{"id":29766,"date":"2019-03-14T14:35:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T14:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2019\/03\/14\/a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:30:16","slug":"a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/it-networks\/defense-budget\/2019\/03\/14\/a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"A classified Pentagon maritime drone program is about to get its moment in the sun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2013 A project birthed in the Pentagon\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2018\/09\/27\/heres-who-is-running-the-pentagons-acquisition-and-technology-offices\/\">Strategic Capabilities Office<\/a> is getting some serious buy-in from the U.S. Navy, and could yield the world\u2019s first large-scale armed unmanned warship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/naval\/2019\/03\/12\/the-us-navy-will-hit-a-milestone-ship-count-in-2020-pours-money-into-sailors-subs-and-unmanned-tech\/\">Navy raised eyebrows in its budget rollout Tuesday<\/a> when it requested $400 million for two large <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/naval\/2019\/01\/29\/the-us-navy-looking-to-ease-into-its-unmanned-robot-ship-future\/\">unmanned surface vessels<\/a> to be purchased in 2020, with 10 total to be purchased across the five-year projection known as the future year defense program. But it was not immediately clear what exactly the Navy was buying two of, since no program of record exists for a large unmanned surface vessel (or LUSV).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Navy officials now say the request is an outgrowth of SCO\u2019s Project Overlord, which first surfaced in 2017 with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensedaily.com\/navy-dod-release-draft-solicitation-overlord-unmanned-surface-vehicle-program\/navy-usmc\/\">draft solicitation<\/a> outlining a program that would take existing autonomy technologies and integrate them into large and medium unmanned surface vessels with some heady ambitions: an autonomous ship capable of carrying up to 40 tons of payloads, and operate in up to sea-state five independently for 90 days without a crew for maintenance, while following all rules of navigation and obstacle avoidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The elevation of SCO\u2019s Overlord program from science project to fast-tracked acquisition reflects both the Navy\u2019s growing confidence in its ability to make the technology work and the urgency it feels to field technologies that can combat a growing threat from anti-access area denial technologies designed to keep the Navy\u2019s powerful strike arm far from the shores of potential adversaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2019\/01\/15\/the-us-navy-moves-toward-unleashing-killer-robot-ships-on-the-worlds-oceans\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/sea_hunter.jpg.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">US Navy moves toward unleashing killer robot ships on the world\u2019s oceans<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The Navy is planning to take the first few steps into a radical future, which, if it comes to pass, will upend how the fleet has fought since the Cold War.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s an effort the Navy is ready to put some significant investment into. In total, the service has programmed $2.7 billion across the FYDP. And on Wednesday evening, the Navy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbo.gov\/index?s=opportunity&#038;mode=form&#038;id=2a2b2e2812a80601a6c522a8724f7fd4&#038;tab=core&#038;_cview=0\">dropped a request for information<\/a> from industry seeking to \u201cdetermine if sources exist that are capable of satisfying the Navy\u2019s anticipated program requirement for Large Unmanned Surface Vessels (LUSV).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy\u2019s top officer Adm. John Richardson said he wants the force to move aggressively on getting the LUSV to the fleet, and compared it to the unmanned aerial refueling drone, the MQ-25, one of his top priorities as chief of naval operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI would liken this to the surface vessel version of where we picked up on MQ-25,\u201d Richardson told a roundtable of reporters on Wednesday. \u201cWe are moving very aggressively to get something on deck in unmanned aviation, and we were able to do that very quickly by taking advantage of what we\u2019d learned in that field to date, bringing industry in early, so we\u2019re going to be using a lot of those practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis seems like kind of the next natural step. We want to move it out of the skunkworks phase and into the operational phase as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Richardson pointed to recent strides the service has made in the unmanned surface vehicle realm with the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2016\/04\/07\/unmanned-sub-hunter-to-begin-test-program\/\" target=_blank> Sea Hunter program<\/a>, which recently transferred from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to the Office of Naval Research, as evidence of the Navy\u2019s progress toward fielding unmanned warships. The LUSV program, however, is a separate effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy announced in February that Sea Hunter navigated autonomously to Hawaii and back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>Overlord<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Overlord program from which the Navy hopes to derive its new large unmanned robot warship is the child of the Pentagon\u2019s Strategic Capabilities Office, a workshop under the auspices of the Office of the Secretary of Defense that seeks to add funky new capabilities to existing gear and weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The office\u2019s big headline-grabbers to date have been its work on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/smr\/unmanned-unleashed\/2017\/03\/30\/dod-weapons-designer-swarming-teams-of-drones-will-dominate-future-wars\/\">drone swarms<\/a> and converting the Navy\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2016\/10\/28\/anti-naval-atacms-big-swarming-breakthroughs-from-strategic-capabilities-office\/\">SM-6 anti-air missile into a very long range ship killer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But its work on autonomous surface vehicles has been less front-and-center.