Germany's Navy Also Wants to Buy an Unmanned Arsenal Ship
The German Navy is joining the rush towards manned-unmanned teaming in surface warfare. Like the U.S. Navy's still-unfolding plans for modular unmanned payload carriers that would accompany the fleet, Germany's armed forces have a long-term plan to buy unmanned arsenal ships of their own, which would augment the firepower of traditional surface combatants.
The German version is tailored for one primary purpose: carrying more missiles. The future Large Remote Missile Vessels (LRMVs) would work alongside the German Navy's next-generation F127 frigate, the replacement for the F124 Sachsen-class. At an expected 10,000 tonnes, the F127 will be ample for a frigate, and is modeled on the capabilities of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer - but with fewer VLS cells for full-size missiles. The extra capacity of an unmanned arsenal ship like LRMV would help offset the smaller magazine of the F127, and would split the typical payload of one warship between two different platforms, complicating targeting for the enemy. Germany plans to buy six F127 frigates, augmented with three unmanned LRMVs.
The War Zone noted the strong similarities between the German plan and the Netherlands' Damen-designed Multifunctional Support Ship (MSS), a lightly-manned modular vessel that can be fitted with deck-mounted missile launchers. MSS was announced in 2022 and awarded to Damen in 2024, and is based on an off-the-shelf offshore vessel design to ensure reduced risk and fast delivery.
The U.S. Navy and the Defense Department have experimented with very similar concepts, notably a trial-scale program featuring optionally-manned crewboats with modular missile launchers and other equipment bolted onto the aft cargo deck (the "Ghost Fleet Overlord" program).
Those trials have been successful enough - and the need for fleet expansion is great enough - that the U.S. Navy is soliciting designs for a large-scale unmanned fleet, dubbed the Modular Surface Attack Craft (MASC) program. MASC encompasses three different unmanned-vessel sizes, the largest capable of carrying up to four forty-foot payloads - enough space for 16 containerized VLS cells for SM-series missiles.
The service is moving fast to advance its unmanned programs and take advantage of a substantial funding pot in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which set aside $1.5 billion for small USVs and $2.1 billion for medium USVs (on top of the Navy's FY2026 defense bill appropriation). Under Navy Secretary John Phelan, the administration of unmanned procurement is undergoing an overhaul: following a review, unmanned surface vessels will be developed, bought and maintained by a new Program Executive Office for Robotic and Autonomous systems (RAS), not the existing office for small combatants.