US Navy considers alternatives to unmanned boats with missiles

Or we could just cut through the b***sh*t. The all volunteer force has proved to be not sustainable over time as we predicted back in '75. As the recruitment pool has gotten fat and soft and taken to cutting off their johnsons, my Navy has tried to "smart ship", replacing sailors with gadgets. They've scrapped all the support assets at the same time we have starved CONUS ship yards and moved merchant builds overseas. They are trying expensive alternatives like this to make up for low manpower. They want to, as an example, scrap whole classes with the excuse that they are unsafe. Why? Because we have consolidated or done away with ratings that had the skills to maintain those vessels. Some ignorant MBA opined it less expensive to off the shelf repairs. And some woke JCS/DOD, said yeah and then we could justify lowering standards across the board. Guess what? There's no money to be made guessing what parts are going to be needed, when. Ships are like Fords (fix or repair daily) . Ships need tenders. Ships need their husband, and HTs, MRs, ENs, BMs, ICs, EMs and all the rest needed to repair her when the nearest land is seven miles straight down. A human being needs to craft parts from material at hand. No automatic halon dump valve is going to stop the main space fire. Bodies with hoses do it. No computer program is going to clear a jammed carousel. Automatic guns aren't. We need a self sustaining Navy. That requires sailors. Fit, motivated and high standard. More than the AVF provides. My two cents on my Navy. You other four services can can rant about yours. Yes I included the Coasties. But not that space thingy.