The Race for the Hybrid Fleet: Pt. 2
- Rui Costa
- Feb 5
- 11 min read
Updated: Apr 20
Global Implications for the Future Hybrid Fleet
In the previous article of this series, we took a deep dive into the origins of the Hybrid fleet concept, through the lens of the US Navy’s distributed lethality concept. This vision however, represents only a fractioned portion of the collective international push for unmanned systems integration in modern naval operations. In fact, across the entire globe, various navies have embraced this future of fighting at sea – each of which forging their own unique vision tailored to their current concept of operations and individual geopolitical situations.
In this article, we’ll take a wider global view on the Hybrid fleet. While the US Navy is undoubtedly leading the charge in the field of unmanned systems development and integration, particularly in the surface domain, other global powers have also invested significantly in unmanned assets and their integration within their fleets. Many of these are at different stages of development and maturity, and also have different visions on how these assets will be used and integrated in the future naval battlespace.
The above considerations raise a wide array of important questions: what systems are Navies developing, how are these being integrated into fleets, how do different navies’ visions differ from the US Navy’s and how do different nations’ paths towards a distributed lethality concept of operations ultimately influence the geopolitics of naval power – especially closer at home, in Europe.
European Navies and the Hybrid Fleet
Across Europe, navies are beginning to explore the potential of unmanned systems – albeit, perhaps in a more conservative light than their North American counterpart. We’ll explore a few stand-out study cases within this chapter.
The first of which, the Royal Navy, has been particularly proactive, with its NavyX innovation arm spearheading various projects in the field of unmanned systems. NavyX sits within the Royal Navy’s Develop Directorate, and is the entity responsible for testing and trialling new technology to deliver new capabilities to the Royal Navy fleet at a faster pace than traditional routes enable – often being described as the Royal Navy’s “Autonomy, Lethality and Innovation Accelerator”. As of 2024, NavyX’s work has centred around trials conducted on the Experimental Trials Vessel XV Patrick Blackett (XV PTBK) and the co-development with BAE Systems of the autonomous Pacific 24 RIB – an autonomous rigid inflatable boat.
Meanwhile, in the field of unmanned systems integration and experimentation, Portugal is a clear stand-out. REP(MUS) (Robotic Experimentation and Prototyping using Maritime Uncrewed Systems) is an annual experimentation exercise that has been hosted by the Portuguese Navy since 2019, and is now co-hosted by the European Defence Agency, NATO CMRE and the Oporto University. The exercise currently stands as the largest military exercise, solely focused on the exploration and testing of maritime unmanned systems, in the world. In 2024, this exercise hosted more than 2000 participants from 30 different partnering countries.
As of 2024, the Portuguese Navy already operates a range of over 7 different models of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV). The latest of which, the “Trator do Mar” (Sea Tug), was unveiled at the 2024 edition of REP(MUS). This vessel, like many of the USV’s currently in operation in the Portuguese Navy, was developed “in-house” at the Navy’s CEOV unit (Unmanned Vehicle Operational Experimentation Centre). This USV was principally designed for the use in Anti-Submarine Warfare operations, detecting submarines through the use of a towed array sonar.
In addition to the above projects, and in close cooperation with the Netherlands, the Portuguese Navy is also well underway into fielding one of the world’s first purpose-built drone carriers. The NRP D. João II, currently under construction at the Damen Group’s shipyard in Galati, Romania, is expected to enter service in the second half of 2026. Also known as the “Multipurpose Naval Platform”, the ship is mainly designed to carry out surveillance operations, environmental and meteorological monitoring and emergency evacuation operations. The 107-meter long vessel, will serve as a carrier for air, surface and subsurface drones – leveraging the Portuguese Navy’s experience in operating unmanned assets within the context of a wholly integrated manned/unmanned fleet.
The Netherlands is also venturing into the field of unmanned – albeit at a more conservative pace. As of July 2024, the Royal Netherlands Navy (RNLN), began testing one of its first surface drones – the USV90. This vessel is designed as a mothership for other unmanned systems (such as ROV’s) in de-mining operations. Additionally, and as a complement to their current Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigates (ASWFs) project, the Netherlands Ministry of Defence’s COMMIT and the RNLN, are advancing plans to develop an anti-submarine warfare USV as a potential force multiplier for the ASWFs.
In the field of underwater capabilities, both France and the United Kingdom have emerged as key players within Europe. BAE Systems, from the UK, have just completed the first set of in-water trials and demonstrations for the Herne XLAUV – a large autonomous underwater vessel designed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, anti-submarine warfare (ASW), electronic warfare (EW) and protection of critical national infrastructure (CNI). Meanwhile, in France, Naval Group has developed its own XLUUV demonstrator under a framework agreement award from DGA – an agreement which was also extended with a first follow-on contract for the development of Naval Group’s Autonomous Decision-Making Process (ADMP) and Secure Autonomous Navigation softwares.