<\/p>\n\n\n\t<aside class=\"smg-interstitial-link wp-block-smg-interstitial-link\">\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/pentagon\/2018\/09\/21\/new-head-of-strategic-capabilities-office-wants-to-focus-on-ai\/\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__media\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\" src=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0030.JPG.jpg?w=300\" class=\"smg-interstitial-link__image wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" \/>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"smg-interstitial-link__content\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"smg-interstitial-link__kicker\">Related<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"smg-interstitial-link__title\">New head of Strategic Capabilities Office wants to focus on AI<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"smg-interstitial-link__excerpt\">The Pentagon&#039;s &quot;surprising technology&quot; office has a new lead.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\t\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According the 2017 draft plan, Overlord is seeking a ship that can do virtually everything a larger manned vessel can do \u2013 obey the international rules of the road for navigation, plan a route for a mission, communicate with other ships (manned or otherwise) in a task force \u2013 and do it with very little interaction with sailors once it gets underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Overlord program will develop core autonomy, communications, and C2 components and field prototype USVs capable of being seamlessly operable with the fleet,\u201d the draft says. &#8220;The Overlord program will have built in redundancy in all critical hardware and software systems. The program will involve integration and test of payloads for [electronic warfare], [anit-surface warfare], and [strike warfare].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The program, in keeping with SCO\u2019s modus operandi, places an emphasis on using and adapting existing vehicles and technologies, the draft says, and \u201cwill take advantage of commercial technologies, integrate existing vehicle designs, and mature existing autonomy capabilities to accomplish its goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The draft lays out a two-phase plan that starts with a 12-month phase I, which asks industry to demonstrate a vehicle that could meet the requirements laid out in the draft, including a range of 4,500 nautical miles, \u201ccapable of operating in at least Sea State 5, with at least 80,000 lbs. of payload capacity and 75 kW of 450V, 60 Hz, three-phase AC power reserved for payloads.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second phase of the program is a down-select to the most competitive entries for further testing and integration, shifting from the unclassified phase I to a \u201cSecret\u201d-classified phase II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Naval Sea Systems Command declined to respond to questions about the progress of Project Overlord, citing operational security, but acknowledged the LUSVs being acquired in the 2020 budget are an outgrowth of Overlord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new LUSV will be critical to operating in a distributed way in the future, NAVSEA spokesman Alan Baribeau said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLUSVs will provide relatively low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships able to accommodate various payloads for unmanned missions to augment the Navy\u2019s manned surface force,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The request for information released Wednesday that seeks more inputs on vehicles from industry is continuing of the effort started with Overlord, said Danny Hernandez, a spokesman for the Navy\u2019s Research, Development and Acquisition office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOverlord Vessels were experimental efforts,&#8221; Hernandez said. \u201cThe RFI is a separate effort from Overlord that will launch the LUSV prototyping project.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>Moving fast<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the Navy\u2019s fiscal year 2020 budget rollout, the Navy\u2019s budget director told reporters that the large surface combatant, part of what the Navy is terming its \u201cghost fleet,\u201d would be about a third the size of the FFG(X), which could displace upwards of 6,000 tons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey are 200 to 300-foot, 2,000 ton [hulls],\u201d said Rear Adm. Randy Crites. \u201cI\u2019m not sure what the final hull form will be, that\u2019s what we\u2019re using today in terms of what the \u2018ghost fleet\u2019 buy is. But I don\u2019t think we know yet exactly what the hull form will be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Navy is adamant that, even without a fully fleshed out requirement, it needs to move fast to get these capabilities into the fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe&#8217;ve got to get through the details of concept of operations, command control \u2013 how is it going to work in a distributed environment,\u201d Crites said. \u201cBut we need these test articles and we need to bring these things on quickly so that we can actually see how this is going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The path the Navy is treading could upend how the fleet has fought since the Cold War. The CNO\u2019s surface warfare director previewed what the surface fleet has in mind in a December interview with Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Boxall laid out a vision for pushing as much capability to smaller, distributed and unmanned ships as possible, and using the larger ships as command and control for the ghost fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cToday, I have a requirement for 104 large surface combatants in the force structure assessment; I have 52 small surface combatants,\u201d said Surface Warfare Director Rear Adm. Ronald Boxall. \u201cThat\u2019s a little upside down. Should I push out here and have more small platforms? I think the future fleet architecture study has intimated \u2018yes,\u2019 and our war gaming shows there is value in that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paradigm shift is moving the fleet away from platforms like the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers \u2014 enormous, tightly packed ships bristling with capabilities, weapons and sensors, but enormously expensive to build, maintain and upgrade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s a shift in mindset that says, instead of putting as much stuff on the ship for as much money as I have, you start thinking in a different way,\u201d Boxall said in a December interview. \u201cYou start saying: \u2018How small can my platform be to get everything I need to be on it?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe want everything to be only as big as it needs to be. You make it smaller and more distributable, given all dollars being about equal. And when I look at the force, I think: \u2018Where can we use unmanned so that I can push it to a smaller platform?