Welcome - LMACC
Welcome
In the past few years there has been much discussion of a “third offset” (artificial intelligence and autonomous capabilities). The USN has embraced autonomy in the aviation and undersea (MIW) domains for some time. Only surface warfare has delayed in acquiring some aspects of autonomy. The test vessel Sea Hunter developed as a DARPA project has broken this ground and is now in the process of experimentation. The question arise “What will we do with this in the Fleet?” Ambiguity in applicable missions is the result of having tightly intertwined CONOPS for Fleet operations that are the basis for training for every deploying ship. Dealing with issues of trust in an autonomous ship, negative reactions to arming an unmanned vessel, security, and C2 are all part of a culture of incremental acceptance and change. Combine these issues with the geopolitical situation, particularly in the Pacific, and what emerges is a need for an evolutionary “bridge”: a small, fast, lightly manned combatant that pairs autonomy with onboard human oversight and tactical employment of weapons systems. This web site provides detailsof design of such a vessel (which we call Sea Fighter in this report, originally coined by the late Professor Wayne Hughes and Professor Jeff Kline at the Naval Postgraduate School), combined with unmanned autonomous vessels (e.g., Sea Hunter) as sensors, within a sensor grid and truly distributed capabilities. Here, the network is the platform. Sections of the websites are public and some are accessible with a CAC. Details of various concepts of operations are included in separate sections, as well as innovations that allow this warship to operate far into contested areas, as part of EABO, doing the work of mining, deterrence and war at sea operations. A section on acquisition and funding are reviewed and supported by published reports and simulations. This site also acts as a repository for the many cross-disciplinary efforts that have gone into the concept.
