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from https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/06/breaking-down-the-u-s-navys-hellscape-in-detail/

(It is best to go to the citation to see the graphics.)

Unmanned surface vessels sit as static displays in Manama, Bahrain, July
22. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Terry Vongsouthi)

Breaking Down The U.S. Navy’s ‘Hellscape’ In Detail
'Hellscape' is the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command's future asymmetric
battlefield. What does it look like and what does it involve?
Carter Johnston 16 Jun 2024

‘Hellscape’ envisions a battlefield filled with tens of thousands of unmanned ships, aircraft, and submarines all working in tandem to engage thousands of targets across the vast span of the West Pacific. Admiral
John Aquilino, former commander of the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), originally coined the term in August 2023 at the Emerging Technologies
for Defense Conference and Exhibition.

The concept, at its core, leverages the Department of Defense’s
initiative to rapidly procure and field large amounts of unmanned
systems, taking critical lessons from the ongoing War in Ukraine that
has revolutionized unmanned warfare. Owing to these lessons, Deputy
Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks announced the Department’s Replicator initiative at the same conference in 2023. Since then, the program has
been hard at work developing new capabilities.

‘Hellscape’ and ‘Replicator’ are closely related to each other and many of the capabilities set to be delivered in the Replicator program will
have direct applications to the Hellscape concept envisioned by
INDOPACOM. Replicator itself has sought out to deliver the exact
capabilities that the Hellscape concept refers to.

What does ‘Hellscape’ involve?
“I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a
number of classified capabilities so I can make their lives utterly
miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything.”

Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander, Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) INDOPACOM’s ‘Hellscape’ concept will feature unmanned systems in every domain. From High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAVs like the U.S.
Navy’s MQ-4C Triton maritime patrol aircraft, down to one-way attack
unmanned surface vessels (USVs) like the Muskie M18 developed by MARTAC.
In between will be a myriad of different platforms that provide a number
of unique capabilities to the overall ‘Hellscape’ concept.

A major concept being pursued that applies to ‘Hellscape’ is the U.S. Navy’s ‘Project Overmatch’; the branch’s contribution to the overall Department of Defense Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2)
effort to mesh information flows into one combined picture. EpiSci was
recently awarded a follow-on contract to continue their efforts for this program. Project Overmatch, as a concept, fits directly into the ‘Hellscape’ concept of a networked force of asymmetric systems that can coalesce to deliver solid punches despite being made up of small
components of an overall networked force.

Most prominent are the various procurements of one-way attack drones
like the AeroVironment Switchblade 600 or UVison Hero-120. The U.S.
Marine Corps are specifically focused on loitering munitions and one-way
attack drones and have issued contracts in 2021 and 2024 for integration
and procurement of various unmanned systems. This year, UVision
announced that the Hero-120 would be produced in the U.S.–likely due to demand for the system.

A mix of these systems, alongside countless other classified
capabilities and unmentioned procurement efforts highlight the drive to
make ‘Hellscape’ a reality. The U.S. Marine Corps unveiled a concept
last year of Hero-120 loitering munitions installed on a Long-Range
Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV), showcasing just what is possible when
these systems are integrated together. The LRUSV, based on the U.S.
Navy’s ’40PB’ built by Metal Shark, is yet another example of how ‘Hellscape’ is already becoming a reality.

LRUSV
U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Brian W. Cavanaugh, the commanding general of
Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic, Marine Forces Command, Marine Forces
Northern Command, and Marines with 3d Marine Littoral Regiment, 3rd
Marine Division, examine the manual controls to the Long Range Unmanned
Surface Vessel, Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story,
Virginia, April 27, 2023.
Concepts developed by firms like Ocean Power Technologies (OPT), a
leading organization in maritime power generation, could be used to
power this ‘Hellscape’. All unmanned systems have a limited quantity of power and fuel onboard for sustained operations. OPT’s PB3 PowerBuoy
could be deployed by U.S. Navy ships to recharge USVs and UUVs while
providing secure data transfer capabilities. OPT has also developed
unmanned mine countermeasure craft on their WAM-V USV, a current
candidate for ‘Replicator’.


Ocean Power Technologies’ PB3 PowerBuoy featured in a Naval Postgraduate School Sea Land Air Military Research Lab (NPS SLAMR) unmanned network.
Ocean Power Technologies.
The vision of ‘Hellscape’ is clear in the Department of Defense and
dozens of active programs, some under the Replicator initiatives and
others independent of it, are pushing towards the bigger picture of an Indo-Pacific full of unmanned systems in a hypothetical war.

