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Posted by Bill Oreto on November 8, 2026, 18:00, in reply to "Well, the US Navy is getting ship-sized production drones"
There was an article in one of the recent Proceedings issues comparing large surface drones to the capabilities of the LCS of WW2. Becoming a multi-tool. Carrying out such tasks as rescue, minelayer, pickets, surface warfare, ASW and AAW. And if I am not mistaken a recent exercise of refueling a surface drone from a surface warship was completed. All shows great promise considering our industrial base to build and repair manned warships is in need of extensive modernization and expansion.
Too bad naval aviation did not get the memo. 
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This came up as I scrolled YouTube:
Intrigued, I ran an online search for more info. Many articles came up. Here are two:
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2026/09/saronic-awarded-production-contract-for-marauder-under-u-s-navys-musv-marketplace/
https://www.workboat.com/navy-orders-10-saronic-marauder-unmanned-vessels
I have only searched on Saronic's vessel, thus these results. A search on the other ones mentioned can provide more details of those to anyone interested.
So, it looks like we'll shortly have 30 MUSVs. Been reading about them "in the abstract" for years. And until only within the last couple of years, it looked like these were still operationally maybe a decade or more away, from the procurement angle. Nothing serious in any of the defense budgets. Then, poof! They became a budget item, and a couple of program iterations before this one. Now, results. Progress. Has my attention. I plan to keep an eye on it.
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