The reality is that they’re subject to the same limitations,
shortcomings, and failings of manned platforms and they’ve been demonstrated to
require more personnel to operate than their unmanned equivalents.
I recently authored a short story post that described the
failings of an unmanned fleet (see, “An Ill-Fated Voyage”). While the story was an intentional
exaggeration and collection of all the worst characteristics of unmanned
vessels, the underlying reality was spot on.
In the fall of 2018, the Navy sent the DARPA / ONR unmanned
Sea Hunter vessel (Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail
Unmanned Vessel - ACTUV)
on an autonomous voyage from San Diego to Hawaii amid great fanfare. Here’s a typical announcement of the event,
The
U.S. Navy’s Sea Hunter unmanned surface vessel has become the
first ship of any description to ever sail from San Diego, California to Pearl
Harbor, Hawaii and back without the need of a crew for navigation and steering.
(3)
Wow! What an amazing
achievement! Sailing from San Diego To
Hawaii and back without ever, once, being touched by human hands!
 |
| Sea Hunter - An Ill-Fated Voyage |
Setting aside the hype of the event, the reality is a bit
different. The Sea Hunter was
accompanied by an escort ship and sailors had to regularly board the unmanned
vessel to conduct checks and make repairs.
In
2019 an unmanned Sea Hunter prototype autonomous vessel sailed from San Diego
to Hawaii, but it needed to repair several broken systems along the way,
forcing sailors to board the ship. (1)
…
personnel only boarded the Sea Hunter for short periods from an escort vessel
to check electrical and propulsion systems. (4)
The Navy acknowledges at least three major breakdowns during
the voyage.
Sea
Hunter MUSV traveled from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on its own with no
intervention from a navigational standpoint. On the voyage out, a crew
following nearby on an escort ship boarded Sea Hunter three times to fix
mechanical problems. In one instance, one of two engines shut down, and two problems
occurred with one of two generators. (5)
The Navy has also not stated how long the voyage took,
presumably because the vessel broke down repeatedly and the sailing time would
graphically demonstrate the failings of the vessel.
How successful was the voyage?
It
was the first experiment of its kind, one the Navy has not repeated. Those
mechanical problems point to work the Navy must do to reconfigure its logistics
tail to meet the needs of a new class of ship. (1)
So, while technically true that the vessel eventually made
the voyage with no crew – if you ignore the repeated boardings to fix problems
that caused the vessel to break down – the voyage was less than
successful. Along the same line, I once
swam a mile underwater. Pretty
impressive, huh?! Of course, I popped up
to the surface every ten feet to get a breath of air but, technically, I swam a
mile underwater. That’s what this Sea
Hunter voyage was – a series of short voyages punctuated by breakdowns and
repairs.
So, to sum up the voyage, it required two ships and a
boarding crew to accomplish what a single manned ship could have done on its
own.
Hey, I understand that when you’re developing new technology
you accomplish things in baby steps that may not seem that impressive on their
own. That’s how you learn. I get it.
The problem is that what we’re trying to develop has no CONOPS
underlying its reason for existence. No
one has done any public, documented validation of the concept. No legitimate wargaming. Nothing.
We’ve jumped into the deep end of the unmanned pool with nothing but
blind faith to keep us afloat.
You know, if you work at it hard enough, you can convince
yourself of anything. Here’s an example,
“ACTUV
represents a new vision of naval surface warfare that trades small numbers of
very capable, high-value assets for large numbers of commoditized, simpler
platforms that are more capable in the aggregate,” said Fred Kennedy, TTO
[DARPA Tactical Technology Office] director. “The U.S. military has talked
about the strategic importance of replacing ‘king’ and ‘queen’ pieces on the
maritime chessboard with lots of ‘pawns,’ and ACTUV is a first step toward
doing exactly that.” (2)
Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Kings and Queens replaced by pawns? The only problem is that the pawns are
extremely limited in their abilities.
The word ‘pawn’ has come to mean an insignificant, minor person or
asset. That should tell us something!
