"With the Army and Air Force planning to have more than 800 Warrior, Predator, Reaper, and Global Hawk long-range UAVs by 2020, why should the Navy and Coast Guard not have at least as many long-range USVs?"
Gotta love this comment. Make it into a pissing contest and make a new toy for the military so they will spend more money unecessarily.

More ASW, a surface warfare robot boat does nothing a UAV does better, the UAV has more speed, greater sensor range and lives outside of a very hostile environment. I would still not like to have one caught in a fishing net and displayed in Terhan.
However as an ASW role it can go active at all times without the worry of a torpedo killing the crew of a multi billion dollar frigate and still be invisible to radar and still be cheaper to operate than a ASW Heliocopter. They are far easier and cheaper to build than submarines in the littoral waters, fitted with hedgehog and type 46 torpedoes they would be a nasty threat. It could also operate as a fleet missile decoy, but it is still too expensive to use as a kamakaze weapon.
It has its place.

Hmmmm the payload, and fuel efficiency are very good.... HUGE improvement.
Pity that it can't do anything besides playing it's life out as an automated kill pawn of Pax Americana.

Interesting, but a boat is much easier to capture than an airplane is. The improvements are outstanding if true.

More robots that kill people. We'll make them first and everyone will learn from us, but it was inevitable. This part of the future doesn't look good so we have to keep pushing for peaceful solutions.

I would like to see it pull a distressed swimmer out of the water.

yes we need more war toys from the makers of Skynet, spot on Slowburn and Mr Stiffy, who benefits from this thing being produced?, yep the rich, stepping on the middle class, class warfare coming soon to our planet. colorful metaphor deleted, starts with an F

And how many shell hits or near misses can this lightweight boat sustain? And missiles and torpedos? Does this miracle nano material make it bulletproof?

Slowburn, nice idea for rescue boat but a tricky design project, I should think. Good challenge for some group.

I would like to see it pull a distressed swimmer out of the water. comment Slowburn - April 10, 2012 @ 01:20 pm PD
Easy!
Automated harpoon and automated winch.