The first drone warship just joined the Navy and now nearly every element of it is classified

• The first drone ship has joined the U.S. Navy's fleet and now nearly every element of it has become classified.
• Sea Hunter is a crewless, 140-ton, 132-foot-long robotic ship.
• Since the drone ship's inception, the Navy has been hesitant to provide updates on its future role.
• 
  First drone warship joins US Navy 36 Mins Ago | 00:40
  The first warship to traverse open waters without a single crew member recently joined the U.S. Navy's fleet after eight years of development and testing.
  
  And now nearly every element of the vehicle, known as the Sea Hunter, has become classified.
  
  "About all I can tell you is that it has transitioned from [the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] to the Navy, and that's a success in the world of science and technology," said Rear Adm. Nevin Carr. "And that's a good thing, because that means that there's a there there."
  
  
  
• The concept for the unmanned vessel was born in 2010 out of the Pentagon's so-called mad science wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.
  
  The Pentagon's request from DARPA was colossal: Develop a drone warship capable of hunting submarines, detecting torpedoes and avoiding objects at sea while traveling at a top speed of 27 knots, or 31 mph.
• https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/25/fir...-us-navy-nearly-every-element-classified.html

Interesting. I wonder if these can serve some kind of rescue or SEAL insertion capability.

Operating costs are far less than a typical destroyer.

I wonder what a handful of these off the coast of North Korea could do.

 

From wikipedia...
The initially unarmed prototype, built at a cost of twenty million dollars, is a 132-foot (40 meter)-long trimaran(a central hull with two outriggers). It is an unmanned self-piloting craft with twin screws, powered by two diesel engines with a top speed of 27 knots (31 mph; 50 km/h). Its weight is 135 tons, including 40 tons of fuel, adequate for a 70-day cruise. Cruising range is "transoceanic,"[4] 10,000 nautical miles (12,000 mi; 19,000 km) at 12 knots (14 mph; 22 km/h)[7] fully fueled with 14,000 gallons of diesel, enough to "go from San Diego to Guam and back to Pearl Harbor on a tank of gas."[8] Sea Hunter has a full load displacement of 145 tons and is intended to be operational through Sea State 5, waves up to 6.5 ft (2.0 m) high and winds up to 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h), and survivable through Sea State 7, seas up to 20 ft (6.1 m) high.[9] The trimaran hull provides increased stability without requiring a weighted keel, giving it a higher capacity for linear trajectories and better operations in shallow waters, though the greater width decreases maneuverability.[6]

A removable operator control station is installed during the testing period "for safety and backup" until it can be determined to reliably operate on its own. Operationally, computers will drive and control the ship, with a human always observing and taking charge if necessary in a concept called Sparse Supervisory Control, meaning a person is in control, but not "joy sticking" the vessel around.[9] It can patrol without human guidance, using optical guidance and radar to avoid hitting obstacles or other watercraft.[10] The ship has a host of non-standard features because of its lack of crew, including an internal layout that offers enough room for maintenance to be performed but not for any people to be permanently present.[5]

It is expected to undergo two years of testing before being placed in service with the U.S. Navy. If tests are successful, future such craft may be armed and used for anti-submarine and counter-mine duties, operating at a small fraction of the cost of operating a destroyer,[10] $15,000-$20,000 per day compared to $700,000 per day;[11] it could operate with Littoral Combat Ships, becoming an extension of the LCS ASW module.[9] Deputy US Defense Secretary Robert Work said that if weapons are added to the ship, a human would always remotely make the decision to use lethal force.[12]

Following successful initial development, it was reported on 1 February 2018 that DARPA had handed development of Sea Hunter to the Office of Naval Research.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Hunter

 

It’s a minehunter.

 

And anti-submarine.

 

Translation: “It has sonar”

This isn’t some kind of superweapon.

 

If it boosts capabilities and provides some real time research at lower costs I think its promising.

 

Hopefully they did not used windows 10 and find that the computers are doing mandatory updates in the middle of combats.

 

Ugh DARPA.

Bringing us such great ideas as the E.A.T.R- an autonomous infantry support drone that fuels itself off of 'battlefeild biomass.'

DARPA is in a race with itself to see which nightmare it can conjure into reality first- Screamers or Skynet.