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDistributed\u201d is the key word in a new concept the Navy is developing to counter China\u2019s increasing grip on the South and East China seas. Though public details of what the Navy is calling \u201cdistributed maritime operations\u201d are scant, it seems to stem from an idea that was developed inside the surface Navy, known as \u201cdistributed lethality.\u201d The idea was to put the Navy\u2019s surface combatants back on the offensive, spreading out to stretch Chinese intelligence and surveillance assets and leave openings for offensive strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">NAVSEA said in its statement that the LUSV would be a key component of distributed maritime operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cLUSVs will provide relatively low-cost, high-endurance, reconfigurable ships able to accommodate various payloads for unmanned missions to augment the Navy\u2019s manned surface force,&#8221; Baribeau said. \u201cLUSV is a key enabler of the Navy\u2019s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept, which includes being able to forward deploy (alone or in teams\/groups), team with individual manned combatants, or augment battle groups with an LUSV-distributed Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW) and Strike capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><b>Secure, Fast and with Enough Bandwidth?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That kind of integration with the fleet \u2013 where lethal capabilities heretofore reserved for manned warships are outsourced to robot ships controlled by humans on larger crewed vessels \u2013 is integral to the Project Overlord vision as laid out in the draft proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it\u2019s also something that is immensely hard to pull off, especially in a contested environment where communications will be both targeted and exploited by adversaries looking for targets, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou could communicate via satellite, but then that\u2019s vulnerable to the same anti-access, area-denial (A2AD) disruptions that you would normally have to worry about,\u201d said Michael Horowitz, an expert in unmanned systems and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou could have localized sensor nets. Then you need a way to link that data back to the human-piloted system. You need some way to get the information back to humans and that\u2019s going to be a key vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is also a problem with the sheer volume of data you would need to transmit over nets, presumably relayed through either communications relay drones or other ships (nodes) in the network, Horowitz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe weak point is whether you can extend your sensors \u2013 your robotic connectivity,\u201d Horowitz continued. \u201cIf you think about it like a chain that, say, goes all the way back to a carrier that\u2019s really far away, or a cruiser. \u2026 Remotely piloted systems, that requires a lot of bandwidth. The more nodes you have, the more you increase the risk that an adversary can disrupt you by knocking one of them out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, you deploy it as a net so that any one node isn\u2019t critical, but then you need to deploy a lot of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And scale is a problem because none of this technology is cheap, Horowitz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt requires ever-greater miniaturization, in terms of munitions, power, etc.,\u201d he said, \u201cdepending on how small you want these platforms to be. If what you\u2019re talking about is Sea Hunter size, well, the question is could you scale Sea Hunter today? I think the production costs would likely be pretty high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think the key will be driving down the costs of producing some of these platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Still, the value of pursuing the vision has significant potential, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI think it makes sense to invest in this kind of capability,\u201d Horowitz said. \u201cWill it pan out in a way that is secure and fast and with big enough band width? These are the challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A project birthed in the Pentagon\u2019s Strategic Capabilities Office is getting some serious buy-in from the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":44531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":44,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,44,29,32,21],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3301],"class_list":["post-29766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-defense-budget","category-home","category-newsletters","category-unmanned"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"AYGVZWGHUBFJBILORS225LZ53Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2019\/03\/14\/a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A classified Pentagon maritime drone program is about to get its moment in the sun - C4ISRNet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A project birthed in the Pentagon\u2019s Strategic Capabilities Office is getting some serious buy-in from the U.S. Navy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A classified Pentagon maritime drone program is about to get its moment in the sun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A project birthed in the Pentagon\u2019s Strategic Capabilities Office is getting some serious buy-in from the U.S. Navy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/it-networks\/defense-budget\/2019\/03\/14\/a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"C4ISRNet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-03-14T14:35:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-08-07T23:30:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David B. 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Larter\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\n\t    \"@context\": \"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\n\t    \"@graph\": [\n\t        {\n\t            \"@type\": \"Article\",\n\t            \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/c4isrnet\\\/it-networks\\\/defense-budget\\\/2019\\\/03\\\/14\\\/a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun\\\/#article\",\n\t            \"isPartOf\": {\n\t                \"@id\": \"https:\\\/\\\/one.sightlinemg.com\\\/c4isrnet\\\/it-networks\\\/defense-budget\\\/2019\\\/03\\\/14\\\/a-classified-pentagon-maritime-drone-program-is-about-to-get-its-moment-in-the-sun\\\/\"\n\t            },\n\t            \"author\": {\n\t                \"name\": \"migration\",\n\t                \"@id\": 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