NAVAL DRONES

The mystique of Navy SEALs has been heavily celebrated in the media and films due to recent real world exploits.  Yet Naval Special Warfare (NSW) sailors have been heavily engaged in combat operations for more than eleven consecutive years.  Warfare is still a decidely human endeavor, and America's naval special warriors are quick to embrace the truth that "humans are more important than hardware." Nevertheless, today's SEALs, Special Warfare Combat Crewmen, and other supporting personnel in the NSW community have benefited greatly from technology, which increasingly includes unmanned systems. Two primary realizations within the NSW community drove the rapid introduction of UAVs for combat operations in Southwest and Central Asia.  The first realization was that even the best shooters in the world were ineffective if they were unable to locate their targets.  Simply, UAVs are a force multiplier for SEALs and enable an exponential increase in the...

The U.S. Navy’s “Pivot to the Pacific” has been widely and openly discussed as additional shore infrastructure and operating forces shift to Guam, Singapore, and Australia.  At the same time, the Navy is quietly making investments on a number of fronts to support its rapidly growing fleet of unmanned systems. Unmanned air systems (UAS) such as BAMs and the X-47B UCLASS contender have been tested at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland for several years. Last month at nearby Webster Field, the Navy broke ground on a $4.3 million 10,000 square foot Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operating Facility for Maryland Army National Guard Tactical UAS.  In southern Nevada, Naval Air Station Fallon’s proximity to established UAS operating locations Creech Air Force Base and the Nellis Test Ranges make it a contender for one of seven multi-service “centers of excellence” for UAVs to be established across the country.  If the Pentagon choos...