This Is Naval Group’s Concept For A Stealthy, Drone-Armed Future Destroyer
France’s Naval Group has unveiled the SCX26, a future warship concept exploring how large surface combatants could evolve to meet the demands of naval warfare in the coming decades. Heavily influenced by lessons from recent conflicts and emerging technologies, Naval Group describes it as a platform for testing ideas about future naval combat, rather than a design intended for immediate construction. However, it provides an interesting case study into what the next generation of destroyers could look like.
In terms of the destroyer as a floating base for multiple types of drones, the potential of even smaller and cheaper drones to vastly increase the combat flexibility and overall capabilities of an advanced warship — especially when the drones can be employed in swarms — is something that TWZ has addressed in detail in the past.
Key features of the new design include a stealth-focused hull, distributed sensors, a substantial missile arsenal, and a large internal mission bay for uncrewed systems. Its most distinctive features are two widely separated superstructures that also act as sensor towers and extensive facilities for operating, maintaining, and potentially even manufacturing drones.
The SCX26 measures approximately 558 feet long and 79 feet wide, with a reported full-load displacement of around 8,000 metric tons. That makes it considerably larger than Naval Group’s FDI frigates. These innovative vessels, which you can read more about here, have a displacement of around 4,460 metric tons. These warships are 400 feet long and are 59 feet wide.
Unveiled today at the Euronaval 2026 exhibition, taking place this week in Paris, the new ship is designed for a maximum speed of 30 knots and a range of up to 8,000 nautical miles. Its proposed propulsion system is CODLAG, or combined diesel-electric and gas turbine propulsion. In contrast, the French Navy’s FDIs are capable of speeds of 27 knots, driven by a combined diesel and diesel (CODAD) propulsion arrangement.
The concept artwork shows a long, low hull with smooth sides and minimal external clutter. Its angular superstructures reflect an emphasis on reducing radar signatures, while its wave-piercing, knife-like bow recalls that of the FDI design.
Naval Group also says the design considers detection from above, including by radar satellites, with particular attention to the upper surfaces of its superstructures.
The SCX26’s most distinctive external feature is its split-superstructure arrangement.
Twin-island superstructures remain a highly unusual arrangement in which a ship’s functions are divided between two separate deckhouses rather than concentrated in one. On aviation-focused vessels such as the U.K. Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class carriers, this allows navigation and flight operations to be managed separately. The same configuration was also studied for France’s future carrier, before it settled on a more conventional design.
On the SCX26, the arrangement also distributes sensors and bridges between two structures.
The forward tower is broad, with large square radar panels integrated into its faceted sides. Mer et Marine reports that the largest panels are intended for a new-generation UHF radar, complemented by a multifunction active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar derived from the Sea Fire family used on the FDI frigate.
The aft tower is taller and narrower, topped by a pole mast.
Separating the sensor installations could provide wider coverage, reduce blind arcs, and improve resilience by distributing critical equipment across two structures. The arrangement also supports Naval Group’s emphasis on redundancy and survivability.
The choice of a UHF radar system reflects the requirement to improve long-range detection of demanding targets, including ballistic and hypersonic threats. Anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs) and hypersonic weapons present some of the most demanding challenges for naval air defenses, and these types of threats are only set to proliferate. Their extreme speeds, combined in some cases with the ability to maneuver unpredictably during flight, compress the time available to detect, track, and intercept them.
A large open deck area separates the two towers. Naval Group describes this as a flexible central zone for additional mission equipment, including modular weapons and remotely operated systems. In a video also released today, the company presented mass-launcher boxes for drones. While these are shown in the video installed on an FDI frigate, they could equally occupy this central zone on the destroyer design.
The proposed weapons fit includes 12 Sylver vertical-launch installations: eight forward and four aft. Depending on launcher configuration, these could accommodate up to 96 missiles, including Aster 30 surface-to-air missiles and MdCN land-attack cruise missiles.
Launch of an Aster 30 surface-to-air missile from an Italian warship:
Lancio Aster 30
Naval Group also identifies options for increasing the missile capacity beyond 100, including quad-packed CAMM missiles and future Sylver NG launchers.
Modern destroyers increasingly rely on large vertical launch system (VLS) arrays to carry a mixture of long- and short-range air-defense missiles, as well as other weapons. This capacity is particularly important in an era of massed missile and drone attacks, since ships have limited opportunities to replenish their missile stocks at sea and can quickly expend expensive interceptors defending against successive waves of threats.
