U.S. military christens self-driving 'Sea Hunter' warship

reuters.com

15 points·fh973··9 comments

> The ship's projected $20 million price tag and its $15,000 to $20,000 daily operating cost make it relatively inexpensive for the U.S. military.

$5.5-7.3 million yearly operating costs is cheap? Yikes.

Think of a ship as a mid sized factory, not a large toy. A destroyer has ~250+ crew. They are very expensive to operate.

Now sure this does not replace a destroyer... yet... but one day the tech might.

$15,000 per day does not seem to bad considering the drone "crew" back home monitoring it and satellite costs.

5.5 million per year would be 70 crew members wages? A small-medium organization.

Wiki -"The United States Navy has nearly 500,000 personnel"

No food costs. No one gets evacked cause their toe got infected.

No crew quarters, toilets, mess on a ship = a pretty cheap ship.

Can roll over in a storm.

No re-stocking food, although fuel needs might make that redundant.

Less time at port, perhaps, equals a bigger ROI.

I guess normal ships are not cheap.

Since it's unmanned could you get salvage rights on it?

Yes, that's also what I have thought.

Exercising those rights is probably a non-trivial implementation detail.

Is this the first fully autonomous military bot?

Seems like if only non-autonomous actions are attacking a target that the attack briefs are likely automated too - and makes me wonder what percent of the time the suggested course of action is not taken.

It's probably going to be in the next Screamers movie. Jokes aside, a fully autonomous cruiser is a very cool weapon.

Hunty McSeaface

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