WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House Armed Services Committee advanced its draft 2027 defense policy bill out of committee on Thursday. The legislation requires the Navy to formulate a comprehensive strategy for purchasing, maintaining, and operating small unmanned surface vessels.
This strategy must catalog every acquired unmanned surface vessel. It also needs to specify the operational missions intended for these vessels and detail how they will coordinate with crewed ships. The strategy must further explain how unmanned vessels will integrate with existing command, control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and logistics networks.
The bill defines small unmanned surface vessels as craft weighing under 50 metric tons and measuring less than 50 feet in length. The legislation also mandates a Navy plan to accelerate the acquisition and fielding of commercially available small unmanned surface vessels.
Committee reporting language indicates that commercial purchases could improve fleet readiness, shorten development cycles, and reduce expenses compared to government designs. Multiple geographic combatant commands have also requested additional small unmanned surface vessels for urgent missions. The legislation further requires the Navy to file a report identifying barriers to acquiring commercially available small unmanned surface vessels.
The Navy recently published a 30-year shipbuilding plan that projects hundreds of unmanned surface vessels in its future fleet, and the Pentagon is preparing to increase funding allocations for unmanned vessel programs. A separate provision in the bill directs the Navy to verify that acquired drone boats can operate during communication disruptions or degraded network conditions. This provision also requires verification that drone boats can function when positioning, navigation, and timing systems are compromised.
The legislation directs the Secretary of the Navy to design and execute a plan for incorporating unmanned surface vessels into naval force structure and joint maritime operations. The Secretary of the Navy is required to submit an unmanned surface vessel integration report to congressional defense committees within 210 days of the bill's enactment. The legislation mandates annual congressional briefings on integration progress following the initial report.