Finally, let’s consider expectations versus reality. Here’s what the Navy expects to happen,
The
Navy intends for the MUSV to sustain speeds of 24 to 27 knots, operate in sea
states 4 or 5, while surviving up to sea state 7; and spend 60 to 90 days at
sea without returning to port, according to Navy slides reviewed by USNI News.
(5)
Wow! 60-90 days
unattended … and yet the reality is a simple, non-combat voyage required two
ships and a hovering boarding crew to accomplish. There is a huge mismatch between reality and
expectations, here!
In case you’re unfamiliar with the Navy’s unmanned surface
vessel vision, here’s a post on the subject:
“Navy's Manned-Unmanned Fleet Concept”
(1)Breaking Defense website, “Navy Wants Robot Boats But
Will Still Need Sailors To Fix Them”, Paul McLeary, 6-May-2020,
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/navy-wants-robot-boats-but-will-still-need-sailors-to-fix-them/(2)DARPA website, “ACTUV “Sea Hunter” Prototype Transitions to Office of Naval Research for Further Development”, 30-Jan-2018,
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-01-30a
(3)The Drive website, “Navy’s Sea Hunter Drone Ship Has
Sailed Autonomously To Hawaii And Back Amid Talk Of New Roles”, Joseph
Trevithick, 4-Feb-2019,
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26319/usns-sea-hunter-drone-ship-has-sailed-autonomously-to-hawaii-and-back-amid-talk-of-new-roles
(4)Hawaii News Now website, “This 132-foot vessel sailed
from CA to Hawaii (and back) without anyone on board”, staff report,
15-Feb-2019,
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/02/16/this-foot-vessel-sailed-ca-hawaii-back-without-anyone-board/
(5)USNI News website, “Sea Hunter Unmanned Ship Continues Autonomy
Testing as NAVSEA Moves Forward with Draft RFP”, Megan Eckstein, 29-Apr-2019,
https://news.usni.org/2019/04/29/sea-hunter-unmanned-ship-continues-autonomy-testing-as-navsea-moves-forward-with-draft-rfp
Is there anyone anywhere in the upper levels of our Navy who understands that ships are meant to fight?
ReplyDeleteWell, this might be a case that helps revive the idea of redundancy... But until we have self-fixing vessels, I dont see this as a wise basket to put many eggs in. Im sceptical, but thats borne of a life/career spent fixing broken things...!!!
ReplyDelete2 engines and 2 gensets only is problem number 1. I think they may have just bought 5 engines and 3 gensets with MUSV. Anxious to see. They also need to keep the load on all the engines in a profile similar to an emergency diesel generator, maxing out the design time for maintenance by controlling the load.
ReplyDeleteAbove and beyond the limiting factors of simply keeping some sort of LUSV simply operating for the duration of a cruise (6 months? 12 months?) there are the further, and more difficult considerations of legal, piracy, connectivity, damage control and AI maturity.
ReplyDeleteIf a tag-along ship with additional VLS tubes are what the requirements, war-gaming, strategies, and operational art require, then I don't really see why it needs to be unmanned.
The Navy doesn't know how to create billets for Lt Cmdr any more, just admiral?
DeleteThe first Wright Brother's flight flew 120 feet. Their fourth flight flew 852 feet in 59 seconds. And, this was after years of basic research, flying gliders, and developing a suitable engine.
ReplyDeleteShips are more complex machines than drone aircraft. While some drone technologies are applicable, new technologies are necessary. The Navy needs to take the time to develop them before proceeding with an operational drone ship. And, the concept of build a little, test a lot, never fails.
Why would anyone think that unmanned platforms would somehow become invulnerable to mechanical failure?
ReplyDeleteIf manned platforms with permanently stationed engineers. suffer breakdowns and require near constant maintenance and repair, why would we think that unmanned platforms without engineer and electrical officers and crew would somehow never require maintenance or repair in transit or operation?
It's almost like the people building these things. have never served on a ship before.
The day that they invent an engine that never breaks down is the day that unmanned platforms become viable as operational units.
electric motor + battery/fuel cell for starters.
