A Marine unmanned drug boat heads to Okinawa for Indo-Pacific trials

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa – The Marine Corps will soon deploy an unmanned, semi-submersible watercraft designed to transport supplies and weapons over long ocean distances in the waters surrounding Okinawa.

The autonomous low-profile vessel will arrive in the port of Naha this month and will cruise “around the coastal waters of Okinawa” for about 11 months, Capt. wrote in an email Monday. Paweł Puczko, spokesman for the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force.

The ship is part of a “continuous modernization process,” he wrote.

Brig. Gen. Simon Doran, commander of the Marine Corps Combat Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, at a Sept. 4 conference described the vessel as “just a drug boat,” similar to the low-profile boats used by drug traffickers in the Midwest and South. America.

The ship is intended to resupply troops on contested Indo-Pacific islands as part of the island warfare doctrine outlined in the Marine Corps Force Design Plan.

“ALPV is an autonomous logistics delivery system that can reduce the physical burden on Marines, provide critical resupply, and transport multiple classes of supplies over long distances in a maritime environment,” Puczko wrote. “This is one potential technology the Marine Corps could use to provide support to reserve forces operating in contested areas.”

Puczko wrote that various III MEF units would use the ship during its stay in Okinawa. He declined to specify where exactly the ship would be used or what cargo it would carry, citing safety concerns.

The ship will also be used at Red Beach in Kin Town, the White Beach Naval Facility and the west coast Ie Shima Auxiliary Airfield, a spokesman for the Okinawa Defense Office, a branch of Japan’s Ministry of Defense, said by phone Monday.

There are no plans to use the ship to transport missiles or ammunition, a spokesman for the prefecture’s military base department said by phone on Monday.

Some Japanese government officials are required to speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.

The drone ship is semi-submersible and can carry supply payloads of up to 5 tons and a range of 2,000 nautical miles, according to a March press release from the ship’s designer, Leidos. The company said it delivered two units to the Marine Corps Combat Laboratory last year.

According to the release, the Marine Corps tested the ship in February and March during the U.S. Army’s Project Convergence Capstone experimental exercise at Camp Pendleton, California.

“It’s 55 feet long and completely autonomous,” Doran said at the Defense News conference in Arlington, Virginia. “It can travel hundreds or even thousands of miles. It is capable of carrying the new weapons systems we have; it can carry fuel, it can carry food, and it can carry almost anything you want to put in it.