Navy Arming and Up-Gunning Expeditionary Sea Basing Ships

Video Above: Navy Connects Air, Surface, Underseas Drones

By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

Navy weapons developers are expanding the mission scope and technological capacity of its growing fleet of Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) ships, maritime platforms intended to function as mobile maritime “sea bases” during war operations. 

ESBs can function as floating command and control hubs, or motherships in position to dispatch small, high-speed attack units or even launch drones. Launching and operating drones from an ESB can in large measure come to fruition by integrating Littoral Combat Ship mission systems onto the ship, Navy weapons developers said.

“We have already tested the ability to fit, launch and recover unmanned systems from an ESB,” Littoral Combat Ship Mission Packages Manager Capt. Gus Weekes told an audience at the 2022 Surface Navy Symposium.

The LCS mission packages, which include Surface Warfare, Anti-Submarine Warfare and Mine Countermeasures systems continue to show great promise with operations on deployment and in testing and development for those parts which have yet to reach operational status. The promise and impact of these mission packages, coupled with the relative ease with which they can integrate into host ships, is what has inspired the service to put them on ESBs.
“There is some additional testing, verification and validation that needs to happen, but we’ve sorted a parth. It could be the ESB for our Unmanned Influence Sweep System suite,” Weekes said.

It would make sense that a floating seabase would benefit from an ability to launch and recover drone boats searching for mines or conducting surveillance and attack missions. The mission packages can be integrated easily because they were designed to be “modular.” meaning that they were built with a set of common technical standards and interfaces such that they can accommodate new systems and technologies as they become available.