Navy to establish USVRON 7 in San Diego, adding another robotic ship squadron to the force

The Navy is preparing to create a new unit focused on small unmanned surface vessels amid a push by the chief of naval operations to bring more robotic and autonomous systems into the fleet.

Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron 7 is slated to be established in May in San Diego, California, according to service officials.

The organization will be “primarily tasked with operating and maintaining” a variety of small USVs, a Navy official told DefenseScoop.

That includes Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft and “future RAS systems,” the official said.

Maritime Applied Physics Corp. manufactures the 16-foot GARC. The Defense Department has already obligated more than $160 million for the robotic boats, according to government contracting data.

The Navy is looking to ramp up GARC production to 32 vessels per month later this year, Rear Adm. Kevin Smith, the Navy’s program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told DefenseScoop at the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium earlier this month.

The establishment of USVRON 7 this spring will come about a year after the sea service stood up USVRON 3 — tasked with overseeing a fleet of GARCs and helping the sea service integrate, scale, experiment and employ those types of platforms — at Naval Base San Diego and three years after the creation of a unit now known as USVRON 1, which is based in Ventura County, California.

The launch of USVRON 7 is on the horizon as Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti is looking for ways to quickly augment the force with uncrewed systems, autonomous capabilities and personnel who specialize in those technologies.

Last year, she issued a NAVADMIN announcement about the creation of a new robotics warfare specialist rating.

“RW Sailors will enable Robotic and Autonomous System (RAS) operations and maintenance at the tactical edge. RWs will be the subject matter experts for computer vision, mission autonomy, navigation autonomy, data systems, artificial intelligence and machine learning on our RAS platforms,” she wrote.

She later launched an initiative known as Project 33 with an aim of scaling those types of systems across the force in the near term so that the sea service will be ready for a potential war against China in the Taiwan Strait or other locations.

“The Chairman of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has told his forces to be ready for war by 2027 — we will be more ready,” Franchetti wrote in her CNO Navigation Plan. “Project 33 is how we will get more ready players on the field by 2027. Project 33 sets my targets for pushing hard to make strategically meaningful gains in the fastest possible time with the resources we influence.”

Officials envision small USVs performing important missions for U.S. Pacific Fleet. These types of platforms fit in with the “Hellscape” warfighting concept that Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, has laid out for a potential conflict with China in the Taiwan Strait.

“Certainly, these systems are ideal in enclosed spaces … if you can deploy it,” Paparo said at a Brookings Institution event in November. “For closed spaces, for executing sea denial, this can be a very key capability.”