Navy seeks to expand fleet of large unmanned surface vessels to carry anti-ship and land-strike missiles
WASHINGTON – U.S. Navy leaders want to develop three types of large unmanned marine vehicles: Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles (LUSVs), Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicles (MUSVs), and Extra-Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs). USNI News reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
14 Oct. 2021 -- The Navy’s proposed 2022 budget requests $434.1 million for research into these large unmanned vessels and their enabling technologies.
Navy leaders want these large unmanned vessels to help shift the Navy to a more distributed fleet that consists of relatively few large ships like aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers; many small ships like frigates, corvettes, small amphibious ships; and a third tier of large unmanned surface vessels.
Navy experts envision large unmanned ships as 200 feet to 300 feet long with capacities of 1,000 to 2,000 tons. Navy leaders want large unmanned ships to be low-cost, high-endurance, and reconfigurable, with ample capacity for modular payloads like anti-ship and land-strike missiles.
Related: Pentagon gets serious about unmanned surface vessels
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John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics
