US Navy experience with unmanned vessels around the Strait of Hormuz should become the basis for routine fleet operations rather than further stand-alone trials, Chris Servello argues in an opinion article published by gCaptain. The piece points to rescue, surveillance and mine-countermeasure work in the Persian Gulf as evidence that the technology is moving into practical service.
According to the article, Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao highlighted an unmanned vessel’s role in recovering two Army Apache aviators near Hormuz at the Association of the United States Army conference. Servello describes the June rescue near Oman as involving a 24-foot Saronic Corsair, which collected both aviators and carried them to a location where a helicopter could evacuate them. Cao also cited unmanned underwater systems supporting mine clearance.
The article identifies mine threats to shipping through Hormuz as another reason to develop unmanned capabilities. BlackSea Technologies, now part of AEVEX, responded to an emerging Persian Gulf requirement for unmanned mine countermeasures, Servello writes. He presents that response as a model for addressing urgent operational needs while limiting sailors’ and costly warships’ exposure to danger. BlackSea’s Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft also provides surveillance and reconnaissance capacity without assigning a crewed warship to every task.
Servello credits Fifth Fleet’s Task Force 59 with developing experience alongside industry and regional partners, including integrating sensors and operating unmanned platforms with crewed forces. He argues that Hormuz’s confined geography, busy commercial traffic and overlapping military activity make it a useful environment for learning how these systems can contribute. Those lessons, he says, should inform deployments beyond the Persian Gulf.
A further test is the deployment of the Leidos-built Seahawk medium unmanned surface vessel with the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group. The article argues that its value should be judged not simply by completing the deployment, but by producing a repeatable operating model. Servello calls for the Navy, within the next year, to select missions ready for regular service and establish responsibility for training, maintenance and support. His proposed starting points include surveillance, scouting, screening, electronic warfare and selected logistics duties, with more demanding missions developed as technology and tactics mature.