By Dr. Ann Griffiths, 12 March 2025
Personnel shortages have plagued the RCN for years. It’s not just a problem in Canada, the same problem has affected other navies, including both the US Navy and Royal Navy. While the RCN continues to focus on crewed ships, the United States is working on a plan to complement its crewed ships. Recently, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched Defiant, a prototype unmanned surface vessel designed for fully uncrewed naval operations, and the product of the No Manning Required Ship (NOMARS) program. The ship was purposely designed to contain no humans, so no air quality considerations, food preparation, accommodation, showers/toilets, etc. According to DARPA, having a design that eliminates crew has advantages, i.e., “without making room and allowances for people, there is little in way of a deckhouse, and the vessel has a narrower beam. This means less construction cost, less weight, better hydrodynamic efficiency, better stealth performance, and a better operating window in rough sea states.” To this we could add no salaries, no worries about fatigue or human error, and no casualties in conflict. There are, however, continuing concerns about removing human beings from warships, but this seems certain to happen in the future.
Defiant is not a huge ship – at 180 feet, 240 tonnes – but it is big enough to illustrate the concept. The ship is in the water and will undergo sea trials in the spring. See “Sailors Not Required: DARPA Launches Fully Unmanned Warship Prototype,”
Sailors Not Required: DARPA Launches Fully Unmanned Warship Prototype
Image: The NOMARS program’s prototype vessel, USX-1 Defiant, completed construction in February 2025. Credit: Serco North America via DARPA
5 thoughts on “Solving Personnel Shortages?”
Hello Ann –
Thanks for posting this. Uncrewed systems – be they surface, sub-surface, or aerial – will undoubtedly play a key role in future naval ops. Concepts of operation – be it for crewed/uncrewed teaming or uncrewed only – are being developed. And given the right level of R&D spending, Canadian industry can probably add value.
That said, I respectfully take exception to the statement, “no salaries, no worries about fatigue or human error”. Does the use of uncrewed surface vessels envisioned above not simply transfer a portion of military HR from the oceans to the shore installation? Presumably a navy would have to recruit, train, and retain USV operators in the same way that an air force has to train operators of medium and larger UAVs. And since Canada and other like-minded states still want humans in or on the decision-making loop, errors cannot be entirely eliminated. AI may go some way to assisting in decision-making, but here again one must be confident that the software decision-making tools are trustworthy.
Bottom line: by all means let’s explore uncrewed systems, AI, etc., to help the RCN fulfil its mandate in our three oceans (and beyond), but bear in mind that these ‘labour-saving’ devices need people to operate and maintain them – people whom the RCN is still struggling to attract. Perhaps the prospect of joining the navy but not having to deploy to sea (or not as often) will incentivize recruiting/retention to some degree. But the notion “Sailors not required” is misleading.
It does not eliminate the need for people, they still have to retrieve the ship when it fails, they still have to perform maintenance on the ship, they still have to monitor the data as it comes back from the ship, and they still have to direct the ship on its overall mission objectives. Moreover, such unmanned vessels can be sunk or rendered mission kills because once again, no sailors to fix equipment damaged or defective on patrol. There also would need to be some provision for sinking the ship if it becomes compromised by a cyber attack on its control systems. People also are required to build, test, and certify the ships. Finally, in an age where quantum computer code breaking could be on the horizon, they would be a huge investment loss when it is no longer possible to effectively control them.
It also could be pointed out that technical systems are not the entirely the function of warships, there is a completely human dimension to sending ships out on the sea, a robot ship can not perform any of this duty. In the end, a drone ship would be automatic target practice in a shooting war, since there is no real escalation given that no blood is spilled, its merely a treasure loss.
Academia rarely demonstrate insight about these issues from behind the safety of their computer screens. Drones have a purpose, as missiles have demonstrated for 80 years or so now, but war remains an affair for people.
Yes, it’s nice to see DARPA is still in business despite recent shakeup of US government by ‘DOGE’.
But I think they are on the wrong bearing. Small inexpensive sea drones have proven to be very effective (Refs A, B). Basically, a modified sea-doo, remotely controlled via satellite and filled with explosives to detonate on impact or by command. Low profile helps to hide from a surface radar, and a shallow fiberglass hull confuses SONAR. In my opinion RCN should get a bunch of those to augment Canada’s defensive and offensive capability. Along with an expedited procurement of 6-8 new subs to replace the Victoria class. But this is a topic for another post.
Refs:
A. Ukrainian drones destroy Russian ship near Crimea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd6WhIC2lTI
B. Ukraine says it sunk a Russian warship in Black Sea in drone attack
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-drone-black-sea-1.7133872
Good morning Fan,
Where and how would you see these UCVs being employed?
The Black Sea is a very different operational environment than Canada’s three oceans.
Ubique
Les
Hello Les,
I merely suggest acquiring a cool new weapon system employed effectively outside conventional doctrine. Modern Naval Warfare is not my expertise. I can only speculate. But I see Ukrainians (without a Navy!) are sinking the enemy’s ships. For this purpose we (RCN) would use American made Harpoon missiles while providing air defence with American supplied ESSM. I don’t remember who exactly produces Mk35/48s and 57mm rounds, but I’m pretty sure it’s not domestic.
For subject drones to work a minimum of three things should occur: 1. an enemy is attacking a Canadian coast; 2. Americans do not provide their weapons; 3. the RCN has sufficient number of sea drones, trained operators and supporting infrastructure. Currently it all seems unlikely.
As for the vast blue oceans, well yes, it’s a different environment. However, I am talking about a few vulnerable points along the shore. If you look at the Black Sea in Google Maps and zoom into the area Odesa – Mykolaiv – Sevastopol – Kerch, then imagine you substitute it with Halifax – Sydney – Charlottetown – St. John’s in Canada. What would we use to defend them? AOPS? American F35s?
Regards,
CNR Fan