 

.....So you’re saying its a Drone. That’s what all drones do.

 

Battlefield biomass? Have these people not played Horizon:Zero Dawn?

 

Yes, except we didn't have a navy drone until now.

 

Sure we have. We called them “ROVs” or “UUV’s”.

 

Tethered 5 foot long drones are not capable of spending 90 days operating autonomously in the anti submarine and/or anti mine role.

 

If you think tethered 5 foot drones are all the Navy has had up to this point, then you haven’t done enough research.

 

Yeah, that sucks, doesn't it?

 

Interesting how the built it with a high radar profile rather than sloping sides stealth.

NOT found of the trimaran shape. While fuel efficient, they can not be made self righting. It would have seemed wiser to build a shallow depth drone diesel-electric submarine.

 

I think they built it to not be the tip of the spear.

Rather it allows the spear to project outwards.

 

Don't forget the internet. -> https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/arpanet

No Cold War there would have been no need for the internet.

No Vietnam War...no internet today.

 

Very impressive.

I remember when this DARP project was made public some years ago and legal issues were brought up.

One under the international rules of the sea was could someone claim ownership of a unmanned ship and its cargo on the high seas ?

When it comes to warships...you can't. Even if a war ship is sunk and sits at the bottom of the oceans floor it's still property of the sovereign navy and it's off limits to everyone except the government that the warship was commissioned under.

Now merchant ships (civilian) don't have those protections.

Piracy on the high seas:
Pirates are criminals and criminals don't obey the law like gun laws.
What happens when pirates captures an unmanned warship and holds it for ransom ?

 

Interesting issue. I wonder if pirates could even hide such a vessel.

Speaking of which-and anti-pirate drone might be interesting.

 

Did you read the comment section after the article ? -> http://www.wavetrain.net/techniques-a-tactics/492-salvage-law-when-do-get-to-keep-an-abandoned-boat
A lot of good quations were asked.

Interesting website, worth navigating around. -> http://www.wavetrain.net/

Remember those two lesbos with the two dogs who were adrift for months in the Pacific and were rescued by the U.S. Navy last summer ?

The yachty who discovered the abandon sloop had their own aerial drone aboard to send out to do some snooping and pooping.

But I digress, back to the topic.

How much of this USN drone warship is an autonomous drone ?

There are already legal challenges being made against armed aerial autonomous drones and armed autonomous warships that the Hague is going to have to rule on in the near future.

Will armed autonomous drones be declared to be politically incorrect like napalm and cluster bombs ?

You can't have an autonomous drone computer going haywire and attacking every friendly target it comes across on.

 

There has already been international court ruling on this for warships in terms of claiming it due to no one being on it. Unless a warship is taken off the roles, it ALWAYS is that country's property. The case involved savaging an ancient sunken treasure ship - I seem to remember it was Spanish. The country sued claiming all the treasure was theirs as it was still there ship. They won and the treasurer seeker completely lost out. Of course, other countries rushed to put lost ships back on their roles if treasure ships lost centuries ago.

As long as it is classified as being on the US Navy's role, now and forever it will be USA property.

 

Kinda like the battleship USS Arizona that sits on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. It's still a commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy.

All U.S. Navy warships that were either lost at sea or sank during war are still listed as commissioned ships that are no longer listed as being on active duty but never went through the decommission process.

They are all still U.S. Navy property.

 

A removable operator control station is installed during the testing period "for safety and backup" until it can be determined to reliably operate on its own. It is 132 foot long and can travel 27 mph. That's quite quick.

It's not like a boat could hook up to it and tow it away, nor take over control of it with no control station. Given that our aircraft can fly faster than the speed of sound, even of someone could grab hold of it they aren't going far. What it would seem more vulnerable to is sinking - with it debatable who sunk it? Since there would be no lose of life, it probably could be sunk with less risk by the other country who did so.

However, I also suspect it will be part of a fleet or along with a manned ship. This would allow the drone ship to make the patrol cover a much wider path. I don't think they are just going to send out thousands of miles on its own. A particularly suitable usage would be patrolling our own Eastern, Western and Gulf water borders.

 

Just sink it. Problem solved.