Navy Wants 10-Ship Unmanned 'Ghost Fleet' to Supplement Manned Force

[jpak]

https://news.usni.org/2019/03/13/navy-wants-ten-ship-3b-unmanned-experimental-ghost-fleet

THE PENTAGON – As the Navy faces more complex threats to its manned ships from Russia and China, the service is moving quickly to field an unmanned “Ghost Fleet” — a new breed of armed unmanned surface combatants will add more sensors and weapons to the current fleet.

In Fiscal Year 2020, the Navy has budgeted $400 million for two of the proposed large unmanned surface vehicles in its research and development budget line. The Navy plans to continue buying two a year until FY 2024, for a total of about $2.7 billion.

“These are 200- to 300-foot [vessels], 2,000 tons. I’m not sure what the final hull form will be, that’s what we are using today in terms of what the Ghost Fleet buy will be,” Rear Adm. Randy Crites, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, said on Tuesday during a press budget briefing.

Unlike the small unmanned craft the Navy has experimented with in the past, the 10 large USVs the Navy wants to buy are the size of a small warship. The corvette-sized USVs are being developed to field different types of sensors and, eventually, vertical launch system (VLS) cells for a variety of guided missiles. However, it’s unclear how the unmanned systems will fit into the larger Navy force structure, how they will be measured as part of the battle force, how they would function with other platforms and what requirements for the Navy the systems would fulfill.

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[MineralMan]

1. What could possibly go wrong?

[Blues Heron]

2. Good lord these airheads never stop cooking up ways to squander our money

Cheaper to stop making enemies all over the place.

[old guy]

4. Surface navy missile fodder

[Ghost Dog]

5. As the Navy faces more effective defensive measures

arrayed in response to its increasingly aggressive posture,... opportunities for government-funded private profit arise.