My Modularized Auxiliary Cruiser proposal to bring more missiles to the sea control fight has been updated and shrunk by the Navy for modularized payloads on unmanned surface vessels.
The U.S. Navy unveiled its new Modular Attack Surface Craft program, which would likely see unmanned surface vessels carrying missiles long distances at sea.
The program calls for the development of a rugged, flexible and high-capacity unmanned surface vessel, or USV, capable of hauling a variety of “containerized payloads,” per a July 28 solicitation. Such payloads would include the maximum equivalent of more than four 40-foot containers — cargo that would roughly equal the size of the Navy’s anti-ballistic missile system, the Mark 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System.
These are smaller versions of Modularized Auxiliary Cruisers, as I proposed years ago. If we really are on a short deadline to be ready for China, this is the only way to get hulls in the water before then. But they aren't silver bullets.
Another article has this detail:
The most relevant to the service’s requirements is a solution for an unmanned ship that can support a payload of two 40-foot ISO containers and cruise at a sailing speed of 25 knots for up to 2,500 nautical miles in sea state four. The other two concepts examine different payloads, from one to four ISO containers without specifying range or speed. The Navy wants responses to the solicitation by Aug. 11.
For me, it will be interesting to see how large such vessels have to be for sailing long distances at sea rather than leaving port and almost immediately beginning the fight, as our overseas allies must do.
And for wartime emergency conversions, my original proposal still has merit.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: The photo of the Ranger and Nomad USVs is from the second article.
