China on Edge: Inside the U.S. Navy's 'Ghost Fleet' Built for a Taiwan Contingency

https://en.sedaily.com/politics/2026/04/02/china-on-edge-inside-the-us-navys-ghost-fleet-built-for-a ^ | 2026.04.03. | Lee Hyun-ho

[daniel1212]

Unmanned Surface Vessels and Submarines Form Ghost Fleet's Core · U.S. Navy Plans 10 of Each by 2028 · Aegis Combat Systems and Multiple Missiles Onboard Deployed Ahead of Carrier Strike Groups..

Within and outside the U.S. military, critics frequently point out that aircraft carrier operations — long a showcase of America's supreme military power — have become dangerously vulnerable. The concern is that China has been building up its arsenal of long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles capable of destroying U.S. aircraft carriers and Aegis destroyers, potentially cornering the United States in a contingency.

China has completed development of the DF-21D, an anti-ship ballistic missile dubbed the "carrier killer" with a maximum range of 3,000 kilometers, and the DF-26, a surface-to-surface missile with a range of up to 5,500 kilometers capable of striking U.S. naval bases on Guam...emergence of hypersonic missiles traveling at speeds above Mach 5, making interception nearly impossible, the U.S. Navy faces pressure to fundamentally overhaul its carrier-centric strategy.

The U.S. Navy's answer is the "Ghost Fleet," an asymmetric unmanned force. The concept calls for deploying the Ghost Fleet on the front line to engage Chinese ballistic missiles and warships first, while carrier strike groups follow up with subsequent attacks from behind. The core of the Ghost Fleet consists of unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs).

On October 1, 2019, the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command announced in a press release that the Navy was pursuing a "Ghost Fleet Concept Program" to build out the fleet. Earlier, beginning in April 2016, the Navy had independently constructed a 40-meter catamaran-type unmanned prototype vessel called "Sea Hunter." Unmanned vessels operate without crew aboard and can be controlled remotely from a distance.

In 2018, it departed San Diego and successfully completed a 9,600-kilometer voyage.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; History; Military/Veterans; Science
KEYWORDS: china; hypersonics; iran; russia; time2seekthelord

[daniel1212]

excerpts

[Fai Mao]

The guy who does Sandboxx News on YouTube did a feature on the unmanned submarines.

[norwaypinesavage]

Interesting, thanks for the article. It’s not clear to me, though, how the unmanned submarines would be controlled. It used to be very difficult to communicate with submarines. They had to deploy long trailing antennae and the communication rate was very slow. It was far too slow for real time control. I presume there must be other ways of communication now.