DeleteHi, there are diesel engines that run continuosly for years or easily 1000's of hours on end. Thestriction with those would be how much fuel the UMV has. You would not get real high end speeds maybe 25 knots. Engine reliabilty over a few weeks continuous running time would not be an issue. They don't like being shut -off and is not good for such motors.
Delete^sp- Thestriction ="The restriction"
DeleteThere are so many problems with the concept of unmanned shipping.
DeleteMechanical reliability is a major one.
If you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an unmanned warship and it breaks down (as Sea Hunter did repeatedly) in a warzone, it becomes a huge liability and a massive waste of resources.
The entire concept is theoretical and unproven in real world conditions - we've never produced a ship that can reliably conduct oceanic voyages without any need for ongoing maintenance and engineering support.
It requires an incredibly optimum scenario. A perfect world, where the motors and batteries function perfectly with no breakdowns. That is a scenario that sounds nothing like the real world.
Another major factor is cyber security.
On-board ship controls and data can be compromised and are vulnerable to cyber attacks as the autonomous ships require a constant connection to allow monitoring and control. If an autonomous ship came under cyber attack, regaining control of the ship might be impossible because of the lack of an on-board crew that can take control manually. Additionally, unmanned ships will light up like Christmas trees on enemy sensor networks. They are going to be sending and receiving constant streams of data. Which leads to the final point - data swamping. These ships will need to produce, store and transmit enormous amounts of data, much of which will need to be transmitted back to control stations. That's a huge problem in a 21st century wartime scenario.
Finally, if an autonomous ship sustained even minor battle damage, it would have absolutely no damage control ability. These are supposed to be warships. They'll be expensive, packed with multi-million dollar sensors and weaponry. A single hit might completely mission kill such a ship. All you'd have to do is break the data link to the control station for an unmanned ship to render it inoperable.
And my question is, what are you getting back?
What is the massive benefit of this concept?
Unmanned long distance weapons have one common problem - enemy's interference of long distance communications. Iran's capture of US' RQ170 is a good example. As electronic signals weaken with distance, an unmanned weapon deep into enemy controlled area, how to keep proper communication is a headache.
ReplyDeleteWhile US displayed success stories of drone attacks, media fail to educate people a key point - all these happened on groups without acceptable air defense system and electronic warfare capability. Even face Iran whose electronic warfare capability is lower than US, a drone goes deep into it ... you know.
Next solution is AI - unmanned drones or ships pre-load mission software to identify and attack without long haul communications. There are obvious problems and nations are working to address them now.
While talking unmanned ship, people always need to distinguish between fighting primitive groups without acceptable electronic warfare capabilities and nations do have.
The problem, as I see it for USN, is how to hit that "sweet spot", not too sophisticated so you can still afford it and lose some in trials or war but with decent reliability or go for great reliability and probably sophistication but then you have to pay the price.... USN can't have it both ways. There has to be some trade offs. More testing and learning what works and what is really needed is the way to go before buying billions of dollars of hardware that might be too low in reliability to offer really any advantage over manned ships or so sophisticated and redundancies built in, they end up costing the same as a manned ship.
ReplyDeleteKnowing how USN programs like LCS, Zummie, Ford have worked out doesn't inspire a lot of confidence they will do the right thing.....
"More testing and learning what works and what is really needed is the way to go before buying billions of dollars of hardware"
DeleteUnfortunately, you're too late. As described in the link in the post, the Navy has already fully committed to an extensive unmanned fleet and begun the purchasing process. They are exactly repeating the LCS and Zumwalt fiascos.
It would be nice if the navy bought the gear to pull smaller ships from the water and stack them when not in use. No reason an MUSV couldn't in a warehouse rather than docked.
DeleteI think small drones--air, surface, and subsurface--may make sense for reconnaissance and intel. But expecting a drone to do the work of a ship strikes me as sheer lunacy.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether it would have been possible for the ship to make the voyage with just the remaining engine and generator but I'm appalled that yet another US vessel, manned or not, can't sail for 5 minutes without manual intervention on an engine or generator - this is not new technology!
ReplyDeleteRegarding unmanned - Comnavops is spot on. This isn't unmanned (unpersonned now?) if you need constant manual intervention.
