WSJ article reports they are arriving in Japan. Will likely be remote control destroyers. Two unmanned vessels controlled by a manned destroyer. Requires less crew.
Presumably destroyer mostly protects the fleet from attack. By air, by submarine, etc. Remote control ship adds to firepower with less crew required.
Experiment in process. The navy explores potential. Will it succeed?
Ukraine has used drone “ships” to attack Russion ships. Possibly intelligent, long range underwater cruise missiles. Not unlike a traditional torpedo, but with longer range and sensors to detect target and guide to it.
Isn’t it Heddy Lamar the movie star who developed the answer to this problem during WWII. I think she got a patent for it.
The method is frequency shifting. The signal is sent on a prearranged set of frequencies shifting from one to another rapidly. Sender and receiver know which ones but no one else. The range of frequencies used can be large. So you would have to blast the entire range. And they can probably use signal lights, lasers, or smoke signals if they need to. And to blast the whole range of frequencies you have to shut down your own signalling methods.
War stories are full of cases where the crew saved ships wounded in combat. Are these new destroyers disposable? Maybe they should be manned by Optimist robots!