I just read yet another article extolling the wonders of
unmanned surface vessels for logistics and/or attack.[1][3] This one was singing the praises of the
Leidos Sea Specter slow, low profile boat which Leidos claims can carry a 2-5
ton payload for 1000-2200 nm at 8 kts in sea state 3.[2] The manufacturer’s original concept was for this craft to be
used as a logistics delivery platform. A
recent article suggested it could be used to attack Chinese carrier or surface
groups using a containerized torpedo.
Let's consider a couple of important aspects to this concept.
Speed – This
craft, like most unmanned craft, is appallingly slow; it can’t get anywhere useful in any
tactically relevant time frame. While
the manufacturer claims the craft can sail from Guam to any point in the first
island chain on a single tank of gas, it would, as a relevant example, take 5+
days, best case, to make a 1000 nm journey.
This demonstrates the idiotic nature of a combat use for this
craft. Say a Chinese surface group was
spotted transiting past an island, it would take around a week for the craft to
carry its single containerized torpedo to that point. Of course, the target group would be long
gone. People are making this stuff up
without thinking it through.
Payload – The
payload is very small with severe volumetric limitations which will reduce the
effective payload substantially. The cargo
area is limited in volumetric size to a maximum payload storage area of 29’ x
4’ x 4’ which, essentially, means just small boxes as opposed to any sizable
equipment.
After seeing the tiny cargo area in a manufacturer’s video, it is obvious that the claimed payload of 2-5 tons would only be for bricks stacked in the area with no space. Any realistic cargo, with packaging and space will be far less. One ton might be optimistic.
This is far too small a payload to be logistically
significant for any but, perhaps, a lone coastwatcher on an island
mountain. For example, an infantry
division in combat consumes some 1000 tons of various supplies per day and
that’s probably unrealistically low! An
armored division uses some 600,000 gal (2000 tons) of fuel per day in combat and,
again, that’s probably ridiculously optimistic.
If someone thinks we’re going to resupply Guam or some far
flung, hidden Marine missile shooting outpost using these tiny boats, they’re
sadly mistaken.
After seeing the tiny cargo area in a manufacturer’s video, it is obvious that the claimed payload of 2-5 tons would only be for bricks stacked in the area with no space. Any realistic cargo, with packaging and space will be far less. One ton might be optimistic.
 |
| Leidos Sea Scepter |
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/04/u-s-marine-corps-trials-unmanned-logistics-concepts-in-the-indo-pacific/
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/07/u-s-navy-pairs-heavyweight-torpedo-with-usv-in-a-new-program-effort/
This is good for transportation over water. Soviet Union R&D into this type for a long time. Its key weakness is wave as it has to fly very close to surface so ground effect works. Soviet's failure largely due to no available fly by wire technology at that time. Test vehicles relied on human to avoid waves. One eventually crashed. Beauty of ground effect is its fuel efficiency - far less than airplane. Also, it can sale as a ship. Perhaps this is most suitable over water transportation around Guam.
ReplyDeletehttps://theaviationist.com/2025/07/06/photo-of-new-chinese-ekranoplan-breaks-cover/
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought under international law, unmanned ships can be boarded/confiscated by anyone.
ReplyDeleteIf my understanding is correct, then if we are not in a shooting war with Iran or China they can board and hijack any unmanned vessels we have floating around in the ocean and we are, under international law, powerless to do much about it.
In the most simplistic terms, you're correct that unmanned vessels can be considered salvage. However, there are aspects of the laws that complicate the issue. The salvageable vessel must be a threat to itself or general navigation which an unmanned vessel isn't although, being unmanned, it's almost, by definition, a threat to navigation.
DeleteThe practical answer is that the precedent has already been established that unmanned vessels belong to whoever can seize them and that there will be no military consequences. Both Iran and China have seized unmanned aerial and subsurface vessels with impunity.
