OCTOBER 16, 2024 – Earlier this year, three Marines successfully planned and executed two missions using the Marine Corps’ Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel prototype during Exercise Valiant Shield 2024. This annual exercise run by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command provides a platform for the services to test and evaluate current and future concepts as well as developing technologies.
The ALPV is an autonomous logistics distribution system that may be configured to deliver all classes of supply, including food/water, fuel, ammunition, medical supplies, repair parts and other equipment throughout the littorals, across the green/brown water space while transiting through blue water space. This technology is crucial for providing sustainment to Stand-in Forces, including the Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) and other forward-based III MEF units operating in contested areas. It ensures they can persist within the reach of an adversary’s weapons systems to distract and disrupt malign behavior in competition and, if necessary, during crisis and conflict.
As the Marine Corps seeks to equip Marines with enhanced capabilities for multi-domain sustainment operations in contested environments, MCWL and III Marine Expeditionary Force forces seized this opportunity to assess the Marines’ ability to operate an ALPV over great distances with minimal training.
Six Marines of varying military occupational specialties, with no nautical background, received three weeks of training from the vessel designer, autonomy system manufacturer, and small boat/robotic system experts from Naval Information Warfare Center – Pacific. This training enabled Marines of Combat Logistics Battalion 12 to conduct multiple uncrewed ALPV missions in support of III MEF during Exercise Valiant Shield 2024. Since the ALPV was physically located in California, the CLB-12 Marines travelled from Okinawa to California for the training course at NIWC-PAC. After completing their training, three of the Marines returned to Okinawa, where they remotely operated the ALPV for two autonomous missions from 6,351 miles away off the coast of California. The remaining three CLB-12 Marines continued operations in California, conducting vessel launch/recovery, pre/post-light checks, confined water remote operations and safety oversight. This arrangement allowed them to virtually “hand off” control of the vessel, enabling the exercise to be conducted entirely by III MEF forces operating simultaneously from Okinawa and California.
Cpl. Gilbert Elliot was one of those Marines.
“I knew nothing about operating boats,” said Elliot, a Combat Logistics Battalion 12, 3rd Marine Logistics Group heavy equipment mechanic and Frackville, Pennsylvania native. “The best I knew was port side and starboard side, and I knew nothing about autonomous systems, but I was still able to operate and complete missions. Learning was not very difficult.”
Inspired by “narco-boats” used by South American cartels to smuggle drugs into the United States via the Gulf of Mexico and both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, , the ALPV is a long range, semi-submersible autonomous logistics delivery system capable of transporting standard military classes of supplies and other equipment throughout the littorals.
Despite having no prior experience with autonomous systems, Elliott quickly learned to use the vessel’s controls during the exercise.
“The hardest part for me was the computer side, but for other Marines, understanding the engine and how to operate it was trickier, so we worked together to push through those obstacles,” said Elliott. “We were all in the same boat, relatively, since none of us knew how to operate it at first, but we taught one another and improved as a group, getting better and excelling at the ALPV.”
Elliot noted that his biggest takeaway from the experiment, given his unfamiliarity with operating boats—much less autonomous vessels—was the importance of focus in water training and operations.
“Overall, you have to build up to it, you can’t just hop on and go,” he said. “No, you have to, quite literally, crawl, walk, run with it.”
Autonomous systems are critical for addressing the logistics challenges of the modern battlefield where near-peer adversaries can contest every domain. The development of this capability aligns with the Marine Corps’ broader strategic objectives of enhancing logistics, sustainment, and lethality in dispersed, contested environments through risk-worthy uncrewed systems.
Authors
Kevin Ray J. Salvador – Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory Communication Strategy and Operations Subject Matter Expert
Lt. Col. Tim Smith – Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory Science & Technology Division Branch Head
Aaron Hatfield – Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory Science & Technology Division Program Manager
Chris Anson – Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory Science & Technology Division Logistics Analyst
Story by Kevin Ray Salvador
Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory | Futures Directorate