How could ‘Hellscape’ be implemented in a potential conflict?
“I can make their lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the
time for the rest of everything.”

Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander, INDOPACOM
‘Hellscape’ is fundamentally an asymmetric concept. Designed as a
delaying action, the systems that make up ‘Hellscape’ would be used in massive numbers to impede any attempted invasion force while causing the highest level of damage possible, allowing U.S. and allied forces
adequate time to set up necessary logistics and forward-based forces in
the West Pacific. This could include the deployment of Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs), Army Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTFs), and Navy
Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) dedicated to longer term, high-end operations.

Days and weeks prior to conflict, the United States and allies would
likely know with high certainty about an impending invasion. This could
set in motion a rapid deployment of unmanned systems deployed in-theater beforehand, much like the MQ-9 Reaper UAVs already deployed in the
Philippines and recent unmanned surface vessel (USV) deployments to the
Pacific last year. These assets are easier to move, carried in standard shipping containers and onboard large transport aircraft that can
quickly preposition large numbers of these assets. According to the U.S.
Navy, thousands of these systems would be thrown at an invasion force, networked together into one large picture. ‘Project Overmatch’ would
play a large part in this connectivity.

MUSKIE M18 attack drone
M18 USV transported in a 20 ft. CONEX box. CONEX boxes can fit on C-130,
C-17, and C-5M transport aircraft of the United States Air Force.
Unmanned vehicles can also be delivered by ship and submarine. DARPA
recently picked six companies to further their effort in developing ship-launched infrastructure-free unmanned aircraft, and the U.S. Navy
already completed tests of an underwater UUV launched from a
Virginia-class fast-attack submarine. Various other UUVs are in
different stages of development, with many focused on extended-range
sensor coverage and battlespace awareness. This combination of land,
surface, and undersea delivery methods for a wide variety of unmanned
systems will add to the overall weight behind the punch that ‘Hellscape’ can offer.


UUV family of systems showcased on a Program Executive Office Unmanned
and Small Combatants (PEO USC) slide in 2019. Since the original
creation of this slide, several platforms have been added to the
undersea family of drones. NAVSEA.
What could ‘Hellscape’ look like?
In practice, this could look like thousands of unmanned systems launched
from submarines, surface ships, aircraft, and land-based vehicles
dispersed across the West Pacific. across several days and weeks as war
breaks out in the Pacific; a grim but honest reality. The goal would be
to delay the initial elements of an invading force for a long enough
time to allow a major transit of ships, submarines, and aircraft from
the United States to bases across the Pacific.

The second role of ‘Hellscape’ could be to gather intelligence and put infrastructure in place to support a GPS and intelligence denied
environment. Unmanned systems like Saildrone’s Surveyor SD-3000 and Textron’s Aerosonde UAV can provide intelligence where gaps exist in satellite or manned aircraft overflights, giving allied forces a
complete image of the battlefield at all times in early days and weeks
of a conflict when real-time intelligence is difficult to collect.
Concepts of this network have already been tested by NAVSEA earlier this
year.

Connected by satellite, HALE UAVs, and other aspects of ‘Project
Overmatch’ that network, drones would engage large amphibious fleets
crossing the Taiwan Strait from multiple vectors, coming from islands, undersea, and from drone motherships far outside the first island chain. One-way attack drones would be used to deplete large amounts of
surface-to-air missiles carried by fleet escorts, while submarines
launch UUVs to silently monitor waters hundreds of miles away.
Attritable intelligence gathering USVs, UUVs, and UAVs would also
operate on the front lines, dispersed across hundreds of miles to
maximize coverage, giving allied forces a single, fused image of the battlespace with the help of ‘Project Overmatch’.

Exact details of how this would look in a real wartime scenario remain classified.

“I can’t tell you what’s in it. But it’s real and it’s deliverable.”

Admiral Samuel Paparo, Commander, INDOPACOM
‘Hellscape’ is by no means the only plan the U.S. has in response to a potential invasion of Taiwan. Officially, the United States does not
make a clear-cut policy in regards to this matter. But in the event that
the United States does move to defend Taiwan from an invasion,
‘Hellscape’ will only be the first of many parts of a much larger plan.

TAGS Hellscape Indo-Pacific US Navy
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AUTHORS

Posted by : Carter Johnston
Carter Johnston an upcoming freshman attending George Washington
University's Elliott School for International Affairs in the Class of
2028 based in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois. His interests
include shipyard infrastructure in the United States, ongoing
modernization efforts of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and the
politics that lead to their success.

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