House lawmakers want the Navy to deploy drone boats faster
HASC’s draft of the 2027 defense policy bill would push service leaders to develop a clear strategy.
Lauren C. Williams | June 7, 2026
The Navy would have to detail its plans to buy and use seagoing drones under a suite of provisions in the House Armed Services Committee’s draft 2027 defense policy bill.
The bill, which passed out of committee late Thursday, would require service leaders to devise a plan to buy, sustain, and operate small unmanned surface vessels—ones weighing less than 50 metric tons and no more than 50 feet long.
The plan would have to include a detailed inventory of each acquired USV, the types of missions the Navy would use USVs for, how they would work with crewed vessels, and how they would be integrated with current command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and logistics infrastructure.
The bill would also require the Navy to develop plan to “accelerate procurement and integration of commercially available sUSVs.”
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2026/06/house-lawmakers-want-navy-deploy-drone-boats-faster/414018/?oref=d1-topic-lander-top-story
