Page 48: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2022)

EYE ON THE NAVY AUTONOMOUS BOATS

Are Unmanned Surface Vessels the Key to a 500-Ship U.S. Navy?

By George Galdorisi n an era of great power competition, navies – by virtue of (CONOPS) for using them. Congress has a point. Unless the their ability to span the globe and effectively deliver com- Navy can evolve such a CONOPS, it is unlikely that a 500- bat power – are likely to be the sine qua non of military ship ? eet populated by 150 unmanned surface vehicles will

I power. This leads, naturally, to the tendency to count num- ever reach fruition.

bers of ship hulls when comparing the strength of navies. Lost on no one is the fact that the size of China’s Navy now exceeds A Concept of Operations for that of the U.S. Navy, and the gap in ship numbers is growing. Unmanned Surface Vehicles

During the Cold War, while the quality of their ships might The concept of operations proposed is to marry various size not have been equal to that of the U.S. Navy, the Soviet Union unmanned surface, subsurface and aerial unmanned vehicles boasted a far larger Navy than the United States and professed to perform missions that the U.S. Navy has—and will con- the intention to use it against the United States and its NATO al- tinue to have—as the Navy-After-Next evolves. Simply put, lies. As a result, at the height of what has become known as the the Navy can use the evolving large unmanned surface vehicle

Reagan Defense Buildup in the 1980s, the U.S. Navy evolved as a “truck” to move smaller USVs, UUVs and UAVs into the a strategy to build a “600-ship Navy.” That effort resulted in a battle space.

total number of Navy ships that reached 594 in 1987. While there are a plethora of important Navy missions this

Recently, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mi- combination of unmanned platforms can accomplish, this arti- chael Gilday, revealed the Navy’s goal to reach 500 ships, cle will focus on two: intelligence surveillance and reconnais- calling for over 350 manned ships and 150 large unmanned sance (ISR) and mine countermeasures (MCM), two critically maritime vehicles in order to be able to ful? ll the Navy’s glob- important Navy missions. The technical challenge remains to al commitments, especially in a potential con? ict with China. ensure that the multiple sized UxSs associated with these mis-

While the U.S Navy has the aspiration of using unmanned sions can be adapted to work together toward a common goal. maritime vessels to increase the size of the Fleet, the U.S. This article offers concrete examples, using commercial-

Congress has been increasingly reluctant to authorize the off-the shelf (COTS) unmanned systems that have been em-

Navy’s planned investment of billions of dollars on USVs ployed in recent Navy and Marine Corps exercises. In each until the service can come up with a concept of operations case, these systems not only demonstrated mission accom- 48 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • November 2022

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