Lifting the Veil on the Lightly Manned Surface Combatant

[rangerrebew]

Capability Analysis
Lifting the Veil on the Lightly Manned Surface Combatant
July 17, 2020 Guest Author

By Ben DiDonato

Introduction

As the U.S. Navy moves into the unmanned age and implements Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), there is a need for small, lightly manned warships to streamline that transition and fill roles which require a human crew. Congress has expressed concerns about unmanned vessels on a number of fronts and highlighted the need for a class of ships to bridge the gap. The Naval Postgraduate School’s Lightly Manned Autonomous Combat Capability program (LMACC) has designed a warship to meet this need.

The need for these small, heavily armed warships has also been well established, and is based on extensive analysis and wargaming across the Navy’s innovation centers. These ships will provide distributed forward forces capable of conducting surface warfare and striking missile sites from within the weapons engagement zone of a hostile A2/AD system. They will be commanded by human tactical experts and operate in packs with supporting unmanned vessels, like the Sea Hunter MDUSV, to distribute capabilities and minimize the impact of combat losses.

 http://cimsec.org/lifting-the-veil-on-the-lightly-manned-surface-combatant/44650

[Smokin Joe]

That's much closer to the old PT boat concept.

[ironhorsedriver]

15 person crew. Hope they don't have damage control issues.

[Smokin Joe]

15 person crew. Hope they don't have damage control issues.

Cross train your crew. that won't be a large enough hull to take much serious damage.  The idea is not to get hit...