- The US Navy faces shipbuilding and fleet size issues as it readies for a potential war with China.
- A defense tech company making autonomous vessels believes these ships can solve the Navy's issues.
- Captainless warships could help supplement the traditional fleet.
The US Navy faces a range of challenges, from shipbuilding gaps to overall fleet size, as it increasingly looks across the Pacific with concern at China's growing maritime might.
Blue Water Autonomy, a relatively new defense technology company building uncrewed warships, believes that these vessels are the answer to the Navy's troubles and could give the sea service a much-needed boost in future conflicts for a lower cost.
"There is a gap in the US Navy's overall capabilities," Austin Gray, Blue Water's co-founder and chief strategy officer, told Business Insider. "Human crewed ships would never be able to offer a 20 to 30 million dollar platform that can go out on the open ocean and do a bunch of different stuff."
Blue Water, founded in 2024 by former Navy officers and an engineer, announced $14 million in seed funding earlier in April. This Boston-based startup is building a fully autonomous warship that can be mass-produced and operate alongside crewed vessels in the future.
The Navy, which plans to build a battle force of 381 crewed warships and 134 uncrewed surface and undersea vessels, already fields various drone vessels, some designed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions and others as combat platforms.
Gray, a former Navy intelligence officer, said that many of these vessels cannot travel thousands of miles and carry large payloads and are better off protecting key choke points, like the Strait of Hormuz or ports, rather than being sent on endurance missions.
As US military leaders prepare for a potential war against China, they are paying close attention to America's naval force, as a conflict between the two adversaries would likely involve substantial maritime combat. Amid a push to supplement the traditional fleet with drones, the vast openness of the Western Pacific means it's essential for the Navy to have platforms that can travel long distances across the open ocean, a blue-water fleet.
"How do we start something outside Chinese missile range, like 2,000 miles back, go into missile range — operate, conduct a mission — and then get back out?" Gray said. This is where Blue Water hopes to make a splash.
First, the ship must be large enough to hold enough fuel to travel thousands of miles and carry an engine or two, bringing the vessel's length to roughly 100 feet. Gray said a ship this size is better off as autonomous because squeezing things like supportive and defensive systems on a small, crewed vessel "would be a disaster."
"It'd be uncomfortable for the crew," he said, and that doesn't even factor in all the added systems that can make a warship's design more complex. "So, it's just much better to keep a vessel of that size unmanned since the tech is there."
Blue Water believes a fleet of autonomous vessels can effectively solve a major hindrance in the Navy's preparation for a potential war with war: the need to build a larger naval force without adding strain to America's already struggling shipbuilding industry.
China already has a larger naval force than the US, and its shipyards are rapidly building new surface combatants. By contrast, America's shipbuilding industry has deteriorated so much that President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month to revive it.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, told lawmakers recently that China is building around three warships for every one that America makes. He previously said uncrewed systems could help fill the gap for what the Navy lacks in crewed vessels.
Gray said that autonomous vessels could be produced without adding any additional strain to the US shipyards that are already under pressure and busy building complex warships that often take years to make.
Blue Water says it can design and build a prototype autonomous warship in just 18 months, making dozens a year at smaller but fully equipped shipyards across the US. The company has already discussed partnerships with several such facilities.
"Manned ships are complicated, exquisite, and extensive, and they cost billions of dollars," Gray said. "Unmanned ships are much simpler form factors. We can produce 50 per year in medium-sized yards."
Blue Water has a test vessel in the water at an undisclosed location in New England. The company said it is evaluating the hardware, software, and payloads for uncrewed ships, and it has three different designs in the works.
Survivability is a key consideration in design. The ongoing Houthi attacks against key Red Sea shipping lanes raise questions about how autonomous warships survive in a time of anti-ship missiles and maritime strike drones.
Gray said Blue Water wants to put weapons on its uncrewed ships because electronic warfare capabilities won't be enough to defend the vessel from enemy drone attacks — adversaries will learn and adapt. He said that a kinetic defensive system is necessary for future conflicts; it could be either guns or surface-to-air missiles.
Ukraine is already showing other militaries how weapons systems can be added to drone boats. Kyiv has armed uncrewed surface vessels with missile launchers, machine guns, and small drones and has used these platforms to wreak havoc on Russia's Black Sea Fleet.
