Sunday, January 3, 2021

US Navy Wants 21 Unmanned Surface And Underwater Vessels Over The Next Five Years

US Navy’s naval unmanned surface concept. (Picture source NAVSEA) 


The Navy just released its 30-year shipbuilding plan 

The Navy is getting into drones in a big way, with new plans to add 21 unmanned surface and underwater vessels over the next five years. 

The Navy just released its 30-year shipbuilding plan, which reflects a growing emphasis on the use of drones in maritime combat. 

Between now and 2026, the Navy aims to acquire 12 large unmanned surface vessels, one medium unmanned surface vessel and 8 extra-large unmanned underwater vessels, according to the plan. 


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unmanned vessels are a waste of time and money. The complexity of operating such a vessels completely restricts its ability to perform complex tasks, more over all the R/D is freely gifted to any nation who happens to located it without the political backlash. Hilter made the same mistake with his Vengeance weapons, the first sr-71 blackbird that was downed was a total disaster, for the simple reason it gifted the Russians billions in technological advances as did Hilter to the British with the V1 and V2 rockets. A simple sensor would work perfectly fine, why does it have to move around? just an oversized and expensive torpedo.

Anonymous said...

I doubt its the Navy that wants them, rather its will be investors. Without a crew, the intellectual property remains with the investors, like wise maintenance, construction and even operations. Its all about extracting the most amount of wealth from the Navy for the least amount of product and the Navy thinks its a good deal because they don't have the same overhead as with crew members. Navys are not just about ships on the water, its about the crews and how they integrate into society. Each ship, is one less captain, one less cook, one less weapons expert who could contribute to the American war effort is otherways. For what? so you can hire one less person, so some company earns a few extra dollars for their investors.