That's just simply stupid. This unmanned-anything craze is turning into a cult... one full of low-brainwave activity. Isn't anyone thinking??
ReplyDeleteChina is heavily pursuing unmanned weapons - UAV, ship, submarine, vehicles, four foot, .... etc. Following is an example of Chinese army drill. If use unmanned weapons is wrong direction, why China is so keen on this? If not, Pentagon now focuses on unmanned weapon has nothing wrong.
Deletehttps://www.defensemirror.com/news/39873/China_Reveals_Robot_Wolves_____Quadrupedal_Drones_to_Fight_alongside_Soldiers
"why China is so keen on this? "
DeleteWhy were so many countries dead set on battleships right up to WWII? Because they were all failing to see the future of naval combat. China is copying the US and failing to see the same things we're failing to see.
Also, China also has a different view of autonomous combat robots. We're concerned with ethics and unintended damage and consequences. China doesn't care so robots would be far more attractive to them.
Yeah, when they show these unmanned narco sub like designs I'm not very inspired, except for the fact that we only interdict between 5-15% of the narco subs (Estimated). They plan for some to get caught and others to get through, but its expensive. Military gear is expensive, but logistics supplies are not until you try and deliver them like this. To me this gets into why are the littoral regiments even as heavy as they are. JLTVs armor is of little use for an unmanned rogue fires launcher. You'd save money and have better capacity and less logistics using a Chevy Silverado as the base vehicle. And why keep all this stuff on these tiny islands when there is all that territorial water around the island you could be hiding in.
ReplyDelete"except for the fact that we only interdict between 5-15% of the narco subs"
DeleteThat's true (if it is?) not because the subs are so stealthy but because we only sporadically and half-heartedly look for them. Also, on a practical war basis, their transport capacity is infinitesimal.
People are always telling me that my ideas are ridiculous and would never work - I could make a whole bunch of money if I was a defense contractor.
ReplyDeleteCould an enemy board one of these slow, unmanned vessels and replace the cargo with explosives and then let the drone continue on it’s mission?
ReplyDeleteI would! How would we even know? Talk about a surprise package.
DeleteWhen I was in the army in the 90's at Fort Campbell, sometimes one of our flight routes was shut down periodically. The nerdy guys were flying remote control airplanes, which we as aircav pilots scoffed at.
ReplyDeleteWell, it turns out that was apparently part of the emerging drone program, so I'm trying not to be too dismissive of this project.
But, wow, it sure looks like the navy thinks this ridiculous thing might have some value?
I can, however, see an application for unmanned supply delivery.
Say that you are doing a WW2 style convoy of supply ships, escorted by the navy from origin to destination, rows of ships.
Would it be possible to have the modern equivalent of Liberty ships that are drones?
It would save a bunch of sailors, but the practical logistics of it seems pretty daunting, particularly keeping the mechanicals running.
Maybe you have maintenance crews that helicopter around the ships, checking on things and moving on to the next one?
I could see that possibly as being valuable, but the solo unmanned supply ship?
Ugh.
Lutefisk
" modern equivalent of Liberty ships that are drones?"
DeleteIf you can guarantee that the convoy sails straight from point A to point B, it might work, neglecting maintenance issues. What happens when the convoy has to scatter/maneuver to avoid a torpedo or change course due to enemy actions or deal with heavy storms or a ship has to conduct damage control (do you just write off any ship that takes any damage?) or ... and the list goes on.
"... and the list goes on."
ReplyDeleteYeah, almost endless really.
I gave it my best shot, but it's just hard to see unmanned being functionally useful for the foreseeable future.
Lutefisk
I kind of consider unmanned to be like the summer intern that you get saddled with. It costs you more time, effort, and resources to deal with them then they can possibly provide in return. In other words, they're a net detriment to productivity. Similarly, at our current, very low level of autonomy, unmanned is more of an overall detriment than a help. I keep challenging people to give a viable, useful CONOPS for any unmanned platform and no one yet has.
