Pentagon ‘Ghost Fleet’ Ship Makes Record-Breaking Trip from Mobile to California

Did everyone see this? It can’t be any more unsafe than a bridge full of Navy types around a busy container port in Asia…

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My questions are. How does this scale to something useful? How much did this experiment cost?
Then I found this:
The Navy defines MUSVs as being 45 feet to 190 feet long, with displacements of roughly 500 tons. The Navy wants
MUSVs, like LUSVs, to be low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships that can accommodate various payloads. Initial
payloads for MUSVs are to be intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) payloads and electronic warfare (EW)
systems. The Navy is pursuing the MUSV program as a rapid prototyping effort under what is known as Section 804
acquisition authority. The first MUSV prototype was funded in FY2019 and the Navy wants fund the second prototype in
FY2023. On July 13, 2020, the Navy announced that it had awarded “a $34,999,948 contract to L3 Technologies, Inc. for the
development of a single Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSV) prototype, with options to procure up to eight
additional MUSVs.”

You, too, have seen the disintegration of command and control, haven’t you Chief! Hey, I was part of one instance with REFRTRA minefield and the “submarine” firing a flare. The instantaneous shouting was something to behold! Never saw such a fast collapse of anything!

Maybe there will be some good come from this but probably will produce nore hazards to navigation than a bunch of sea cans adrift…

My feeling:

  1. With the exception of tankers and dangerous chemicals, ships will be released at the sea buoy to the next one where a receiving crew will be put aboard.
  2. There WILL be an accident due to communication or mechanical issues and one or two people will be put back aboard until they can figure out how to replace them.
  3. There will an uprising by crews but they will be bought off or ignored and replaced by the lowest bidder to do the work, just like the US Government does with nuclear reactor transportation. (Check that inland tug/pontoon boat collision last week)
  4. When somebody finally explodes an EMP and destroys the GPS/GLONASSS/Whatever systems, there will be a short period where mariners are brought back but a system will be employed (ELORAN or whatever) and mariners will go away again.
  5. I will be retired and/or dead at that point so it really won’t be my problem.
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wouldnt USN ships crash less if they didnt have crew…ouch!

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I didn’t say that.

I blame the Admirals for making them get underway without required training.

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I need to tell you about a BMCS who was Captain of a YO in San Diego sometime…

Pm me.