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?

‘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.

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’.

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.

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.

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.