The Department of the Navy’s Science and Technology Board Accelerates the Journey to Achieve a “Hybrid Fleet”
- May 20, 2025
The Navy-After-Next will be a “Hybrid Fleet.” This concept was first articulated by then-Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday and embraced by his successor, Admiral Lisa Franchetti. The basics of this initiative were described in the Chief of Naval Operations Force Design 2045 which called for 350 crewed ships and 150 large uncrewed maritime vessels.
This innovative concept was born out of necessity. The concept of Hybrid Fleet evolved due the U.S. Navy’s ongoing challenge of building enough crewed ships to adequately meet the Navy’s global commitments. The Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy put it this way: “We cannot manifest a bigger traditional Navy in a few short years.” Indeed, the price of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer has risen to $2.2B and production lead times stretch to years.
A December 2024 by the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board entitled The Path Forward on Unmanned Systems, seeks to help accelerate the path to a Hybrid Fleet by offering a path forward to design, develop and field uncrewed systems—especially uncrewed maritime systems—in order to achieve the Navigation Plan’s goal of: “Scaling robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed.”