Key differences between Allies
It is quite evident that European NATO member states are developing unmanned naval technologies at a different pace, with different operational concepts and technological priorities than their US counterpart. The US clearly sees unmanned naval assets as a core component of their Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept – where these assets are positioned as force multipliers to augment whole-fleet capabilities. Their unmanned assets are envisioned as operating in contested environments, with a high degree of autonomy, capable of being integrated into multi-domain operations and providing fleets with a wide range of capabilities that may go as far as those found on large manned assets.
Meanwhile, in Europe, a slightly different approach is currently taking shape. Prioritization is clearly given to more niche applications, with a focus on augmenting individual naval platforms rather than replacing conventional naval capabilities. In light of this, there is a greater focus on smaller platforms, which often do not operate entirely autonomously, are usually integrated into and deployed from manned platforms and are neither designed for long-endurance missions nor for deployment in contested environments where the weaponization of these assets is advantageous or necessary.
These facts are driven by a myriad of different factors, from strategic to budgetary, and are clearly reflected by the very limited number of programs aimed at introducing large or medium-sized unmanned platforms into European navies. Specifically, on the surface domain, only two key standout projects (or concepts) can be identified: EUROGUARD and the more recently unveiled Seaquest M and L range of platforms by Naval Group.
EUROpean Goal based mUlti mission Autonomous naval Reference platform Development (EUROGUARD), is a European Defence Fund project aimed at delivering a multi-role, medium-sized, unmanned surface vessel in order to allow EU Nations to further explore the feasibility of the use of medium sized semi-autonomous vessels, working independently or as a part of a fleet. The design is based on a modular architecture that supports various mission modules or payloads, enabling the platform to be refit for different operational roles.
Meanwhile, still on a conceptual design stage, Naval Group has unveiled at Euronaval 2024 an entire range of unmanned solutions (surface and subsurface assets, command and control, launch and recovery systems) – of which two medium and large unmanned surface vehicles are a part of. The Seaquest M and Seaquest L, are both conceptual designs for long-endurance, armed unmanned surface vehicles. Design concepts shown at Euronaval 2024, show these USVs equipped with naval payloads similar to modern corvettes and light frigates, including EXOCET missile launchers, Terma SCANTER 6002 X-Band radars and KNDS 40 CTA or Leonardo 76/72 SOVRAPONTE naval turrets.
An Autonomous Arsenal in China
Out of NATO’s Strategic competitors, China stands out clearly among the pack. Over the course of the past 25 years, the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has rapidly evolved and modernized. These efforts began at a smaller scale during the start of the 21st century, triggered by lessons learned from the Gulf War and Taiwan Strait Crisis, and have since evolved through a comprehensive modernization in the past decade, under Xi Jinping, with an emphasis on technology-driven warfare, a shift from quantity to quality and a heavy investment in emerging disruptive technologies to close the gap between the PLA and NATO. This transformation has had a particularly deep impact in the PLA Navy – which has seen decades of priority spending that have transformed it from a mainly coastal Navy, into the strongest Naval power in Asia today.
A key component of this change lies within China’s shipbuilding industry which has, over the past 20 years, found its way into a very clear pole position within the world stage. When compared to its closest adversarial peer, the United States, the US Office of Naval intelligence estimates that China currently outpaces its shipbuilding capability by 200 to 1, in gross tonnage. The Jiangnan shipyard alone has a capacity larger than the entirety of US shipyards combined. As a result of this, the balance of power within the pacific has drastically changed in a relatively short period of time. Current projections show China’s Naval fleet outpacing the US in number of battle force ships by almost two times by the year 2030 – and achieving a similar total battle force tonnage by 2040 and a mostly modernized fleet to boost. While tonnage and battle force ship numbers are not entirely accurate predictors of naval power, these are still worrying numbers for the US.
While the United States does still maintain an unquestionable dominance over submarine capabilities and naval airpower, in a single decade, China has commissioned a total of 161 major combatant ships, compared to the US’s 53. While analysts argue that the numerical advantages of China are outweighed by the US Navy’s advantage on displacement (mainly driven by their fleet of aircraft carriers), this is a contentious point that heavily relies on the notion that carriers, naval airpower, as well as large, sophisticated and high-value/high-capability manned assets, will retain their strategic significance in modern naval warfare – an increasingly hotly debated idea, as our concept of success in naval warfare is experiencing a drastic shift driven to lessons learned in recent conflicts. These facts and figures are likely one of the major drivers for such a heavy investment into unmanned naval assets and the hybrid fleet vision by the US. However, China has also made strides in exactly the same direction.
