July 10, 2021: The U.S. Navy has had considerable success in developing and testing large ocean-going USVs (unmanned surface vessel). This is the Ghost Fleet Overlord program that is developing Class 4 USVs (those over 50 meters/160 feet long). The navy has built two development Ghost Fleet vessels (Nomad and Ranger) for testing, each displacing about 2,000 tons. Both have made autonomous voyages, travelling about 8,000 kilometers from the American Gulf coast to the West coast, including transit through the Panama Canal. These voyages had the ships in autonomous mode 98 percent of the time. A small crew was on board in case of problems, but there were none. Each vessel picked up a pilot for going through the Panama Canal. The navy wants to buy ten of these Ghost Ships for operational use, mainly in the Pacific where China has a growing number of anti-ship missiles, including a ballistic missile, for use against American ships. The autonomous
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