The Department of the Navy’s Science and Technology Board Accelerates the Journey to Achieve a “Hybrid Fleet”

The Navy-After-Next will be a “Hybrid Fleet.” This concept was first articulated by then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday and embraced by his successor, Admiral Lisa Franchetti. The basics of this initiative were described in the Chief of Naval Operations Force Design 2045 which called for 350 crewed ships and 150 large uncrewed maritime vessels.

This innovative concept was born out of necessity. The concept of Hybrid Fleet evolved due the U.S. Navy’s ongoing challenge of building enough crewed ships to adequately meet the Navy’s global commitments. The Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy put it this way: “We cannot manifest a bigger traditional Navy in a few short years.” Indeed, the price of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer has risen to $2.2B and production lead times stretch to years.

A December 2024 by the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board entitled The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems, seeks to help accelerate the path to a Hybrid Fleet by offering a path forward to design, develop and field uncrewed systems—especially uncrewed maritime systems—in order to achieve the Navigation Plan’s goal of: “Scaling robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed.”

The U.S. Navy’s Innovation Journey

The U.S. Navy has been at the forefront of innovation throughout its history. Whether it was the transition from sail to steam for power, or the advent of steel warships to replace wooden ones, or the transition from the battleship to the aircraft carrier to the centerpiece of the Navy fleet. Throughout its history, these changes helped the U.S. Navy dominate at sea.

In the Cold War era, this innovative journey gathered momentum: from the introduction of the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, in 1954; to the first of the Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers in 1975; to the first Aegis-equipped warship, USS Ticonderoga, in 1983. These innovative technological developments kept the Navy at the forefront of warfighting prowess.

The quest to achieve a Hybrid Fleet will depend on the same level of innovation. That is why The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems will prove useful to help guide the Navy’s leadership to turn “aspiration” into concrete actions. Led by the Honorable Christine Fox, former Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense, and including members such as the Honorable Robert Work, former Deputy Secretary of Defense and Michael Brown, former Director of the Defense Innovation Unit, The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems is already gaining traction within the Department of the Navy.

The report noted that the Navy can achieve a Hybrid Fleet with a strategy of focusing on experimentation, prototyping and learning during the current Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), working on building the infrastructure to support uncrewed systems in the next FYDP and procuring uncrewed systems in numbers during the following FYDP.

Meeting the Operational Needs of the Combatant Commanders

The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems puts special emphasis on: “Ensuring the unmanned systems meet the needs of operational commanders.” There is little doubt that the nation’s combatant commanders are eager to add uncrewed systems to their warfighting assets.

In an article in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander, Admiral Samuel Paparo, put the Navigation Plan’s emphasis on scaling robotic and autonomous systems in an operational context, noting:

The CNO is focusing on rapidly developing, fielding, and integrating UxSs. These systems will augment the multi-mission conventional force to increase lethality, sensing, and survivability. […] Project 33 [part of the Navigation Plan] will allow the Navy to operate in more areas with greater capability. Unmanned systems provide the ability to project fires and effects dynamically, at any time, from multiple axes, and with mass.

Recognizing that the United States is in an “Artificial Intelligence (AI) arms-race” with our peer adversaries, The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems urges the Navy to fully leverage AI-technologies, noting: “As they design, develop and acquire new systems, DON will want to take advantage of rapidly changing technology such as AI and autonomy.” This builds on the Navy’s desire to lower total operating costs by moving beyond the current “one UxS, multiple joysticks, multiple operators” paradigm that exists today.

Providing Concrete and Achievable Recommendations

Subsequent to the issuance of The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems, Navy officials have provided more granularity regarding how this report is gaining purchase within leadership circles. For example, Maria Proestou, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for acquisition, policy and budget and executive director of the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board, noted that uncrewed systems are: “The most powerful technology that, if employed correctly, could really change warfighting,” going on to say that these technologies can: “Create an asymmetric advantage for the warfighter.”

