Large Navy exercise last month featured manned and unmanned systems, a missile firing, and surveillance

May 6, 2021
It is well-established that unmanned platforms in the air and on the surface can be valuable sensor nodes for spotting and targeting enemy assets.

SAN DIEGO – the U.S. Navy scheduled a missile firing at a surface target using information from a combination of manned and unmanned aircraft and surface vessels during a first-of-its-kind experiment last month. The Drive reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

6 May 2021 -- The secretive Super Swarm project, details about which have been slowly trickling out in the past year, also were part of this larger manned-unmanned event called Unmanned Integrated Battle Problem 21.

The live-fire missile shoot was one of three major vignettes of this manned-unmanned exercise. The other two concerned more general intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and manned-unmanned teaming concepts of operation.

The exercise involved surface warships, a submarine, combat aircraft, the Navy's Medium Displacement Unmanned Surface Vessels (MDUSV), MQ-8 Fire Scout drone helicopters a Sea Guardian unmanned aircraft, and a anti-submarine warfare (ASW) version of the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Related: DARPA LongShot takes a step towards putting unmanned vehicles in the thick of warfare by firing weapons

Related: Navy demonstrates ability to launch surveillance UAVs stealthily from submerged submarines

Related: Raytheon wins job to build lightweight missiles for attack UAVs and special-ops aircraft

John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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