The US Navy submitted its budget request for financial year 2020 to Congress last week. It is seeking US$205.6 billion, a 4.8 per cent increase from the year prior that will allow the Navy to field over 300 ships for the first time since 2002.
Interestingly, the submission also included US$400 million towards procuring two large unmanned surface vessels (LUSVs), with a further two procured each year until 2024.
The request has reportedly emerged from Project Overlord, a USN ‘Ghost Fleet’ program seeking an unmanned ship that can operate for 90 days in moderate seas with a 40-ton payload, travelling at 19 knots with a 29 knot top speed. It also follows from (but is separate to) Leidos’ Sea Hunter medium USV program, which recently navigated autonomously from San Diego to Hawaii and back.
“I would liken this to the surface vessel version of where we picked up on MQ-25,” US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson told US media. “We are moving very aggressively to get something on deck in unmanned aviation, and we were able to do that very quickly by taking advantage of what we’d learned in that field to date, bringing industry in early, so we’re going to be using a lot of those practices.”
International momentum towards fielding large unmanned surface ships is clearly building, but as Admiral Richardson observed, still lags some way behind airborne systems. This is in part a reflection of international maritime legal restrictions on unmanned ships on the open ocean, which pose a greater spill and fire risk if an accident were to occur.
The USN’s investment nonetheless raises interesting questions for Australia, particularly in the wake of the ‘Loyal Wingman’ Airpower Teaming System reveal. The case for that platform rests on its ability to complement and protect expensive manned aircraft in a high-end fight.
This rationale applies equally to LUSVs. There are significant doubts surrounding the survivability of surface ships in conflict with a near-peer adversary; even ships with defences that are 90 per cent effective against incoming missiles have only a 35 per cent chance of avoiding at least one hit from a volley of 10, whilst a system that is 80 per cent effective reduces the survival rate from the same volley to 11 per cent. In other words, it is possible to overcome even the most effective missile defence systems by simply firing more missiles – a point that is certainly not lost on near-peer adversaries.
That equation becomes more complicated, however, by the introduction of unmanned vessels. Just as the Loyal Wingman is intended as a low-cost method of reducing the risk to F-35s, a fleet of USVs (of any size) could serve as a relatively low-cost method of reducing the risk to manned ships – particularly the two Canberra class LHDs, which form the spine of Australia’s ability to project force in the South Pacific. LUSVs could also magnify the capabilities of the Hobart-class destroyers and Hunter-class frigates in the same way the Loyal Wingman will magnify the capabilities of accompanying manned aircraft.
Australia also has no shortage of local expertise capable of developing an indigenous LUSV. Sydney-based SME Ocius, for example, has pioneered the Bluebottle USV, which was on show at Autonomous Warrior in Jervis Bay last year alongside 25 other Australian and international participants. Large swathes of open ocean away from busy shipping lanes would also serve as a suitable test site. It is not difficult to imagine local industry rising to the challenge of building larger unmanned warships.
In short, there is strategic motive and local opportunity for an experimental Australian LUSV program (if it isn’t already happening behind closed doors). If maritime legislation were adjusted to allow for greater research and development, and funding were made available, this appears to be a niche Australia is well-placed to fill.