Reuters published an exclusive report on the 27th that the U.S. Central Command confirmed that the United States deployed unmanned boats in the "Epic Fury" operation with Iran. This is the first time the United States has confirmed the use of such unmanned ships in an actual military conflict. According to previous reports, the Pentagon has been committed to building an "unmanned fleet" and intends to use it in the Asia-Pacific direction. Therefore, this deployment in the Middle East has attracted attention from the outside world. However, according to Reuters reports, the first deployment of U.S. unmanned ships to the Middle East seems to have had a bad start.
The U.S. Navy also needs small unmanned surface vehicles.
The Middle East has become a testing ground for the US military’s “unmanned fleet”.
According to reports, since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran nearly a month ago, Iran has used unmanned ships to attack oil tankers in the Gulf at least twice. There is currently no indication that the United States has used unmanned ships to carry out offensive operations against Iran.
Unmanned ships have attracted attention after Ukraine used unmanned speedboats equipped with explosives to cause heavy losses to the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
In response to a question from Reuters, U.S. Central Command spokesman Stephen Hawkins said that the unmanned vessel "Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft" (GARC), manufactured by Maryland-based Black Sea Company, has been used for patrol missions in the "Epic Fury" U.S. strike against Iran.
"The U.S. military will continue to use unmanned systems in the Middle East, including unmanned surface vessels like GARC. The unmanned vessel has been successfully used for more than 450 hours and traveled more than 2,200 nautical miles during maritime patrol missions in support of Operation Epic Fury," Hawkins said in a statement.
Hawkins declined to say whether the U.S. military has deployed other unmanned systems. GARC manufacturing company Black Sea also declined to comment.
What model is the "Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft" (GARC) deployed this time and what is its performance?
Lao Liu searched the webpage of its manufacturing company, the American Black Sea Company, as well as previous relevant reports from foreign media and the US Navy official website.
The "Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft" (GARC) is a mature solution for high-speed unmanned operations in complex sea areas. Leveraging thousands of hours of operational experience in actual U.S. Navy deployments, GARC combines the flexibility of modular payloads with advanced autonomy and endurance. GARC is a mass-produced system that has been used globally and achieved good results. Its use and recovery methods have been tested at sea, support autonomous and remote operations, and can integrate seamlessly with third-party tools. GARC is designed to support a variety of missions such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), communications relay and mine countermeasures, and can meet the needs of modern naval forces.
The United States has been trying to build an "unmanned fleet" that can independently perform combat missions.
For many years, the U.S. Navy has been trying to build an "unmanned fleet" that can independently perform combat missions, including various types of unmanned ships on the surface, as well as underwater vehicles and unmanned submarines.
An article titled "Small Unmanned Surface Vehicle (sUSV) System Family" on the U.S. Navy website last year first introduced the GARC deployed to the Middle East this time, saying that this small unmanned surface vessel can provide additional combat capabilities for the fleet.
Screenshots of media reports
In addition to the unmanned boats deployed in the Middle East this time, the US military is also advancing multiple unmanned boat plans.
An article on the U.S. Navy official website stated that the U.S. Navy is also exploring the next generation of "small unmanned surface vessels" (sUSV). The research and development strategy for this type of prototype ship aims to achieve the following functions: basic navigation autonomy; multi-agent collaborative autonomy to perform adaptive and cooperative behaviors; and integrating third-party software on the prototype sUSV using open architecture and standardized interfaces.
Another model is called the "Autonomous Low Profile Vessel" (ALPV), which is a small unmanned surface vehicle being developed by the US Marine Corps. It is low-cost and highly concealable, and can deliver tactical materials from multiple directions (ship-to-shore, ship-to-ship and shore-to-shore) in a confrontational environment. Testing and planning work on the ALPV prototype vessel is ongoing.
Unmanned ship traveling at sea
According to reports, a US military officer used a case to illustrate the potential of ALPV. He said that the US Marine Corps spent only 21 days training a chef to operate the ALPV and used wide-area low-orbit communication technology to remotely control the ALPV on the West Coast of the United States from the waters of Japan. This test verified the application value of ALPV on future battlefields and also showed the progress of the US military in communication technology.
However, the testing of ALPV also faces some challenges, such as avoiding interference with commercial shipping and not affecting the marine environment, so tracking the ship is required for accompanying monitoring. In addition, the autonomous operation of ALPV relies on reliable communication and control systems.
Many foreign media revealed that unmanned boats such as ALPV are a key component of the "island hopping" tactical capability that the US Marine Corps is actively strengthening.
Last year, Japan's Kyodo News quoted relevant Japanese government sources as saying that an ALPV previously deployed temporarily by the US Marine Corps in Okinawa Prefecture was basically determined to be deployed indefinitely. This unmanned boat, which is about 19 meters in length and 2.5 meters in width, will be based at Naha Military Port to carry out rear support operations such as material transportation.
In addition to these small unmanned ships used for reconnaissance and supply, the US military's "unmanned fleet" plan also includes larger unmanned ships.
An article on the WorkBoat website in February this year titled "The U.S. Navy is accelerating the deployment of its unmanned fleet" stated that during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a small Ukrainian suicide unmanned surface craft severely damaged and even sank a Russian warship that was much larger than itself, prompting the U.S. Navy to rapidly advance the construction of its autonomous unmanned surface fleet. These programs span a variety of platforms, including small, medium and large ships, as well as fully autonomous systems.
Brent Sadler, a senior researcher and naval operations expert at the Heritage Foundation, an American think tank, told WorkBoat that in 2021, the Navy's unmanned surface vessel "Ranger" successfully launched a "Standard-6" surface-to-air missile and intercepted an air target, marking the maturity of related technologies.
The U.S. Navy also needs small unmanned surface vehicles
Sadler said the U.S. Navy needs unmanned surface craft capable of operating in Philippine waters and equipped with long-range strike weapons (such as Tomahawk missiles) and air defense/anti-missile weapons (such as the Standard Missile-6 missile).
Sadler also said that the U.S. Navy also needs small unmanned surface craft to implement swarm tactics within the "first island chain." System reliability, the supply chain requirements to keep these platforms operational and the tactics they will execute are three key things the Navy needs to know about unmanned surface vehicles, Sadler added.
However, the progress of the U.S. Navy's "unmanned fleet" plan is not as smooth as they themselves described.
According to Reuters, the U.S. military is building an "unmanned fleet" to find cheaper and faster alternatives to manned ships, especially to deal with China's increasingly powerful naval power in the Pacific. However, the U.S. military's efforts to build an "unmanned fleet" have been slow to progress and have been plagued by technical problems, cost concerns and a series of testing setbacks.
Last year, Reuters broke the news that the GARC, a 5-meter-long unmanned speedboat, had multiple performance and safety issues, including a serious accident in which it lost control and hit another unmanned boat at high speed during an actual test.
A Reuters article on the 27th stated that in recent weeks, the unmanned boat malfunctioned again during testing in the Middle East. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, one GARC was not functioning properly at the time. However, U.S. Central Command spokesman Stephen Hawkins declined to comment on the setback in the test of U.S. unmanned boats in the Middle East.
Judging from the existing information, the US military has sent GARC unmanned boats to the Middle East, and it does not rule out the need to conduct relevant tests in actual combat scenarios, but it is difficult to say what the actual test results will be.
