Tag Archives: unmanned surface vessel

Navy Adm. Ron Boxall, surface warfare director OPNAV N96, has said his goal for 2019 is to bring more weapons and sensors into the battlespace to enable larger combat ships to serve as command and control for smaller vessels, Defense News reported Wednesday. “If you think about what we are trying to do with the surface force, we have large and small surface combatants that will [ultimately make up part of the 355-ship Navy] but we have no requirement for unmanned surface vessels right now, which I see as an absolutely critical part of distributed lethality, distributed maritime operations environment that we are moving into,” Boxall said.

The U.S. Navy plans to purchase its first Future Surface Combatant ship in 2023 in support of its Arleigh Burke Flight III warship program, USNI News reported Tuesday. The combatant ship will integrate design elements from Zumwalt-class (DDG-1000) and Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyer vessels, according to the report.