LUSV Arsenal Ship

The Navy appears to be designing the Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) to be a poor man’s arsenal ship.  Is this concept valid?  Let’s examine the idea.
 
Recall that the Navy envisions the following roles for the large (LUSV) and medium (MUSV) unmanned vessels as:
 

LUSV – missile shooter;  16-32 VLS

MUSV – sensing (ISR)

 

LUSV Concept Image

As a reminder, while the word ‘large’ appears in the label, the LUSV is actually a very small vessel with a very limited vertical launch capacity. 

The Navy envisions LUSVs as being 200 feet to 300 feet in length and having full load displacements of 1,000 tons to 2,000 tons, which would make them the size of a corvette (i.e., a ship larger than a patrol craft and smaller than a frigate). The Navy wants LUSVs to be low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships with ample capacity for carrying various modular payloads—particularly anti-surface warfare (ASuW) and strike payloads, meaning principally anti-ship and land-attack missiles. Each LUSV could be equipped with a vertical launch system (VLS) with 16 to 32 missile-launching tubes.[1]

The ships will have little or nothing in the way of sensors or defensive weapons other than what might be loaded in a VLS cell, such as the ESSM missile.
 
Similarly, the original arsenal ship concept envisioned a barge-like vessel with no function other than carrying and launching missiles – a missile barge, in essence.  The missile capacity has been suggested as being anywhere from a hundred to a few thousand VLS cells, depending on whose specific design one looks at.
 
At first glance, there would seem to be nothing wrong with the LUSV concept and much to like.  A small vessel – low cost, one presumes, thanks to its small size – with a significant supply of extra missiles allowing other ships, such as the Burke, to stay in a fight longer (assuming the LUSV cells contain anti-air missiles) or allowing for massive land attack strikes.  Further, with no crew, the operating costs should be very low and the vessels can be used in high risk situations and missions since they’re unmanned.
 
What’s not to like?
 
Well, before we celebrate the Navy’s brilliant vision, let’s just take a few moments to move beyond the sales brochure claims and examine the concept in slightly more detail.
 
 
Missile Capacity.  A Burke has 96 VLS cells so the additional 16-32 cells represent a 17%-33% additional capacity compared to the Burke.  That’s nice but is it tactically significant?
 
In the anti-air (AAW) role, we’ve already noted that a task force with, say, one to three dozen escorts (in war, no task force will put to sea with anything less!) already has 1,152-3,456 VLS cells with, realistically, 2,300-6,700 anti-air missiles, depending on the mix of Standards and quad-packed ESSM.  Will an additional 16-32 cells offer any significant contribution to that firepower?
 
If a task force has already expended three to several thousand AAW missiles, it’s mission has long since been over and the ships are likely at the bottom of the sea.  Of course, no enemy could possibly muster three to several thousand attacking missiles that would require that staggering expenditure of defensive missiles.
 
So, it would seem that an LUSV has nothing significant to offer to the AAW function.
 
What about land attack?
 
We’ve seen that the US used some 60+ missiles to conduct a very limited strike on an undefended Syrian air base (see, “Syrian Tomahawk Strike”).  Logic suggests that a full strike on a defended base would require something on the order of a few hundred or more missiles to ensure success.  For sake of discussion, let’s assume a strike of 300 cruise missiles is required.  A single LUSV could contribute 5%-11% of the required missiles.  In other words, it would take 10-19 LUSVs to conduct such an attack.
 
 
Missile Inventory.  Closely related to missile capacity is the issue of the Navy’s missile inventory.  Best estimates are that we already have several times more VLS cells in the fleet than we have missiles to fill them.  That being the case, why would we want to build more cells?  What will we fill them with?  If every cell in the fleet was filled and we have several thousand missiles left over then, maybe, you’ve got the slimmest of justification for building a small, unmanned missile barge but we are a universe away from that situation.
 
 
Cost.  One of the LUSV claims is that it is a low cost way to bring additional firepower.  However, according to Navy budget documents, the LUSV will cost around $250M-$300M and that’s the Navy’s estimate.  Every Navy cost estimate is significantly understated.  The true cost will likely be closer to $500M. 