If this thing needs significant manual intervention to make a peacetime cruise from San Diego to Hawaii, then how in the world is it ever going to be of any use in combat. Things go wrong in combat because the bad guys are trying to make them go wrong. Without any bad guys, lots of things went wrong here.
ReplyDeleteAs I said above, small, cheap, expendable drones make sense for reconnaissance and intel gathering. But that's it. And if you use them for those purposes, you'd better plan on going through a lot of them, and being ready for what happens when you run out.
I think you all are confusing "unmanned" with "no manning". Hence the DARPA NOMARS project...this was just recently awarded and (as anythign with DARPA) is a far off exploration of technologies that one day could lead to a "no manning" type of operation. Why do you think all the artist conception of these USVs include bridges and windows??? Its like they expect people to go onboard!! So I think SOME people in teh Navy understadn we are a WAYS OFF from truly autonomous technolgoy but then again that HYPE machine really does offer impressive sound bites!
ReplyDeleteAs a step towards unmanned, the requirements for the USN's new advanced trainer aircraft do not include carrier trap or catapult launch.
ReplyDeletehttps://blog.usni.org/posts/2020/08/17/we-will-pay-for-compromising-on-the-t-45-replacement
Pure insanity. Everybody says F22 and F35 are so easy to fly, easier than a Cessna! Was at Luke AFB, watching F35s and taking pictures, not even 10 minutes there and watched a completely botched landing approach and wave off. Even with all the tech and easiness, you need to practice the REAL THING, some corners, you just can't cut. This is going to save pennies to waste dollars. Eventually, I expect the USN will have to use up more real fighter or E2 airframe hours to qualify new pilots. Just stupid.
DeleteMore detail on MUSV. Incat Crowther / Gibbs & Cox design built at Swiftships. https://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/212886/l3harris-wins-%24281m-to-develop-medium-unmanned-surface-vehicle-for-us-navy.html
ReplyDeleteThis makes perfect sense: since 'less manning' hasn't worked on the LCS, Zumwalt or Ford, let's go straight to 'no manning.' If you're going to fail, fail big!
ReplyDeleteI think USN thinking is:" Its going to cost us 100s of billions of dollars and decades but eventually,after we try everything we'll get it right!"
DeleteImage here
ReplyDeletehttps://www.l3harris.com/newsroom
Commercial design here
https://seacormarine.com/wp-content/themes/wpgrid-child/pdfs/ava-j-mccall.pdf
I think the real reason the Admirals all want unmanned is simple--no sailors. They keep getting embarrassed by ships being run aground, getting caught pimping Singapore hookers, and of course they can't keep the ships they have manned fully because the sailors are tired of the endless tours. And of course they have to worry about sexual harassment, how they are going to bunk transgender sailors, etc. And paying for all those educational, medical, and housing is very expensive.
ReplyDeleteBut unmanned? They don't even need sailors to repair those, it'll just be the contractors. Things go wrong, blame the contractor who won't lose anything because that contractor's congressmen will get 4 more ordered anyway. It's inadequately armed and fragile like an LCS? Not a problem because unlike the LCS they won't have to worry about sailors dying due to the admiralty's incompetence in ship buying. Maybe they can even do away with enlisted altogether and just have officers who sit at a desk in Pearl ordering their little fleet around while calling up contractors to repair their ships.
It's also what I believe one of the reasons the "missile" Marines are being trumpeted by the Commandant. An amphibious force would take casualties, lots of them, in a real war. A few guys on an Island with missile launchers? They'll shoot their load then surrender when empty as they will be outnumbered by invading troops, so no casualties.
A peer war would mean extensive casualties even if they had the fleet you envision under the "Fleet structure" tab. A peer war with what we have now would suffer more. They know this, but they also know they would watch their careers sink with their LCS's when Congress asks them why ships had too little damage response, too little point defense, no armor, etc. to keep the men onboard alive.
An unmanned fleet is the perfect fleet for leaders who refuse to lead, and authorities who refuse to take responsiblity.