China’s Newest USV
This past November, as a part of the Airshow China 2024 exhibition in Zhuhai, the China Shipbuilding State Corporation (CSSC) has just unveiled its newest addition to the PLA fleet: the JARI-USV-A large unmanned combat vessel – also designated as “Orca”. The vessel is currently one of the largest military unmanned surface vehicles worldwide with a length of approximately 58 meters and displacing 500 tonnes. At first glance, the vessel seems to be designed for uncrewed or optionally-crewed operations. It features a trimaran configuration and, according to Chinese media, is designed for a maximum speed of 40-knots and a range of approximately 4.000 nautical miles.
One of the most impressive components of this vessel is the reported naval payload, which includes vertical launch cells, an integrated mast with multiple radar arrays and a helipad for large VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) drones at the stern. This signals significant capabilities not traditionally found in unmanned assets thus far - at least outside of the drawing board. While missile launch tests have been carried out before on the US’s own Ghost Fleet Overlord large unmanned surface vehicles, these are not nearly as unambiguously designed as combatant ships as the JARI-USV-A is. From social media photography, it is also possible to observe torpedo tubes in angled launchers and, if based on CSSC tradeshow models showing similar designs, it is also possible that a retractable remote weapons station (RWS) is equipped on the foredeck, in addition to AUV deployment capabilities. All available information on this USV should, as with all developing intelligence, be taken at face value. Despite this, this vessel shows a very clear buy-in into a hybrid fleet and distributed lethality concept of operations by the PLAN.
China’s Future Drone Carriers
In a similar path to some European nations, China has also been exploring the “Drone Carrier” concept for an extended period of time already.
In Airbus Skywatch satellite imagery publicly released in May of 2024, various hulls could be seen strewed across docks of the Jiangsu Dayang Marine Shipyard. At the time, these were conjectured to be of an already known class of small drone carrier catamaran vessel concept and another which was assumed to either be of a light amphibious carrier, a new generation mono-hull drone carrier or of a naval target ship (commonly built by China for military exercise purposes). The first class, a widely spaced catamaran, displayed a centre island with five helipads for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. Having first appeared at the 2021 Zhuhai air show, these ships were initially described as exercise platforms able to mimic enemy “electronic” systems and deploy small unmanned aerial vehicles during training exercises – simulating enemy drone swarms, high-volume anti-ship missile barrages and distributed electronic warfare (EW) attacks.
China has already been extensively operating with unmanned aerial assets in naval operations. In 2022, unmanned systems had already been operationally integrated and used in exercises on the state’s aircraft carrier Shandong. The Chinese military has integrated various types of unmanned aerial vehicles in their fleet, from small VTOL UAVs to large fixed-wing combat variants, some of which are already employed in operational scenarios in the naval domain.
More recently, in January of 2025, China has launched its first dedicated large amphibious drone carrier. The Type 076 Shandong amphibious assault ship, aims mainly to boost the nation’s unscrewed combat capabilities at sea. In an interview to state news channel CCTV, Chi Jianjun, destroyer commander in the PLA Navy, confirmed that drone systems are being integrated and operationally fielded across China’s Navy – not only in dedicated classes such as the Type 076, but also in the Navy’s previous Type 075, conventional aircraft carriers and destroyers.
The Type 076 are a particularly interesting study case. In early intelligence leaks, concerning a request for proposals for this assault carrier, feature and system specifications for the ship had already indicated the presence of an electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS), a similar system used to launch jet aircraft on the US Navy’s Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers – the only ship in the world that had made use of this system, before the launch of the Type 076. Unlike the previous Type 075, which were designed to host helicopters (manned and unmanned) and hovercraft, the Type 076 seems to have been wholly designed around the capability of launching and recovering jet aircraft. The most likely contender in this case, is the GJ-11 unmanned combat air vehicle. In addition to the impressive tech on display, the speed of development of the 50.000 ton, 252-meter-long Type 076 is also astounding: with the first intelligence sources related to the project surfacing only within the past 4 years. This is an impressively short timeline for a naval project of this size and complexity, but duly justified considering China’s still rapidly developing (and arguably dominating) shipbuilding industry and naval fleet development pace.
What the Future holds
In an historical moment of stark geopolitical insecurity, particularly for Europe and NATO as a whole, the way different nations are carving their path into a fully integrated manned-unmanned naval fleet will surely play a part in the future balance of global naval power. Predicting just what the future will hold for Navies across the world is a particularly difficult task. Despite this, assuming a top-down viewpoint of the systems and concepts of operations currently in development by different states provides us with particularly valuable insights in this regard.
Systems are only a small part of the much larger horizon for the Hybrid fleet vision however. Hence why, in the next part of this series of articles, we will be addressing the myriad of different supporting technologies that will help make this vision a reality. From artificial intelligence to quantum technology, we will take a deep dive into the different technological spaces, operational and industrial challenges that future states, industrial bases and academia will need to navigate in the future of fighting, and winning, at sea.
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