The Navy’s FY2024 budget submission programs the procurement of production LUSVs through the Navy’s shipbuilding account, with the first LUSV to be procured in FY2025 at a cost of $315.0 million, the next two in FY2026 at a combined cost of $522.5 million (i.e., an average of about $261.3 million each), the next three in FY2027 at a combined cost of $722.7 million (i.e., an average of $240.9 million each), and another three in FY2028 at a combined cost of $737.2 million (i.e., an average of about $245.7 million each).[1]

On Station.  This is not a technical consideration but it warrants a discussion because I hear it so frequently.  There’s a school of thought that likes the idea of an arsenal ship (or LUSV) because its missiles will allow other ships to ‘stay on station’ longer.  Of course, this is idiotic and reveals an utter lack of understanding about how navies fight.  Ships in combat don’t ‘stay on station’.  They don’t sit in one piece and slug it out, day after day, with the enemy, fighting to ‘stay on station’.  Staying in one place is how you get found, attacked, and die.  Ships sortie, execute a specific and relatively brief mission, and then return to base.  There is no station to stay on!
 
 
Security.  Despite being an unmanned vessel, the LUSV, when armed with multi-million dollar missiles, would have to be guarded 24/7 by other military forces.  We’ve already seen multiple examples of other countries seizing (or attempting to seize) our unmanned assets with no repercussions.  Now, we may be willing to lose a UAV or small underwater glider but I would hope we draw the line at conceding the seizure of a missile armed asset.  Therefore, the LUSV will require constant guarding by manned units.  That being the case, is the unit really unmanned if it requires a constant manned presence hovering over it?
 
 
Operation.  The LUSV will require near constant communications and telemetry.  In war, constant communications offers the enemy a simple location fix.  Even supposedly secure line of sight comms are nowhere near as secure as is commonly assumed, according to military communications personnel I’ve talked to.
 
There’s also the issue of maintenance.  No machinery – and any ship is  just a collection of machinery – is maintenance free.  Normally, the routine maintenance would be conducted by the crew and emergent repairs would be handled by the crew.  Who conducts the maintenance and repair of the LUSV?  If we don’t provide regular, routine maintenance then logic would suggest that the vessels will have to be frequently returned to a base or tender for repairs that the non-existent crew did not perform.  That makes the LUSV availability poor.  In peacetime, that’s an annoyance.  In war, that’s leaving a task force partially crippled especially if the Navy comes to depend on them … which they will.  You know the Navy won’t simply – and correctly – use the LUSV as an augment to regular ships but will, instead, begin to use them as replacements for regular ships out of pure institutional stupidity and mental laziness.   This is analogous to GPS which was not used to augment manual navigation but, instead, replaced manual navigation skills which led to our current vulnerability and loss of skills.
 
 
Conclusion
 
What we’ve just discussed is, essentially, the considerations that would go into a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) if the Navy were to ever do one … which they have not and will not.  You know … just build it and get it in the hands of the sailors and they’ll figure out what to do with it.  That’s what passes for a CONOPS in the Navy, today.
 
What these considerations suggest regarding a CONOPS is that there is no viable, combat-useful role for the LUSV.  The weapons load of 16-32 VLS cells is tactically insignificant, the Navy lacks the missile inventory to fill the cells, the communications requirement is a detection vulnerability, the maintenance and logistical support requirements are problematic, and the cost is excessive for the marginal combat value of the vessel.  There is simply no combat value to be had from the LUSV.
 
Interestingly, although we did not discuss it, there might be some combat value to the MUSV although the communications requirements remain problematic in the extreme for a sensor platform.
 
The Navy is fixated on unmanned vessels for reasons unfathomable.  If I had to guess, I suspect the Navy’s fixation stems purely from the desire to eliminate crew costs which is a peacetime accounting consideration and is the last and worst justification for a combat platform.
 
The Navy would be much better served by focusing on single function, manned ships (AAW or strike, for example) that can act independently under EMCON conditions which is how a war will be fought.
 
 
 
_____________________________

 
[1]Congressional Research Service, “Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress”, Ronald O’Rourke, R45757, 20-Dec-2023