After getting rid of tanks and embracing off-road robot trucks that carry huge ship-killer missiles, the Marine Corps is now looking at equipping its island-hopping soldiers with another game-changing technology
Over the last few years, China has developed and deployed many different types of long-range precision-guided missiles. These include thousands of anti-air and ground-attack missiles, as well as hypersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles with large warheads that have been dubbed “carrier killer” missiles.
Due to this game-changing development, the U.S. now has to plan around the fact that it might not be able to move its warships and warplanes within hundreds of kilometers of Taiwan, if a conflict erupts over the Taiwan issue. One of the solutions to this challenge is the U.S. Marine Corps’ plan to create Marine Littoral Regiments that are optimized to be pre-positioned on Japan’s Ryukyu islands as close as 110 kilometers from Taiwan.
Such units would be deployed to these small islands when a Chinese invasion of Taiwan seems imminent, to bolster Japanese defenses of these islands and to use powerful ship-killer missiles to strike at Chinese ships out at sea. The idea is that these units would “stand in” and dig in before the conflict starts, rather than rush in after Chinese forces have already invaded the most strategically valuable of these islands.
Thus, these Marine Littoral Regiments are preparing to wage war on and around the small Pacific islands surrounding Taiwan, and to do so it is focusing on missiles that can destroy faraway warships as well as drone-type systems that can make perfect use of coastal waters. One such system is the new Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel, or LRUSV. The Corps has recently received its first prototypes of the LRUSV and is currently testing it to decide how many it will eventually order.
The LRUSV is a sea-going robotic boat that’s around 12 meters long and carries a sensor mast and a launch pod that it can raise to fire up to eight high-tech Hero-120 kamikaze drones that double as recon drones. It is primarily an Information Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) platform armed with attack drones that also have basic ISR capabilities. These battery-powered attack drones are equipped with cameras and can fly for up to an hour to reach targets as far away as 60 kilometers. They can drop down to detonate their warheads on enemy targets, or they can return to sender to be recharged for reuse.
The manufacturer claims the LRUSV itself can patrol over long ranges before needing to be refueled, although specs like range and pretty much everything else are still a secret. The boat can be commanded to autonomously patrol a certain area or route, and it can be deployed as part of a network of similar drones. Such a network of drones could be used to patrol the waters around a strategic island like Yonaguni, while its sensor mast records video and other data about possible threats that might be approaching the island from the air, surface or under the surface. Once it detects a possible threat, the boat can autonomously raise its stowed launch pod and launch some or all of its eight kamikaze drones.
These X-wing flying drones are designed to be controlled by a human via a hand controller that features a display screen which shows everything the drone’s cameras can see. This extremely useful video feed is fed directly to the hand controller or via the boat’s comms module, and the feed can also be shared with battlefield commanders via satellite links and ISR drones. Although the LRUSV is designed to act autonomously, it also has the option of being controlled by humans. It is assumed that the attack drones would be controlled by remotely located soldiers if the boat is in autonomous mode.
The attack drones can be launched as a swarm to attack a small area, or can fan out over the ocean or island to gather ISR data over a very wide area. Once an enemy system is detected, the closest drone can be commanded to drop down to destroy it by detonating its 4.5-kilogram high-explosive warhead. The Hero-120 is designed to attack tanks and lightly armored vehicles and vessels, so it can inflict quite a lot of damage on small boats and landing craft.
The LRUSVs can be used as support and attack platforms during a typical amphibious landing operation. Once a Marine unit has inserted itself on a beach or island, it would be able to deploy LRUSVs to patrol its coastal flanks and attack enemy systems and personnel on the ocean or on the landmass itself. With their new Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) missile trucks, the Marines would then be able to destroy enemy warships as far away as 180 kilometers, while fighting off landing forces with small arms, kamikaze drones, and light missile systems like the Javelin anti-tank missile and Stinger anti-air missile.
Image: Sgt. Keali De Los Santos, Public Domain
Leave a Reply