A forecast for the next 20 to 30 years places uncrewed surface vessels in some roles once filled by escort destroyers, frigates and sloops within a task group. Reliable operation at sea would require weapons and other systems to withstand salt water, equipment failures and fire without a crew aboard. Ukrainian operations in the Black Sea offer useful experience, but their coastal setting does not establish suitability for the rougher Atlantic and polar seas. Sustained political support would also matter: changing priorities could leave fragments of different systems that then have to be made to work together. Removing people from operational decisions presents a further political difficulty, since responsibility for a failure could reach politicians without a human operator in between.
Notable Point · 1:15:36-1:17:48
Uncrewed surface vessels as future escorts
The wartime inner screen offers a possible model for uncrewed escorts, with open-ocean reliability and political oversight still to solve.