Si bien no se trata de una idea nueva, los avances en el desarrollo de sistemas aut\u00f3nomos, est\u00e1n replanteando el concepto del empleo para el lanzamiento de misiles, de las grandes y costosas plataformas mar\u00edtimas de superficie. En su lugar, la utilizaci\u00f3n de USV de peque\u00f1o tama\u00f1o y m\u00e1s econ\u00f3micos, con la finalidad de ejecutar misiones de ataque, permitir\u00eda incrementar la cantidad de plataformas misil\u00edsticas en el teatro de operaciones, adem\u00e1s de minimizar la exposici\u00f3n de los modernos buques, muy dif\u00edciles de reemplazar durante un conflicto.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Navy is about to lose a big chunk of the vertical missile cells that give it a firepower advantage over any potential foe.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s an obvious way to replace them. And the service at least is beginning to explore the idea.<\/p>\n
Three words: robot missile barge. Rather than wrapping a billion-dollar manned warship around every cluster of vertical launch system tubes, the Navy could develop a cheap, crewless vessel that is little more than a floating magazine.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome kind of barge that has missile tubes,\u201d is how Eric Wertheim, author of\u00a0Combat Fleets of the World<\/em><\/a>, characterized it.<\/p>\n Missile barges could motor into a battle zone under their own power. Or auxiliary vessels could tow them. Once on station, they\u2019d plug into the manned-unmanned sensor-and-missile network the fleet is developing.<\/p>\n Other vessels would spot targets for the barge. A human operator on a nearby ship or at some base on land then would order the barge to open fire. With the press of a button, scores of missiles could arc toward an enemy fleet.\u00a0Cheaply.<\/em><\/p>\n This isn\u2019t really a new idea. Way back in the 1990s, the Navy drew up plans for an \u201carsenal ship\u201d that, while manned rather than unmanned, was supposed to do what the robotic missile barge would do today\u2014add hundreds of missile cells to a deployed task force without adding a lot of cost.<\/p>\n The \u201890s arsenal ship never got off the drawing board, but it did help to inspire an initiative, a decade later, to convert four old ballistic-missile submarines into cruise-missile carriers. The\u00a0Ohio<\/em>-class guided-missile boats, or SSGNs, are the most heavily-armed ships in the U.S. fleet. Each packs 154 VLS tubes for Tomahawk cruise missiles.<\/p>\n But the four boats all are around 40 years old. Their hulls can withstand only so many dives. Their nuclear reactors won\u2019t last forever. The Navy expects to decommission all the guided-missile subs between 2026 and 2028.<\/p>\n The loss of the SSGNs, along with the decommissioning of 22 old\u00a0Ticonderoga<\/em>-class cruisers, could cut by a fifth the fleet\u2019s overall VLS capacity.<\/p>\n Today, the Navy\u2019s 300 front-line ships together possess around 10,000 missile cells\u2014the most by far of any fleet. Number two China deploys just 3,300 missile cells. But by 2030 or so the U.S. fleet\u00a0could be down to 8,000 cells<\/a>\u2014and the Chinese fleet undoubtedly will be up hundreds or even thousands of cells.<\/p>\n New destroyers, frigates and submarines could help the U.S. fleet slowly to recoup its lost VLS cells. But a destroyer costs around $2 billion to build and $80 million annually to run. The Navy\u2019s going to need to add VLS cells. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be on a destroyer,\u201d Wertheim said.<\/p>\n The Navy\u2019s already working on two classes of crewless warship\u2014a \u201cmedium unmanned surface vehicle\u201d that could be around 150 feet long and a \u201clarge unmanned surface vehicle\u201d that could be twice the length. The Navy plans for the MUSV mostly to be a scout ship. The LUSV, however, could carry VLS cells.<\/p>\n But even the MUSV and LUSV\u2014respectively costing $35 million and $100 million\u2014could be too fancy for a quick VLS fix. It\u2019s not hard to build a simple, oceangoing vessel with the volume and power to support VLS cells.<\/p>\n The fleet\u2019s more sophisticated robotic vessels, not to mention manned warships, would handle command, communications and fleet self-defense. The missile barges would be dumb and disposable. And heavy with firepower.<\/p>\n The robotic missile barge is an obvious solution to a pressing problem, but one that\u2019s only recently become feasible\u2014thanks to huge advancements in artificial intelligence and networking. The Navy is betting that its newfound ability to link far-flung ships\u2014including unmanned ones\u2014will allow it to redesign the fleet.<\/p>\n In late 2020 the Navy proposed to add hundreds of MUSVs and LUSVs to its planned future fleet of 350 manned vessels. The service already is experimenting with a handful of prototype \u2018bots. Last week off the California coast, drones on the surface and in the air chased down a target barge and relayed, via satellite, its location to the destroyer USS\u00a0John Finn<\/em>.<\/p>\n The destroyer fired a long-range\u00a0SM-6 missile<\/a>\u00a0and sank the target from\u00a0\u201cwell beyond the line of sight,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0according to the Navy.<\/p>\n Now imagine that an inexpensive drone missile boat, rather than a $2-billion destroyer, fired the shot. A bunch of those drones could be the solution to the Navy\u2019s looming missile-cell shortage.<\/p>\n