What has this to do with anything? It is about money, something that drives almost any worthwhile endeavor.
The US Navy has made a strong commitment to uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) that will work alongside crewed surface ships for the Navy-After- Next. To achieve this, the Navy has asked Congress for robust funding.
To paraphrase what the US Congress has said to the Navy: “We will give you the money if, beyond the PowerPoint slides, you can show us that these USVs you want to buy actually do something useful.”
Congress has a point, but to be fair, over the past decade the Navy and the Marine Corps have conducted numerous exercises experiments and demonstrations where industry has brought various USVs and rung them out during these events.
Still, until recently, the Navy has not yet used these in an operational environment where Congress and other stakeholders will see them and have the confidence to accelerate their use.
If this occurs, it can make the Navy-After-Next more affordable by having USVs complement crewed ships such as $13 billion Ford class aircraft carriers and $2.5 billion Arleigh Burke destroyers.
The other reason USVs are valued is because of their ability to reduce the danger to human life in high threat areas, to deliver persistent surveillance over areas of interest, and to provide options to warfighters that derive from the inherent advantages of these technologies.
So, what evidence can the Navy show that these technologically advanced vessels are adding value now?
At a military-industry conference here in San Diego several years ago, the then-Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, expressed the goal to have USVs accompany an aircraft carrier strike group by 2027 or 2028.
The Navy has been keen enough to make this happen that this is occurring this year. The Theodore Roosevelt strike group deployed with a Seahawk USV and is participating in the Pacific Fleet Integrated Battle Problem. This key milestone signifies the transition of USVs from experimental craft to an operational part of the Navy fleet.
Another key milestone was recently achieved. For decades, the concept of operations for air, surface, subsurface, and ground uncrewed systems was built on the paradigm of: “One uncrewed system, many joysticks, many operators.”
The need to enhance the autonomy of its unmanned systems is especially acute for the US Navy. For autonomous aerial and maritime systems deployed from US Navy ships, every operator and technician must embark on the ship. Each person has a bunk, must be fed, generates administrative and overhead requirements, and has quality of life needs that must be met. This, in turn, generates its own additional manpower needs.
In a demonstration organized by the Joint Staff, three MARTAC USVs, (T24 and T38 Devel Ray USVs) were controlled by one operator who was either in-theloop or on-the-loop and who directed these USVs to swarm a target. This brings an enormous new capability to make these USVs more operationally relevant for the Navy-After-Next.
In likely the most dramatic operational use of USVs in an operational environment, earlier this year an USV rescued two US Army Apache aircraft pilots whose aircraft were shot down by an Iranian kamikaze drone in Iranian territorial waters. The ability to use a USV in a high-threat environment enabled the US military to fulfill the moral imperative to: “Leave no one behind.”
Most recently, US Central Command announced that three small one-way USVs were used to attack an Iranian port. In the 25-second video posted Monday on X, the USVs approached an Iranian pier at Bandar Abbas near the Strait of Hormuz with what appears to be a Ghadir-class midget submarine suspended from a gantry.
Congress has noticed. While the US Congress hasn’t rained down funding for uncrewed platforms, it has signaled a keen interest in USVs. An article in Defense One put it this way: “House lawmakers want the Navy to deploy drone boats faster.”
While USVs don’t represent a “magic bullet” for the US military, they are changing the character of warfare and most importantly, saving American lives.
