Australia is doing well in developing uncrewed naval vessels. Now it needs to redouble efforts to get them into service faster. Application of asymmetric technology is a declared outcome of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) to generate deterrence by denial, so these systems should be moved to the front of the queue.

The Australian Defence Force has designs for three uncrewed vessels in development: the extra large uncrewed submarine Ghost Shark by Anduril Australia in Sydney, the smaller Speartooth submarine by Melbourne’s C2 Robotics, and the Bluebottle boat by Sydney’s Ocius Technology. Each craft is the result of navy-industry collaboration. When the three are operated together as a maritime system, they offer excellent combinations of capabilities and force multiplication, achieving outcomes that no single type could achieve alone.

The selection of the designs appears to be intended to provide effects over an expected future maritime battle space involving the extremely large distances and wide areas of the Indo-Pacific. Australia doesn’t have the workforce, the funding or the time to do that with only crewed platforms. Uncrewed craft are necessary to provide numbers and breadth of coverage in such a large area of operations, and they come with the triple bonus of being highly affordable, imposing low demands on the navy’s workforce, and prompt availability. Working together, the three systems are significantly greater than the sum of each individually.

The Bluebottle’s key advantages are low-cost persistence by use of environmental energy—wind, waves and sunlight for propulsion and electricity—its need for only a small support crew, little equipment and few spare parts ashore.

The Speartooth has long range, is inexpensive and can therefore be made in high volumes. Also, it has very low logistics footprint for storage, launching, recovering and operation.

The Ghost Shark’s key advantages are a large payload volume and very long range and endurance.

While details have not been released, the Speartooth and Ghost Shark presumably use battery-electric propulsion.

Importantly, these vessels are not for next decade in the DSR’s third epoch. The Bluebottle is mature and mission ready. Long-range maritime operations are standard everyday activities for Bluebottles that have already been delivered to the navy. The Speartooth is continuing intensive testing and trials, with more than two years in the water so far and a number of units operating frequently in a test environment. The Ghost Shark is also progressing rapidly, ahead of schedule, with in-water testing well underway.

For all three, testing is showing low workforce demands. Allocated personnel are operating many of these uncrewed systems concurrently. Humans assist and direct them but do not continuously control them.

Uses for the three designs range widely from augmenting contemporary maritime operations to extreme asymmetry—technological outmatching of the opponent. First, uncrewed submarines will probably be the most forward-deployed maritime units. The key advantage of any underwater system is in stealth, and uncrewed subs will use it to penetrate adversary defences and sea lines of communications, projecting capabilities at maximum ranges.

In a conventional operation, the Speartooth subs are likely to be the first line of engagement. Since they are inexpensive, they can be numerous, and losses could be easily afforded. Indeed, large numbers can be sent forward with the expectation that many (or most) won’t come back.

Their deployment in large numbers would raise the enemy’s challenge in looking for and eliminating them, tying up precious antisubmarine warfare resources on these relatively low-value targets. Being small, they can get to places that would be hard for crewed submarines to navigate, such as shallows or constricted waters where turns must be tight.

Speartooths’ payloads would probably also be made cheaply and in large volumes. We may imagine this as a whole host of tricks that could include a wide range of sensors (such as sonars and radio receivers for surveillance) and effectors (such as mines or small torpedoes, or the uncrewed submarine itself acting as a torpedo). A Speartooth could even be noisily present simply to confuse and disrupt an adversary network by acting as decoy by mimicking the sound, magnetic signature or even volume of another underwater object. With a simple mission update, a Speartooth could be tasked to a location to look like an AUKUS or Quad nation submarine, or to generate even greater confusion as a Chinese, Russian or North Korean submarine. The imagination goes wild with the possibilities.

During a period of competition short of war, Ghost Sharks will be forward, maintaining continuous and close surveillance. In war they would probably sit back somewhat, carrying higher-value payloads, but move forward to help outweigh an enemy’s strength in a particular area for a while. Speartooths can be a shield behind which the more-sophisticated Ghost Sharks could operate more effectively to activate or deploy larger and more elaborate payloads.

Ghost Sharks will have more payload space and much greater power reserves than Speartooths, for large, energy-intensive payloads and higher deployment speeds. Their price will put them above the range of expendable equipment, so we will want Ghost Sharks to come back most of the time. They may need protection and usually won’t be exposed to high risk of detection and destruction.

So the Speartooth and Ghost Shark designs appear to very neatly complement one another.

They will also be produced at scale here in Australia. These are two cards that the ADF can play when required to mobilise large numbers of craft. We can export them to allies and friends, too.

Bluebottles will probably sit further back, providing many support functions to forward deployed uncrewed submarines. As surface vessels, they can be detected and targeted much more readily than subsurface systems; However, they provide persistent presence in ways that can’t be provided from below the surface, thanks to their use of the wind and sun to keep them going. Plausible functions include surface surveillance, acting as a persistent communication relay, and potentially even recharging of uncrewed subs, using batteries or generators aboard the Bluebottles. They can also contribute to combat operations with radar, cameras and electronic warfare systems above the water and sonars below it, listening for and attempting to detect and track adversary submarines.

Supported by uncrewed boats and submarines, crewed ships and subs have more options in achieving operational tasks. Maritime autonomous systems are likely to be a critical element in the survival and employment of the small numbers of crewed vessels that the ADF has. The ADF really needs to protect crewed ships and submarines: the loss of any would be a national tragedy, taking lives and depriving the ADF of an extremely rare resource that would take years to replace. Risk reduction for crewed ships and subs is alone a reason for seeing accelerated investment in autonomous vessels providing extraordinarily high value-for-money.

The ADF looks in very good shape to bring serious maritime autonomous systems to fruition in the near term. The navy has chosen its designs carefully, so the three platforms working together will be far more effective than any platform on its own. Development of these world-leading systems in Australia, supported by our own industrial base, promises the great benefits of easy supportability and capability expansion.

The National Defence Strategy should accelerate these developments in any way possible. The ADF could and should be producing significant numbers of these uncrewed systems to contribute to the DSR’s demand to generate asymmetric effects from a focused force that deters by denial.