Drones to the Forefront of Naval Warfare

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The US Navy and Marine Corps are making a serious effort to more heavily incorporate drones into their operations.

The developing abilities of competitors such as China and Russia are driving the US to increase its Naval capability distributed over a wider area. Autonomous systems provide additional warfighting capability and capacity to augment the traditional combatant force, according to a new Unmanned Campaign plan published by the Navy and Marine Corps.

The campaign will advance manned-unmanned teaming in naval and joint missions and build a digital infrastructure that integrates drones at speed and scale.

“Unmanned concepts allow us to rewrite the narrative on traditional warfare. Through a capabilities-based approach we can build a future where unmanned systems are at the front lines of our competitive advantage.”

The plan calls for budgets that bring in unmanned systems across the force; alignment of strategic priorities through studies, exercises and experiments, bringing in personnel to field and sustain autonomous operations.

The Navy and Marine Corps see areas of opportunity for drones in a handful of areas. One is routine areas like mine countermeasures to protect assets and another is using drones to collect intelligence. 

The services are trying to change the narrative around drones as funding a capability rather than funding an independent platform. To do that the Navy and Marine Corps are planning on investing in drones from a variety of angles, including commercial options and investing in a wide industrial base.

The plan says the services will explore opportunities like Ocean of Things – a program seeks to enable persistent maritime situational awareness through a distributed sensor network over large ocean areas by deploying thousands of small, low-cost floats that transmit data via satellite for storage and real-time analysis, according to federalnewsnetwork.com.