Here's 5 things you should know about the US Navy's plans for big autonomous missile boats

[Judi Lynn]

By: David B. Larter ? 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Navy’s yearlong fight to convince lawmakers it needed a significant investment in unmanned ships the size of offshore patrol vessels resulted in a kind of half-victory.

The Navy kicked off the drive this year, announcing it was programming $2.7 billion in funding to develop and field unmanned platforms over the next five years, buying two large unmanned surface vessels per year.

Congress approved the purchase of two large unmanned surface vessels, or LUSVs, but forbade the service from integrating a vertical launch system, which is where the Navy anticipates many of the technical difficulties inherent in their concept reside.

But now that the program is going forward, what exactly is the Navy buying and what are the next steps?

More:
https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/surface-navy-association/2020/01/13/heres-5-things-you-should-know-about-the-us-navys-plans-for-big-autonomous-missile-boats/

[C_U_L8R]

1. Swarms of miniature armed robots

That’s the future. Unfortunately.

[Ghost Dog]

2. It's a simple concept requiring complex systems

for implementation.

... “We want to create an unmanned magazine," said Kilby, who heads the Chief of Naval Operations’ warfighting requirements and capabilities office.

“And if you think about from the perspective and I use that in conjunction with another force element where I can integrate fires, pass fire control from that element to the unmanned vehicle and deplete that magazine, send it back to reload, go back to using my magazine, wait for the unmanned magazine to return – I can sustain the fight longer.”

Essentially the Navy is looking for a cheaper way to increase the number of vertical launch tubes in the fleet without, as Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday put it last year, wrapping a $2 billion destroyer hull around 96 missile tubes...

Navigating in and out of port, taking into account other shipping, currents, weather and sea conditions as well as satellites and charts... Autonomous navigation will become common in commercial shipping too... Unless the whole imperial socio-financial-political system crashes and burns first.