US Navy getting Defiant: Unmanned ship highlights innovation

The United States Navy is not the world's largest maritime force

China's People's Liberation Army Navy now holds that honor. However, the U.S. is unwilling to give up its title as the world's most powerful and innovative maritime force

so it's getting defiant. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, better known as DARPA

just christened a new unmanned surface vessel, the USX-1 Defiant. The 180-foot-long, 42-foot-tall craft displaces about 529,000 pounds of water and has a top cruising speed of 20 knots

DARPA says it can dance with 30-foot waves and is designed to stay at sea for more than a year without a single human being on board

Defiant is the product of the No Manning Required Ship Program, or NOMARS

It builds on much of what the Navy learned while operating its ghost fleet over the last few years

which refers to a number of unmanned testing platforms like the Ranger

Turns out when you don have to worry about people you can strip boats and ships down to the bare essentials hull propulsion navigation and weapons The Nomars program manager said Defiant is no wider than she must be

to fit the largest piece of hardware. As the demonstrator for the Nomars program

Defiant features a simplified hull design so that it can be easily replicated and repaired at any

Tier 3 shipyard, places that typically cater to yachts, tugs, and workboats. DARPA says that once

the Defiant completes the extended at-sea demonstration, proving its reliability and endurance, it will be turned over to the U.S. Navy, at which time it will be the fleet's first

fully autonomous medium unmanned surface vessel. But it will not be the last. Congress just approved

about $2.1 billion in funding back in July to develop, build, and integrate more USVs

which should go a long way to realizing Admiral Samuel Paparo's vision

of a drone hellscape to counter China in the Western Pacific. You can hear more about that by checking out our website, san.com

or downloading the Straight Arrow News app today