Who needs sailors anyway?

[GR66]

The crewing does not change as much as you would like to think. What changes is where they are when doing operational stuff. Also consider any USV, even if large mostly expendable, as there will be minimal chance to do Damage Control.

How does the crewing not change much? From the article:

Additional attributes include USVs built to commercial construction standards , automatic RF control with respect to EMCON mission requirements, interior space for additional hardware and up to 8 personnel, autonomous operation and high speeds at Sea State 4-5, software that allows for multiple USVs controlled simultaneously, and compliance with International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to enable foreign military sales.

It's important to keep in mind that these are not replacements for crewed warships. They are single task vessels meant to augment the crewed fleet in a conflict...either to provide additional missiles or to be an additional point in the sensor web. They are to be used in mass and are meant to be attritable...damage control is not a priority.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I think that is easy to say for a vessel that is 10m and under, acceptable losses up to 30m, after that, people will be in shock when they lose a bigger vessel to something that was otherwise salvageable.

 

[Kirkhill]

The crewing does not change as much as you would like to think. What changes is where they are when doing operational stuff. Also consider any USV, even if large mostly expendable, as there will be minimal chance to do Damage Control.

They are looking at Offshore Supply Vessels with a crew of 8 that they can take the crew off and have the vessel continue mission.

The vessel is a civilian vessel. Typically those particular boats would be used very hard in the civilian world. I doubt that civilian operators would operate much of a Fleet Maintenance Facility. If it got beaten up too much it would replaced.

And the Modules are 40 and 20 ft ISO Sea Cans with their own very separate maintenance needs.

They are available for something like 10 to 30 million and are available used for as little 1 or 2 million after a few years of service.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

You have top tier civy companies, they operate the vessels to a certain standard and get rid of them when they reach a certain age, then they get picked up by a 2nd tier company that keeps all the necessary stuff working in good order and occasional deals with the other stuff, then it's sold again to the bottom feeders, who only fix something because the Inspector has detained the vessel.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I think that is easy to say for a vessel that is 10m and under, acceptable losses up to 30m, after that, people will be in shock when they lose a bigger vessel to something that was otherwise salvageable.

It's really the sticker price that is important; you can need a fair bit of shockingly expensive stuff to properly fire something on target, and really doesn't take very long before someone stops looking at an uncrewed vessel as not a writeoff.

Also, as soon as it has weapons, and associated comms and crypto onboard with some kind of sensor package, physical security is a very real consideration. Last time I was supporting discussion of a uncrewed ship with weapons it very quickly went from uncrewed, to uncrewed with security, to uncrewed with security, with DC and support for the security... to fully crewed.