Importantly, The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems injects a sense of urgency if the Navy is going to field a Hybrid Fleet in time to address aggressive moves by peer adversaries, noting: “We see these steps as critically important to a future hybrid fleet but believe they should be taken in parallel rather than in sequence. In the face of potential conflict, we must move as fast as the relevant supporting technologies generate opportunities rather than at a pace that is bureaucratically comfortable.”

The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems does not shy away from “naming names” regarding why the fielding of these systems is urgent. It states: “The development and integration of unmanned systems into war planning is particularly imperative because it offers the promise of relatively low-cost deterrence or, if necessary, warfighting in the event of conflict in the Taiwan Straits or South China Sea.”

In a presentation at a Center for Strategic and International Studies, Vice Admiral Jimmy Pitts, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities (N9), put the focus on uncrewed maritime systems in these terms: “We are leading the way with unmanned systems. We are leveraging the success of the Navy’s unmanned task force as well as the disruptive capabilities office. Our goal is to get unmanned surface system solutions to the Fleet within the next two years.” Admiral Pitts went on to ask the questions: “What will unmanned systems do operationally? How will they get to the war at sea and littoral operating areas? How will they stay in those areas and remain ready for conflict?”

Developing a Concept of Operations for Leveraging Uncrewed Systems

Admiral Pitts addressed important considerations. Juxtaposed against the Navy’s plans to accelerate its fielding of uncrewed maritime systems is the fact that the U.S. Congress has been reluctant to authorize the Navy’s planned investment of billions of dollars in unmanned surface vehicles until the service can come up with a concept of operations (CONOPS) for using them. Congress has a point. The Navy has announced plans to procure large numbers of uncrewed systems—especially large and medium uncrewed surface vessels—but a CONOPS has yet to emerge.

One evolving concept of operations is to marry various size uncrewed surface (USV), subsurface (UUV), and aerial (UAV) vehicles to perform missions that the U.S. Navy has—and will continue to have—as the Navy-After-Next evolves. The Navy can use a large, uncrewed surface vessel like the MARTAC T82 Leviathan as a “truck” to move smaller USVs, UUVs and UAVs into the battle space to perform a number of important Navy missions such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and mine-countermeasures (MCM).

How would this CONOPS for a hybrid fleet evolve? Consider the case of an Expeditionary Strike Group comprised of several amphibious ships underway in the Western Pacific. This strike group includes three large, uncrewed surface vessels (LUSVs). Depending on the size that is ultimately procured, the LUSV can carry a number of medium uncrewed surface vessels (MUSVs) and deliver them to the intended area of operations.

These vessels can then be sent independently to perform the ISR mission, or alternatively, can launch one or more smaller USVs to perform this mission. For the MCM mission, the LUSV can deliver several MUSVs equipped with mine-hunting and mine-clearing systems (all of which are commercial-off-the-shelf platforms such as the MCM-USV, T38 Devil Ray, Shadow Fox and others tested extensively in Navy exercises). These vessels can then undertake the “dull, dirty and dangerous” work previously conducted by Sailors who had to operate in the minefield.

To be clear, this is not a platform-specific solution, but rather a concept to team the crewed ships of a Hybrid Fleet with capable uncrewed maritime systems. When fleet operators see a capability with different size uncrewed COTS platforms in the water working together and successfully performing the missions presented in this article, they will likely press industry to produce even more-capable platforms to perform these missions and thereby accelerating the fielding of a hybrid .

Regardless of whether what we call the hybrid fleet today still bears the same name five, ten or more years from now, given the enormous cost of building new ships, to say nothing of the lifetime total operating costs of these crewed ships, the only sustainable path forward for the U.S. Navy is a manned-unmanned teaming of crewed ships and uncrewed maritime vessels. This is a case where the Navy must embrace a new paradigm that may not make those with stewardship of the Navy comfortable, but one that must be embraced without delay. To do anything less could well consign the U.S. Navy to insignificance.

This article was published on May 1, 2025 by the Center for Maritime Strategy and is republished wtih the author’s permission.