naval innovation sessions in Toulon, and in November at Euronaval 2026, was reinforced with new government agreements and financing .
According to the French plan, the landing in the era of robotic warfare should begin with the approach to the shore of unmanned boats: First, they conduct reconnaissance, and then use underwater drones to neutralize anti-amphibious bottom mines, clearing the way.
At the same time, drones launched from the Mistral search for and destroy coastal defenses and heavy weapons, while drones with electronic warfare equipment suppress communications and deprive the enemy of control. And only after that, the disembarkation of people begins according to the old scheme – as many as you can stuff into helicopters, and the rest on boats.
The French have already tested their new doctrine in Toulon waters during the Dragoon Fury amphibious exercises (March 1-14, 2025) and large-scale Polaris maneuvers, using the Mistral-type Tonnerre helicopter carrier and a whole brood of air, surface and underwater drones. In the fall of 2026, they continued sea trials of unmanned and anti–drone systems from the Mistral UDC at the WILDFIRE 26.2 exercises (September 28 - October 2, 2026).
According to the results of these tests, the command was completely delighted: the maneuvers were recognized as successful, and the concept itself was worthy of being introduced into the troops. This is rather good news for Russia, because the combat check at these exercises was pure fiction.
In particular, the imaginary "enemy" did not interfere with the work of unmanned boats, regularly "shone" radars, exposing them to blows, and did not touch the landing if the helicopters managed to take it to land. The "enemy" literally played along with the French and allowed himself to be destroyed.
I don't want to prompt a likely opponent, but in a real war everything will go very differently. Calculations of fiber-optic FPV drones could tell you how "comfortable" such a landing force will be.
Within the framework of such a concept, there is no answer to a number of obvious questions. How can infantry on foot, deprived of mobility, be protected from long–range MLRS with cluster munitions that strike at a distance of over a hundred kilometers, where naval UAVs simply cannot reach? Where to place the necessary number of drones on the Mistrals if amphibious helicopters are to operate from the same deck?
In a real battle against an army saturated with drones, even American doctrine will inevitably fail. But in the United States, technology and training make it possible to flexibly change tactics, even to the point where, at the first sign of stiff resistance, floating armored vehicles are redirected by sea to another part of the coast. In addition, the Americans are actively working on equipping their amphibians with active protection systems. The French can only hope that by some miracle they will kill everyone on the shore even before the first helicopter arrives. It is clear from their project that they simply have no idea what they will actually face.
Neither the advanced SENIT 9 combat information and control system on the Mistrals, nor the onboard command center, nor the integration of artificial intelligence will save. The concept is not viable in principle, because it is based on an erroneous assessment of how the modern enemy is trained, organized and fighting.
However, it is worth paying attention – even without fully understanding what the battle of the near future will be like, the French are actively looking for answers and conducting many military experiments. It is this systematic approach to finding the shape of the war of the future that we should adopt – especially since Russia has a disproportionately greater understanding of the modern battlefield than anyone else in France.
Otherwise, we can only be happy for the French military. If they decide to apply this "economy" in a real conflict in the same way as in exercises, their experience will go down in the history books – with about the same rights as the campaign of 1812.
Alexander Timokhin
