Naval Drones

Shoes31 said:
Really hope China doesn't invade before say 2034 at the earliest then, we'll need at least that long to get those thousands of unmanned ships / surface drones. Unless we are counting remote mines are unmanned ships?
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I think the thousands figure is likely for smaller jet-ski/FIAC-sized stuff.
 
Shoes31 said:
Really hope China doesn't invade before say 2034 at the earliest then, we'll need at least that long to get those thousands of unmanned ships / surface drones. Unless we are counting remote mines are unmanned ships?
Click to expand...

He is not talking about full sized automated ships like MUSV/LUSV but small ISR/suicide craft like what Ukraine is employing against the Black Sea fleet.

Replicator's 'PRIME' time: DIU seeks small USV interceptors ready for rapid production - Breaking Defense

The DIU solicitation comes amid a raft of other Navy-led efforts to bring more unmanned surface vehicles into operations.
breakingdefense.com
 
Forest Green said:
I think the thousands figure is likely for smaller jet-ski/FIAC-sized stuff.
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Even talking about the smaller jet-ski / FIAC sized stuff I don't see the US having even a thousand by the end of this decade. This is US Navy procurement we are talking about here for starters, how long have they been trying to get the snakehead USV working? 10 years?

Even if they find a small interceptor they like, they still have to buy the first production samples, test the unit and figure out doctrine, and then build up the thousands. At the quoted rate of 120 or more annually it'd take almost 8 years to get even a single thousand, not the plural.

With request for information, then initial design work, final selection of vendors, then prototyping, and then production I'd be surprised if the US had more than 600-700 by the end of the decade. Which puts the thousands too late for a response to the most likely time of a Taiwan conflict. I'd really like if our leaders would stop with the rhetoric and talk realistic numbers and capabilities.
 

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