In addition to the missiles loaded in the VLS cells, the ship would also carry two multifunctional Rampart launchers for short-range missiles, guided rockets, and decoys. On the model of the SCX26 shown at Euronaval, Rampart launchers are seen on either side of the rear of the ship, just forward of the flight deck.
Tirs réussis du Rampart à Canjuers / Successful live-fire trials at camp Canjuers for Rampart
The SCX26 concept includes several weapons that remain developmental or conceptual.
Its primary gun is described as a large-caliber electromagnetic weapon capable of firing rapid salvos. A conventional 57mm gun is also included. Both these guns are housed in shrouded cupolas, helping preserve the low-observable characteristics of the warship.
Electromagnetic railguns use powerful electrical currents and magnetic fields to accelerate projectiles to extremely high velocities, rather than relying on conventional gunpowder propellants. They promise long ranges, high rates of fire, and relatively inexpensive ammunition, potentially giving warships another way to engage air, surface, and land targets without consuming valuable missile stocks. So far, however, these systems have been dogged by significant technical challenges, especially when it comes to power generation and sustained operation, including barrel wear.
Another novel weapon system for the SCX26 is a proposed 100-kilowatt laser that would be mounted high on the forward superstructure, providing an elevated field of engagement against drones, missiles, and other threats.
High-energy lasers offer warships a potentially economical way to engage drones, small boats, and other relatively inexpensive threats without expending costly conventional missiles. They can engage targets at the speed of light and, provided sufficient electrical power and cooling are available, offer a virtually inexhaustible magazine compared with conventional weapons. On the other hand, their effectiveness is constrained by atmospheric conditions, range, and the need to maintain a sustained beam on the target. As a result, the SCX26 design considers the laser weapon as a supplement, rather than a replacement for traditional missiles.
With an output in the 100-kilowatt class, the laser would be comparable to the U.S. Navy Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) Mk 2 Mod 0 that was installed in the San Antonio class amphibious warfare ship USS Portland in 2019, as seen in the video below:
USS Portland (LPD 27) tests LWSD laser system
The SCX26’s aviation facilities occupy a substantial portion of the stern. A large internal mission bay beneath the flight deck would accommodate helicopters and other uncrewed aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles.
A large elevator connects the mission bay to the flight deck, allowing systems to be moved between the two. As seen in the model displayed at Euronaval, the flight deck has spots for a single medium (NH90-sized) helicopter and two smaller spots for vertical takeoff and landing drones.
Naval Group describes the mission bay as a small onboard drone factory, with potential additive manufacturing capabilities alongside maintenance and repair facilities and spare-parts storage.
The arrangement would allow the SCX26 to carry and support a varied drone complement for intelligence gathering, surveillance, electronic warfare, strike, and other missions.
The drone-centric design of the SCX26 reflects the fact that warships are increasingly being conceived as motherships for uncrewed aerial, surface, and underwater vehicles, and not just simply platforms that can be adapted to support a handful of remotely operated systems. Drones can extend a vessel’s surveillance and targeting reach, conduct electronic warfare, support anti-submarine operations, and deliver weapons, while keeping crewed ships farther from danger. The kind of asymmetric advantage that drones can provide in a maritime context is something that Ukraine has employed with notable success against the Russian Navy in the Black Sea.
Ukraine sea drone attack on Russian ship | Raw video
Naval Group ultimately envisions the SCX26 operating as a command and connectivity hub within a wider naval force, coordinating crewed vessels, aircraft, and autonomous platforms.
Its proposed combat system would use a data-centric architecture, advanced processing, and artificial intelligence to manage information and coordinate unmanned systems.
The ship would have a crew of approximately 150, with accommodation for another 100 personnel. The additional capacity could support an embarked command staff, drone operators, and special mission personnel.
Naval Group sees automation as a way to augment the crew while enabling the ship to manage a much larger network of systems.
At this point, the company considers the SCX26 as a research project rather than a production design. Already, however, its architecture has undergone substantial design work and reportedly includes model testing in a towing tank.
The concept provides an indication of the company’s thinking about future surface combatants: large, stealthy platforms with distributed sensors, layered defenses, flexible mission spaces, and extensive uncrewed systems. All of these factors will be addressed as France looks toward fielding a replacement for its current Horizon class air-defense destroyers.
Whether these ideas eventually inform a future French or export warship remains to be seen. However, the SCX26 underscores the pace of change that naval warfare is undergoing, with future destroyers expected to not just be heavily armed, but to have the facilities to operate and support a large family of uncrewed systems, too.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com