DeleteI can imagine potential uses of small unmanned ships as decoys. The Air Force has the MALD decoy which can make the decoy look like any aircraft in our fleet to most radars. Perhaps a fairly straightforward extension could produce a naval MALD that makes the decoy look like any ship in our fleet? The fancy carrier killer missiles might be less of a threat if their terminal guidance thinks it sees 3 dozen Nimitz class carriers rather than one!
ReplyDelete"MALD"
DeleteYou may not be completely understanding what MALD does (or, to be fair, I may not!). It can mimic emissions that imitate an aircraft but it does NOT look like an aircraft to an enemy with optical sensors nor does it create a radar image to radars. It is a limited form of mimicry, more effective in decades past. How effective it is today is an open question.
A naval 'MALD' would be even less effective. Most modern anti-ship missiles incorporate multiple sensors including some form of optical sensor. No 'MALD' can mimic the optical signature of a ship nor the radar image nor the radar size.
We already have 'MALD'-ish decoys that mimic emissions. Nulka, for example. SLQ-32 does some of that, as well. We also have floating, off board radar reflectors. And so on.
Consider: one reason why so many modern missiles have optical sensors (and optical libraries) is because you can't really decoy an optical sensor. You can blind it with a laser but you can't mimic the image of a ship.
"It can mimic emissions that imitate an aircraft "
DeleteThis is not my understanding of what the MALD does. It does not, to my knowledge, mimic the emissions of an aircraft. It is based on what's called a "Signature Augmentation System" which responds to an incoming radar signal with a response that mimics the radar response of the aircraft. In addition, the MALD is different from many decoys such as the Nulka because it flies for an extended period and mimics the flight behavior of the aircraft as well.
Here are a couple references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-160_MALD
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/miniature-air-launched-decoy-how-us-mald-technology/
https://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-160.html
It's certainly true that the MALD does not fool all sensors, particularly optical and infrared imaging ones. It probably doesn't even fool all radars (for example, I imagine it might not fool very high resolution radars). Although keep in mind, it doesn't really need to fool ALL radars, just the ones it's actually likely to face.
I am aware of all this and have thought about it but there's a limit to how much will fit into a comment. So there's that.
If we wanted to use a USV as a decoy, we obviously need to decoy sensors other than radar. The MALD was just an example.
DeleteWe'd need to figure out how to decoy any sensors likely to be used. This includes radar and also visual and infrared imaging sensors. And possibly acoustic as well, if we are concerned with submarines.
For acoustic sensors, I would think, if the USV itself can be made acoustically quiet, we could use speakers to broadcast the recorded sounds of a high value unit like an aircraft carrier directly into the water. Obviously it's not that simple since the sound from the aircraft carrier no doubt varies with speed and you want to avoid having one sound from the carrier and a slightly different sound from several dozen decoys. Perhaps a slightly different sound from each decoy could be done.
I agree optical and infrared imaging sensors are a problem. The only thing I've thought of is obscurants (smoke-like clouds), which can block both visual and infrared. If all the decoys put out a cloud of obscurants and the carrier (for example) does too, and we can figure out how to make the clouds look more or less the same, then the incoming missile will see all the clouds but won't know which one has the carrier in it. I suspect several potential problems that are beyond my current knowledge to evaluate:
- can we make all the clouds look the same?
- Would this cost too much
- Are there potential problems with the obscurants being toxic to the crew of the carrier
- How do we hide the wake of the carrier, since I can't imagine that it's possible to make the wake of a small USV look like the wake of a carrier.
Of course in this role the decoy would have to be big enough to handle bad weather and fast enough to keep up with the fleet, so a lot of the ones I've been seeing wouldn't do the job.
ReplyDelete"fast enough to keep up with the fleet"
DeleteNot really sure what you mean by this. An anti-ship missile attack is over in seconds so a decoy doesn't need to keep up with anything.
Maybe you have something different in mind?