The Navy has 283 admirals (per latest USNI Proceedings Naval Review issue) for about 290-300 ships, depending on how you count ships. That's not more admirals than ships, but it's still absurdly excessive. And based on the decisions being made, it's questionable whether even one of them has any sense at all. Worst of all, it's like a group think echo chamber, were everybody seems to believe all the absurd stuff they keep putting out. Obviously, if you don't know how to lead people, you get rid of people. But if you replace them with stuff that is stupid and doesn't work, then somebody needs to get rid of you.
ReplyDeletePer Norman Schwarzkopf, military forces are good at two things--killing people and breaking things. We need to get back to a "warheads on foreheads" mentality, to borrow a quote from an FT in a recent Navy advert. What are the people who make these decisions thinking?
How you win a peer war is very simple. You produce such a powerful and ferocious force that the other side doesn't dare pick on you. We did that in the 1980s, and it is no coincidence that the Berlin Wall fell within the decade. We need to quit fooling around with stupid stuff and focus on ways to kill the enemy's people and break their things. And a drone ship that can sail from San Diego to Hawaii with only a few breakdowns isn't one of those ways.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, they are abandoning the DARPA design for a commercial one.
DeleteCDR Chip, since the 1980s every potential opponent has been structuring against Air-Land Battle doctrine while the US fought terrorists.
DeleteUnlike WW2 China can out produce the US and can almost match technology. 145 tonne can give mass back.
China does have an impressive production economy. As long as we continue toward a consumption, retail/service economy, we lose ground to them every day.
DeleteBut China's feet are made of clay. They have very serious internal differences, and they have tried to overcome them by exporting large quantities of cheap consumer goods and using the cash flow to fund make-work projects with little or no economic viability (for example, the empty cities) to keep the people too busy to revolt. It all falls apart if they can't get enough oil. Their oil supply chain is very tenuous, and PLAN can't protect it.
I think we can win Cold War II with a reprise of how we won Cold War I. Truman bribed up an alliance to contain the Soviets, and Reagan put enough pressure on their economy to break up the Soviet Union.
Agree 100% that fighting no-win wars in the Mideast has been highly injurious to our national security.
What we need is a national geopolitical strategy, and a military strategy to support it. We haven't had that since the Berlin Wall fell. And I don't see us getting one any time soon. And we need to get back to being a production economy.
Here is my idea of a geopolitical strategy. There are three potential problem spots--Eastern Europe with Russia as wannabe hegemon, Southeast Asia with China as wannabe hegemon, and the Mideast with Iran as wannabe hegemon and several potential rogue states or rogue non-state actors. If we can contain each of those potential conflicts within those areas, and put our allies in position to level each of the battlefields to constrain the bad actors, then we win. ComNavOps tends to dismiss my strategy as "containment," but it is more than that. It is containment plus exerting pressure. We contained the Soviets, and then put pressure on them and they fell apart. I think that can work against China. But we need to get high behind doing SOMETHING.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteOf those three, I think Russia may be the least problem. I'm not at all convinced that the Russian army could roll through Europe today, and in another decade their demographics will mean major shrinkage for the Russian army, navy, and air force. They are running out of 20-somethings.
DeleteTheir problem is that they don't have defensible boundaries to their west. The northern European plain extends from the Ardennes to the Urals with no natural barriers. It's why Germany was so warlike. They had few natural defenses against the French from the west or the Russians from the east--plus they were divided into a number of smaller kingdoms for years. But the Prussians were always warlike. It's also why Poland has moved around for centuries, from the Black Sea to the Baltic. It was always kind of the land between were the Russians could extend their power from the east and were the Germans or Prussians (or Swedes) could extend their power from the west.
Back to Russia, they had it pretty easy in the Iron Curtain days. They were anchored in the Carpathian Alps in Romania, and only had to defend a 300-400 mile front between there and the Baltic. Now they have about a 2000 mile border, and have also lost their buffers to the south (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and all the "Stans." I think we can do some good by triangulating Russia against China. If Putin doesn't have to worry about is western border and can focus on keeping China out of the Siberian oil fields, he can be an ally. I can even see the Tom Clancy "Bear and the Dragon" scenario where we bring Russia into NATO and fight as their allies against a Chinese invasion of Siberia.