China's uncrewed destroyer programme

China is testing larger and more capable drone warships for “high-end” combat operations at a secret base on the northeastern coast, new satellite intelligence has revealed. The latest evidence of China’s interest in mixing its expanding fleet of aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates with large “uncrewed surface vessels” (USV) emerged from satellite pictures of a new pier near the city of Dalian in Liaoning province which borders North Korea. Two warships in particular have been spotted which show the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is moving rapidly ahead with sea trials of much larger unmanned warships capable of carrying torpedos, missiles and advanced battle-management radar systems. One of the warships appears to be a larger version of the unmanned mini-destroyer called JARI-USV which was launched as a prototype in August 2019 fitted with weapons, sonars and sensors. It was defined as a mini-destroyer when it took part in sea trials last year because it appeared to have a deck gun, two close-range air-defence missiles and two vertical-launch silos for small anti-air and anti-ship missiles. “The difference is that the JARI is 16 metres [around 50ft] long and this new bigger version is 21 metres [70ft] long, so a lot more weaponry and other systems can be fitted on it,” Kelvin Wong, Singapore-based editor of Janes Unmanned Systems, said. China, like the US, has realised the potential for unmanned warships operating in the Indo-Pacific which has become the most challenging region in terms of rivalry between the two superpowers. Wong said the images of the larger version of the JARI, photographed by Maxar, a Colorado-based space technology company and published by USNI News, demonstrated that PLAN was intent on developing unmanned warships for “high-end naval missions”. The original JARI only has a range of 500 miles. The other unmanned warship seen at the PLAN pier near Dalian was a twin-hulled catamaran, also about 70ft long. “It’s a stealthy design with a low-profile hull,” Wong said. “It’s something we have seen before but it’s a larger and more capable version,” he said. There has only been limited reporting in China of the unmanned warship programme, possibly because of the challenges the PLAN has found in developing a vessel that can match its manned counterparts. “They will have discovered that nothing beats the human element when it comes to maritime navigation and communication,” Wong said. The role of the coxswain and helmsman when navigating in stormy sea conditions and the intuition they build up after years of experience in the world’s oceans is difficult to replace with artificial intelligence, Wong said. “China is hoping to figure out how to get an artificial coxswain,” he said. The US Navy is also developing large unmanned surface vessels and has bid for $434 million in the 2022 budget to pursue research projects. The navy envisions the largest of these vessels could be 200ft-300ft long with a full-load displacement of up to 2,000 tons, the equivalent in size to a corvette. Separately, the Pentagon’s defence advanced research projects agency (Darpa) has a programme to design a ship from the keel up to operate without a crew, known as NOMARS (no mariners).