In 2026, the U.S. Navy will do something it has never done before: fully integrate autonomous, crewless surface vessels into its frontline fleet, including within a carrier strike group-marking a decisive break with more than a century of manned warships.
A Quiet Revolution in the Carrier’s Shadow
The U.S. Sea Hunter and its sister ship Seahawk have been familiar names in military technology circles for years. Until now, they were treated as experimental prototypes-run by research agencies and watched by curious admirals. That era is ending.
Both vessels are scheduled to move from the test community into the operational order of battle in 2026. One will sail as part of a carrier strike group, operating inside the protective bubble that normally only manned escorts are allowed to enter.
For the first time, a U.S. carrier will accept a crewless surface ship as a close escort, trusted to maneuver and share data without a single sailor on board.
For a Navy that still measures prestige in tonnage of gray steel and the size of crews, this is as much a psychological shock as a technological step. Commanders are not just adding a new sensor or a new missile-they are changing what they mean by “warship.”
From DARPA Curiosity to Frontline Asset
Sea Hunter: The Pathfinder
Sea Hunter was born in the laboratories of DARPA, the Pentagon’s advanced research arm, and first went to sea in 2016. Its original job was narrow but demanding: locate and track submarines for weeks at a time without a human crew.
At about 40 meters long, Sea Hunter is much smaller than a frigate, but it has logged years of trials in the open ocean. Engineers used it to study how an autonomous hull behaves in heavy seas, how it follows collision-avoidance rules, and how it makes routine decisions without a bridge full of officers.
That real-world experience-not glossy brochures-is what finally convinced the U.S. Navy to trust the technology near its most valuable assets.
Seahawk: Built for Combat Missions
Seahawk is the more mature second act. Designed using lessons learned from Sea Hunter, it uses an architecture tailored from the start for high-end naval tasks.
- Long-endurance surveillance in contested waters
- Mine warfare support, including detection and possibly neutralization
- Forward scouting ahead of manned escorts
- Data relay to connect dispersed forces
Rather than acting as a standalone novelty, Seahawk is meant to plug directly into fleet operations, feeding live streams of information to manned ships and maritime operations centers ashore.
Autonomy is no longer treated as a wild bet for the future, but as a proven capability that can be ordered “off the shelf” for combat use.
From Experimentation to Squadrons
A New Way of Structuring the Fleet
The shift is not only about two hulls. U.S. Navy planners now talk in terms of entire divisions of unmanned surface vessels (USVs), permanently assigned to numbered fleets.
Current ambitions look like this:
- 11 autonomous surface ships in service by 2027
- More than 30 units by 2030
- A fleet where around 45% of surface platforms could be crewless by 2045
These ships will not replace destroyers or frigates outright. Instead, they will expand the reach of each manned ship and make it harder for any opponent to cripple the fleet with a single concentrated strike.
New command structures are already under discussion. Officers will likely command mixed squadrons, directing manned and unmanned ships together, with specialists ashore monitoring autonomy software, legal compliance, and cybersecurity.
Why a Crewless Ship Changes the Rules
A traditional warship is built around people. Cabins, galleys, fresh water, air conditioning, medical spaces, lifeboats-they all consume space, weight, and money.
Remove the crew, and you can redesign around range, sensors, and payload. The ship can be smaller and cheaper. It can stay at sea longer, with fewer replenishment needs. And it can be sent to places where commanders would hesitate to risk hundreds of sailors.
Autonomous surface vessels turn presence into a numbers game: more hulls on the water, more eyes and ears, fewer lives at stake when things go wrong.
In a crisis, a carrier group could push USVs ahead as sacrificial scouts-probing hostile waters, mapping minefields, or drawing out enemy radars and missiles. Losing one would be a budget problem, not a national tragedy.
The Industrial Engine Behind Autonomy
U.S. defense contractor Leidos sits at the heart of this shift. As prime contractor for Sea Hunter and Seahawk, it has spent years refining the core autonomy package, integrating navigation sensors, collision-avoidance logic, and secure communications.
This sort of work is unglamorous and repetitive: sail, test, break things, fix them, sail again. Yet that repetition is exactly what militaries look for before trusting software to steer multi-million-dollar hardware in congested waters.
How Other Navies Are Responding
The United States is not alone, but it is moving fastest in integrating crewless surface vessels into everyday fleet structure.
| Country / Navy | Status of surface drones | Planned units | Operational integration | Main focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States (U.S. Navy) | Operational (Sea Hunter, Seahawk) | 11 by 2027, 30+ by 2030, up to 45% unmanned by 2045 | Carrier and surface strike groups | Surveillance, anti-submarine warfare, force multiplication |
| France (French Navy) | Advanced trials (DANAE project, 2026) | Seven prototypes under test | Limited; focus still on aerial drones | Port protection, convoy escort |
| United Kingdom (Royal Navy) | Targeted trials (Mine Hunting Capability) | Dedicated mine countermeasures units | Partial integration | Mine warfare and coastal surveillance |
| China | Prototype deployments | Expanded coastal surveillance assets | Limited but operational | Pacific EEZ patrols and escort of manned ships |
| Russia / Turkey | Coastal prototypes | Specialized units | Experimental | Electronic warfare and hybrid operations |
French and British programs focus heavily on mine warfare and port security, where distances are shorter and legal concerns around busy shipping lanes are easier to manage. China has taken a bolder stance, sailing drones alongside major units in the Pacific and using them for coastal surveillance and presence missions.
What This “Technological Rubicon” Really Means
Key Terms Worth Unpacking
Two expressions come up again and again around this shift: “carrier strike group” and “unmanned surface vessel.”
A carrier strike group is the Navy’s core fighting formation: an aircraft carrier, destroyers and cruisers, at least one submarine, and support ships. Integrating a crewless ship into that tight choreography means it must keep station, respond to signals instantly, and avoid collisions in crowded formations.
An unmanned surface vessel (USV) is essentially a boat or ship that operates without anyone on board. Humans still set objectives and rules. They monitor from shore or from another ship. But day-to-day steering, speed changes, and obstacle avoidance are handled by software and sensors.
Risks, Scenarios, and Difficult Questions
There are clear risks. Autonomy can fail. GPS may be jammed. Adversaries could try to hack command links, spoof sensors, or capture a damaged vessel for intelligence. International law also lags behind: who is responsible if a crewless ship collides with a merchant vessel in a busy strait?
Defense planners are running war games around plausible scenarios. One common script imagines a regional crisis in the western Pacific where USVs fan out between islands, listening for submarine activity and relaying targeting data back to manned destroyers. Another involves a drone-led mine-clearance effort in a mined chokepoint, with crewless boats taking the blasts instead of traditional minesweepers.
There are longer-term human questions too. As the share of unmanned hulls creeps toward 45% by 2045, the job of a naval officer changes: less ship-handling, more systems management; less time at sea on steel decks, more time in operations centers full of screens.
For now, though, the Rubicon is simple and concrete: in 2026, when a U.S. carrier sails with a crewless escort holding station in its wake, the very idea of what counts as a warship will have shifted for good.
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