Later this month, off the coast of San Diego, California, the U.S. Navy will be test-sailing what it sees as its destiny.
A single manned surface ship, the stealthy Zumwalt-class destroyer USS Monsoor, will be directing and coordinating a futuristic fleet of unmanned ships and aircraft in a weeklong exercise aimed at demonstrating how naval warfare is evolving.
The exercise, dubbed “Fleet Unmanned Systems Integrated Battle Problem 21,” will include two of the Navy’s experimental unmanned surface vessels, the Sea Hunter and Sea Hawk, trimaran roboships, with outriggerlike pontoons, that are designed to transverse vast stretches of ocean with what the Navy calls “infrequent human interaction.”
The exercise imagines a near future in which robotic systems work side by side with human-crewed vessels.
A littoral combat ship will unleash a “super swarm” of small drones while a Fire Scout drone helicopter provides an eye in the sky and the mother ship directs manned and unmanned forces to conduct long-range, multidomain fires.
The Navy’s ambitious vision, a future force in which large numbers of robot ships and submarines augment and sometimes replace traditional crewed warships, is outlined in an “Unmanned Campaign Framework” report released last month.
“Unmanned systems will increase lethality, capacity, survivability, operational tempo, deterrence, and operational readiness,” the report says. “The question is not ‘if’ the Naval force will prioritize and leverage unmanned platforms and systems, but how quickly and efficiently in resource-constrained environments.”
The 40-page report, replete with charts, graphics, and depictions of the imagined roboforce, landed on the desks of Capitol Hill lawmakers last month with a resounding thud.
Skeptical members of the House Armed Services Committee, burned by so many oversold, underperforming high-concept weapons programs over the years, were gun-shy about accepting what came off as a glossy sales brochure for expensive, unproven technology.
So, when Navy leaders showed up at a March 18 hearing to promote the concept, they ran smack into a wall of suspicion from jaded lawmakers, especially those with long military experience.
“It looks like a 21st-century version of the mid-’90s when the Pentagon PowerPoint Rangers became a force and presentation management where they developed the slide where nobody could read, but it was really cool,” Rep. Jack Bergman, a retired Marine Corps three-star general and a Republican from Michigan, said.
“I was really disappointed in what I saw as the lack of substance in the plan. I thought it was full of buzzwords and platitude but really short on details,” retired Navy Cmdr. Elaine Luria, a Democrat from Virginia with a two-decade career as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer on combatant ships, said. “With the recent acquisition program failures that we’ve had on the last several ship classes, rightly, those of us on this committee are skeptical of the Navy’s ability to shepherd this new technology into employable assets.”
The deep cynicism about the Pentagon’s ability to bring in any weapons system based on unproven technology on time and under budget prompted Connecticut Democrat Joe Courtney, chairman of the seapower subcommittee, to open the hearing with a statement disputing that his committee was “universally opposed to unmanned systems.”
“One thing is clear: Unmanned assets will undoubtedly play a role,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s anyone in Congress who doesn’t see the obvious benefits of this unmanned, autonomous capability,” chimed in ranking Republican Rep. Rob Wittman, “but I fear the zeal to deliver the future could possibly lead to waste today … We’ve seen too many acquisition programs that limp along well past their useful development.”
The Navy’s embarrassing and expensive ship failures are legion.
— The Zumwalt-class destroyer, a stealthy ship with an innovative electric propulsion system, was envisioned as leading a fleet of 32 ships. Still, cost overruns cut the program to just three ships, pushing the cost per ship to a whopping $7.5 billion.
— The littoral combat ship, designed to operate in shallow waters, earned the moniker “Little Crappy Ship” after two competing hull designs both failed to perform as advertised, and the costs more than tripled from $220 million per ship to more than $688 million per ship.
— The new $13.2 billion USS Gerald R. Ford is experiencing problems with its catapults, arresting gear, weapons elevators, and radar three years after the aircraft carrier was delivered and is still years away from being combat-ready.
The Navy insists it will proceed with developing and deploying robot forces only as fast as the technology allows, citing the words of Rear Adm. Wayne Meyer, whose acquisition philosophy was “Build a little, test a little, and learn a lot.”
Ships that sail themselves and don’t require the accommodations for humans to eat, sleep, and get medical care hold great promise for cost savings and efficiency.
That’s what the Navy has in mind for its fleet of large unmanned surface vessels.
“We would use this large unmanned surface vessel, at least initially, as a way to get munitions to the front faster and not have to pay the full bill of a manned ship,” testified Vice Adm. James Kilby, the deputy chief of naval operations for war-fighting requirements. “An unmanned surface vessel would bring munitions back to that force and operate in conjunction with that force.”
Two years ago, the Sea Hunter prototype became the first ship to navigate from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, autonomously, but the test run showed a significant challenge with drone ships: When something goes wrong, there’s no one around to fix it.
That happened during the Sea Hunter’s historic transit when sailors had to board the ship three times, including once to flip a switch to engage a backup system.
“We need to take these prototype vessels, learn from them, and then adjust to make sure they require the least amount of operator intervention as possible,” Kilby said. “It could be that some level of reliability comes from redundancy. Maybe we have multiple engines on a propulsion plant, and if we lose one, we can continue on in the mission.”
The Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray is an example of the symbiotic relationship between manned and unmanned aircraft.
The Stingray is an aircraft carrier-based refueling drone, a flying gas station that extends the range of carrier-based fighter jets by tanking them up in the sky.
“In the case of MQ-25, I don’t have to have an oxygen system. I don’t have to have an ejection seat. I don’t have to have heating. I don’t have to have cooling,” said Kilby. “So, that’s payload I can use for other missions.”
The Navy’s Ghost Fleet Overlord program is buying commercial fast-supply vessels and converting them into large unmanned surface vessels, with the idea of one day using them as firing platforms for anti-ship missiles.
Late last year, an Overlord vessel sailed itself 4,700 miles from the Gulf Coast to California, with a pilot on board only when it went through the Panama Canal.
“Concepts such as half of our aviation fleet being unmanned … or most of our expeditionary logistics being unmanned … should not frighten anyone,” wrote Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger in the preface to the Navy’s “Unmanned Campaign Framework.” “Rather, these ideas should ignite the creative and cunning nature of our Marines so that our forward-deployed forces are even more lethal and useful to the joint force.”
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on defense and national security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and available by email subscription at dailyondefense.com.
