Found THE NAVY UNMANNED SURFACE VEHICLE (USV) MASTER PLAN, 23 July 2007. In this document on page 6 & 7 they defined a USV as follows:
To clearly focus the USV Master Plan on its chartered tasks, the following definitions were adopted for the purpose of this plan:
• Scope of Plan - Tactical systems capable of air or sea transport (reference (j))
• Unmanned - Capable of unmanned operation. Can be manned for dual use or Test and Evaluation (T&E). Has varying degrees of autonomy.
• Surface Vehicle - Displaces water at rest. Operates with near continuous contact with the surface of the water.
Interface of the vehicle with the surface is a major design driver.
Although this definition includes hydrofoils and semi-submersible (i.e., continuously snorkeling) crafts, it specifically excludes UUVs operating at or near the surface, hovercraft, surface effect aircraft and target drones that are used exclusively for training or evaluation and are part of a separate legacy program (e.g., undersea and surface targets operated on an instrumented range as targets). ???
Are they saying that unmanned hovercrafts & surface effect aircraft are only good for targets? Something stinks here. :'(
I think the military should stick to defining missions and their required capabilities and let science and technology determine the HOW
