US 5th Fleet Stands Up Unmanned Panel; CNO Reveals Navy-Wide Effort

WASHINGTON: The US Navy’s 5th Fleet is set to launch its first task force focused on increasing sailors’ use of aerial, surface and subsurface unmanned systems in tandem, a senior Navy officer leading the efforts said today. The new task force starts its work Thursday, ahead of a similar, service-wide effort that is in its early stages.

“We’re going to take today’s unmanned systems, which are largely in the air … [and] they will be augmented with unmanned surface vessels. We haven’t had them in the past, we have them now. It will be augmented with even more unmanned undersea vessels. We’ve had some in the past; we’re going to have a lot more in the future,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US 5th Fleet, told reporters during a telephone roundtable.

Capt. Michael Brasseur, deputy commodore of Destroyer Squadron 50, will lead the new task force. Cooper characterized the panel as the first of its kind in the Navy.

The initial efforts of the new panel will be tested during International Maritime Exercise 2022, which is hosted by 5th Fleet and will invite experts from 21 countries in January and February. “It’s the 5th Fleet’s largest exercise that we do and a very significant portion that we [will focus] on unmanned,” Cooper added.

The new task force’s announcement coincided with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday revealing his plan to establish a Navy-wide Unmanned Task Force. The admiral said that while the service has made “significant progress,” he is “not yet satisfied” with the pace the service has been working with unmanned systems, he said during a Defense News conference held virtually on Wednesday.

“So, think in terms of scope [and] purpose similar to Task Force Overmatch, where I have a group of technical experts along with operators who put heat on this problem, set to move forward in all three domains at speed to make unmanned a reality by the end of this decade,” the CNO said, referring to Project Overmatch, the service’s overarching effort to connect its platforms together and the Navy’s contribution to Joint All Domain Command and Control.

Gilday said the service is still in the early stages of forming the Navy-wide unmanned panel but more details would be published later this year.

Asked about the connection to the CNO’s announcement, Cooper said US 5th Fleet’s task force would be “aligned” with the CNO but did not get into any more specifics. Cooper also said that Brasseur, the Navy captain leading 5th Fleet’s panel, is involved with the CNO’s larger efforts.

A Navy official told Breaking Defense that Unmanned Campaign Plan will serve as the goal posts for how the Navy wants its unmanned fleet to look and function, while the CNO’s panel will be the driving mechanism to achieve those goals.