“The year is 2043. We have been at war with a peer adversary for a year.”
That’s the set up for “Sea Strike,” a new short film depicting how the Navy could utilize new technology in a potential conflict in the coming years. The video, made by Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific and Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and released this past week, is a “future-oriented film designed to showcase the U.S. Navy’s ability to conduct distributed maritime operations in a high-end, contested environment.” Basically, consider it an aspirational science-fiction short film from the Navy.
The short film follows the USS John F. Kennedy Carrier Strike Group. Enemy forces are targeting an island crucial to U.S. strategy, so the strike group must intervene to take out the adversaries. As the video notes: “time is running out.”
Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i46wVJcy-o
Who the U.S. is at war with is unstated in the video — although U.S. military strategy has increasingly focused on preparing against a conflict with China in the Pacific — but the mission pits the Kennedy and its strike group against a force with extensive anti-air and anti-ship defenses, so the crew has to game out a plan of attack in real time, using the high-tech tools at its disposal. That ranges from artificial intelligence programs calculating the odds of the mission’s success in real time on the bridge to hypersonic munitions deployed once the Navy delivers a cyber exploit against the enemy. Drones back up a fighter pilot, providing both decoys and fire support, using lasers to shoot down enemy surface-to-air missiles.
The short film is relatively grounded sci-fi. “Sea Strike” utilizes technology that the U.S. military is currently developing or testing. There’s even a nod to the expected proliferation of cheap drones, noting the risk that U.S. drones could “fall out of the sky.” “They can print more,” the carrier’s commander growls.
The video is essentially a showcase of what the Navy could do in the future. Slick, sharply produced shorts are not new to the U.S. military, although this kind of sci-fi short is unique. Task & Purpose contacted NIWC Pacific for more information on the video and its production, but as of press time has not received a response.
The Navy has been working to develop a high-tech and modernized fleet. Plans for a future fleet include a number of uncrewed drone ships supporting more modern destroyers and carriers. Much of the technology depicted in the video is still in early testing. The USS John F. Kennedy itself, the new Gerald R. Ford-class carrier, has not yet been commissioned into service by the Navy.
Will that be possible in the next 18 years? “Sea Strike” is an aspirational sizzle real but many of the technologies or tools presented in it are being developed or studied by the military currently. Of course, efforts to roll out some more modern technology into Navy ships have been flawed and sometimes disastrous. The tech presented in the video could be in the Navy’s arsenal by 2043, although it’s up in the air how widely adopted it will be in the fleet.