In theory the frigate allegedly damaged is exactly such a modern naval ship. Its specs indicate that it comes with 2 AK-630 systems for point defense (unclear which revision/modernization); and in its capacity as ‘flagship’ one would normally expect it to be in the vicinity of at least some other vessels with similar; apparently the AK-630 was more or less ubiquitious in Soviet warship designs; though slated to be replaced by Kashtan or Pantsir-M in some of the new-enough-that-they-are-mostly-theoretical models.
Were the system working as intended the drones involved would have been considerably slower than the sort of anti-ship missiles that CIWS systems normally hope to be effective against; and definitely not durable enough to resist a 30mm autocannon for more than a moment or two.
I’m inclined to suspect that either the fire control system is less impressive than advertised; or the system simply wasn’t being used because of some combination of (legitimate) concern over friendly fire risk and (incorrect) assessment of how safe their distance was; potentially combined with some good old fashioned bungling.
I wonder how easily such a system could be either overwhelmed or depleted of ammunition if it was challenged with a large number of cheap, expendable decoy drones or something similar.
Edit to add: drone light shows are commercially available now. Just imagine the psychological effect of attacking ships with freakin’ dragons.
(seems like they would expend a lot of ammo taking it out, if nothing else.)
