Military.com | By Richard Sisk
The Navy and Textron showed off for the first time Monday a weaponized prototype of a small unmanned surface vessel (USV) designed to revolutionize sea warfare.
Textron principal systems engineer Gary Hartman said the display of the 40-foot Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle, docked at the annual Sea-Air-Space Exposition at National Harbor, Maryland, is the first of the boat mounted with a 50-caliber machine gun and a housing for Hellfire missiles.
The weapons display is the outgrowth of the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement signed last year by Naval Sea Systems Command and Textron “to develop and integrate surface warfare payloads onto the Common Unmanned Surface Vehicle.”
According to the agreement, “the payloads will include various missiles, designators, sensors, and remote weapon stations.”
The weapons are part of what Hartman called an “expeditionary warfare package” for the CUSV, but he stressed that the display is intended only to show possible future capabilities. “As an initial package, there’s not a lot of appetite for it” currently, he said.
Hartman said the CUSV itself is a program of record with the Navy, but there is no timeline for when the systems will be deployed.
The CUSV was initially developed to be carried aboard Littoral Combat Shipsand launched to conduct countermine and surveillance operations. The missions can be programmed into the CUSV, and radars and other sensors aboard alert the mother ship to what the CUSV finds, Hartman said.
