Large escorts may lead and maintain uncrewed task groups

Modern frigates and destroyers may become the centres of task groups that include uncrewed surface vessels. Ocean endurance, stability, and worldwide mobility push those companions toward roughly 1,000 to 2,500 tons, from River-class offshore-patrol-vessel scale toward a Second World War destroyer. Smaller craft would require a much larger mothership, perhaps landing-platform-dock size, with a well deck for recovery, rearming, and restocking. Autonomy does not remove maintenance because redundant systems only preserve service until failed components are repaired. The crewed leader therefore needs technicians who can visit an uncrewed vessel by helicopter or boat, inspect it regularly, and restore its primary systems before additional failures exhaust the backups. Those personnel and workshops must be counted in the parent ship's accommodation just as an aviation detachment is. The future destroyer is consequently a command, logistics, and engineering hub for a distributed force rather than merely another armed hull.