The U.S. Department of Defense has published a very interesting post.
The DoD posted a video of the Ranger Unmanned Surface Vessel
(USV) testing a containerized four-pack SM-6 launcher.
This provides an insight into the way the U.S Navy intends to operate in the future
-small unmanned platforms capable of launching deadly standoff weapons.
Viewers may note that Ranger is an experimental vessel that is part of
the service's Ghost Fleet Overlord program. SM-6 is one of the most versatile weapons
in the American arsenal. When integrated these two systems can form a lethal combination.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how US Navy plans to take on the Russian & Chinese
with Ghost Fleet armed with advanced weaponry? Let's get started.
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A large fleet of traditional manned ships is costly to operate and maintain.
It is the need of the hour that few tasks are shifted to unmanned platforms.
This also fits in the larger concept of having a more distributed and flexible fleet.
U.S Navy envisions a “Ghost Fleet” consisting of Large Unmanned Surface Vehicles (LUSVs),
Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicles (MUSVs), and Extra-Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs).
The vessels will be low-cost, high-endurance and modular - that
is they will be reconfigurable vessels and will be equipped according to mission requirements.
While the U.S. Navy is still charting out long-term plans on how “Ghost Fleet”,
we have now got a glimpse of things to come.
The goal of the Overlord program is to convert commercial fast supply
vessels which are used to service and resupply oil and gas platforms at sea
into an experimental unmanned ship that could navigate the ocean with or without human help.
The U.S Navy plans to acquire two LUSVs per year in FY2020- FY2024.
These will be between 200 feet to 300 feet in length and have a displacement of about 2,000 tons
when fully loaded making the LUSV the largest unmanned ship to date.
The platforms will be packed with sensors of different types.
Initially, these are expected to be unarmed but eventually could be fitted with different
types of launchers including Mark 41 VLS (Vertical Launch System) which can provide a
lot of flexibility as it can accommodate several kinds of weapons like Tomahawk for land attack,
VL-ASROC for anti-submarine operations, ESSM for the anti-missile role apart from SM-6.
The Ranger is a remotely controlled unmanned surface vehicle (USV) mainly
tailored for working in shallow waters and able to perform intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance (IRS) operations and patrolling of pre‐defined areas.
The Ranger can be equipped with different kinds of sensors.
The basic navigation suite includes Compass, GPS, Navigation camera and controller with radio-line.
Ranger has the capability to perform both surface and underwater operations.
It has radars & laser scanners for obstacle detection and tracking, daylight cameras
as well as thermal cameras, forward-looking sonars etc.
Ranger weights around 1800 kg or 4000 lbs and has a speed of 75 kph and around 45 mph.
The vessel is made of aluminum.
While currently, the vessel's autonomous control system
is not mature , it will keep getting better with more experiments and optimization.
The RIM-174 Standard Extended Range Active Missile (ERAM), or Standard Missile 6
(SM-6) have been deployed by the US Navy to counter different kinds of threats.
It was designed for extended range anti-air warfare (ER-AAW)
purposes providing capability against fixed and rotary-wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles,
anti-ship cruise missiles in flight, both over sea and land and terminal ballistic missile defense.
It can also be used as a high-speed anti-ship missile and can also take out land targets.
The missile uses the airframe of the earlier
SM-2ER Block IV (RIM-156A) missile and some targeting elements from AIM-120C AMRAAM.
It can discriminate targets using its dual-mode seeker,
with the semi-active seeker relying on a ship-based illuminator to highlight the target,
and the active seeker having the missile itself sending out an electromagnetic signal.
SM 6 has a max speed of Mach 3.5 and has a 140 lb (64 kg) blast fragmentation warhead.
Since its mode of attack is partly ballistic in nature,
it is much harder to defend against when compared to traditional cruise missiles.
The U.S has been fighting with adversaries that have no
or very small navy like Iraq or Afghanistan.
All this while Russia and China were not on the radar. America was focusing on military
assets that were more in line with these battles like the development of drones.
But things have changed, in the last decade, Russia & China have emerged as critical threats.
Both of these countries have strong navies and are actively pursuing ways to
counter the U.S Navy by developing a wide variety of Anti-ship missiles.
Even second-tier powers like Iran
has been pursuing the development of a wide range of Anti-ship missile.
US Navy has been focusing to make the fleet
more Networked and Distributed in view of the emerging threats.
The Distributed Lethality concept aims to disperse firepower across different platforms
and Ghost Fleet is poised to play a crucial role in this.