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The Navy has announced plans to buy 30 new drone boats, 10 from each of three companies, under its Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel (MUSV) program. The deals are an important step forward for the Navy’s latest attempt to field larger USVs after years of setbacks and shakeups, but it remains to be seen when these new capabilities might actually become operational.

Galliano Marine Services, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), and Saronic Technologies each received so-called Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements in relation to the MUSV program today. OTA is a contracting mechanism designed to support rapid prototyping and other research and development work without having to use more traditional and often lengthy processes.

The awards “mark a significant step forward in translating the strategic vision into a tangible fleet capability,” Chris Miller, the Navy’s Acting Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (DRPM RAS), told TWZ and others at a media roundtable earlier today. “Each agreement is for the procurement of 10 MUSV at an average procurement cost of $40 million per vessel.”

Saronic and HII submitted their Marauder and Romulus designs, respectively, to the MUSV Phase I competition. Galliano Marine Services, which does business as Edison Chouest, does not appear to have announced its entrant publicly. At a unit cost of $40 million, the total price tag for 30 MUSVs, regardless of type, would be $1.2 billion.

“Production will begin immediately at shipyards in Loreauville, Houma, and Franklin, Louisiana, with deliveries starting as early as the fourth quarter of [Fiscal Year] 2027,” Miller added.

To take a step back quickly, the Navy has used a variety of definitions for what qualifies as a “medium” USV over the years. It’s also important to note that the Navy already fields several speedboat and jet ski-type USVs operationally that are capable of performing various different missions, including employment as one-way attack munitions.

Threshold MUSV program requirements the service put out in March included a range of at least “2500 nm [nautical miles] at 25 knots while carrying a 25 MT [metric ton] load on the payload deck in NATO STANAG 4194 Sea State 4.” Sea State 4 is characterized by wind speeds of 17 to 21 knots and wave heights between four and eight feet, per that NATO standard. The MUSVs also had to be able to carry forty-foot equivalent units (FEU) containerized payloads and refuel at sea at a rate of “2,000 gallons per minute of fuel through deck connections.” Various other operational and sustainment requirements were laid out at that time, as you can read more about here.

The OTAs announced today were awarded “following successful at sea testing” under Phase I of the MUSV program, according to a press release the Navy put out today. A total of seven companies competed in this initial phase, with the others being Birdon, Leidos, PacMar Technologies, and Sea Machines. That work was conducted under an earlier round of OTAs.

“The testing evaluated, among other things, the vessel’s ability to see and understand the surrounding maritime environment, how well the vessels navigated autonomously according to the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea, and the vessel’s ability to conduct a long-duration mission,” the Navy’s Miller said at the roundtable earlier today. “The demonstrations had to prove that the designs were mature enough to meet the Navy’s operational standards and our requirements.”

In terms of the long-duration mission requirements, “the test was that they had to be able to execute [over] roughly 26 hours and over 360 nautical miles with only a single input during that time from a C2 [command and control] station allowed,” Milleter further explained. “So, it basically demonstrated that the vessel could run for an excess of 24 hours at an extended range with very minimal input from the actual operator from a C2 station. This provided basically our input and our ability to assess how truly autonomous the functionality was of the platforms.”

Overall, the OTA awards “were based on the optimal mix of autonomy, performance, design, production schedule, and cost,” he added.

The MUSV Phase II contracting notice outlines additional parameters, including that submitted designs cannot be more than 295 feet (90 meters) long or displace more than 5,000 metric tons. The USVs also have to be able to accommodate “at least 2x Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) [containerized payloads] weighing 24,000 kg each and consuming 25 kW each” and be “capable of executing multi-day unmanned operations of at least 10 days.” The drone boats need to be “operable in NATO STANAG 4194 Sea State 4 and survivable in Sea State 6,” as well. The full lists of threshold requirements and desired attributes are reproduced below.

In addition, “to be considered for this Call for Solutions, the proposed MUSV must be ready for operational demonstration at the time of solution submission,” according to the Phase II contracting notice. “An MUSV requiring substantial modifications for the production platform compared to the as-demonstrated platform will not be considered.”

“The Phase II solicitation allows entrants to compete and existing vendors to submit updated product blocks and modular payload configurations,” Miller, the Acting DRPM RAS, said today. “Testing evaluations will begin as early as November 16th, and proposals will be assessed on a continually rolling basis over the next five years.”

Miller also drew attention to the elimination of the speed and at-sea refueling targets previously outlined in Phase I.

“What we learned from Phase I is that as you increase the speed requirements and some of these other things, it does present certain challenges for industry,” according to Miller. “So I’m trying to actually find the sweet spot in the market where there is healthy competition, and there’s opportunities, and we can have more things that potentially are dual use, both military and civilian.”

So far, the Navy has only offered limited insights into exactly what specific mission sets it wants the MUSVs to perform, even initially.

The “MUSV Phase I requirements were closely tailored to fulfill operational requirements for a specific mission set focused on demonstrated ability to carry containerized payloads while meeting specific vessel performance requirements for speed and range,” Miller said during today’s roundtable. “However, there is an ever-increasing demand signal that we must be ready to meet. To ensure scalability across the broader mission sets and to support our joint force, we issued a formal call for solutions for MUSV Phase II integration and testing.”

He also stressed that the modularity of the designs being acquired now would allow for the continued evolution of their capabilities as time goes on.

With the focus on containerized payloads, “honestly, inside you could have a sensor, you could have repair equipment for ships,” Rebecca Gassler, who was the Navy’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (PAE RAS) until August, also told TWZ and other outlets back in March. “You could have any number of payloads inside those, and you basically are able to just swap them on.”

In announcing the new OTAs today, as well as discussing the Phase II MUSV plans, the Navy also highlighted continued opportunities for the other companies that had been involved in Phase I.

“Leidos, PAC MAR, and Sea Machines were determined to complete the project provided for in their prototype other transaction agreement and will receive a $15 million award as part of the previously established terms of the prototype OTs,” the Navy’s MUSV announcement today adds. “Alongside the OT awardees, will be accepted onto the Drones.mil hosted Maritime Marketplace, where they are now eligible to receive follow-on production agreements from authorized acquisition authorities across the DOW [Department of War].”

Birdon did not complete the required testing. Based on the terms of the Phase I OTAs, Galliano, HII, and Saronic will also receive $15 million awards and be included in the marketplace. The aforementioned Phase II CFS is intended “to expand its acquisition pipeline through a Maritime Marketplace to broaden offerings and satisfy future MUSV mission sets,” as well, per the Navy.

The Navy stressed the importance of this open-ended “marketplace” model as a way to accelerate the acquisition process when it first outlined the MUSV program to the public back in March, as you can read more about here. Just last week, the service also established a new Robotic and Autonomous Systems Warfighting Development Center (RASWDC) to serve as a focal point for “the development, operational integration, and employment of robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) across the maritime domain,” to include the MUSV effort.

The Drones.mil marketplace also extends to all branches of the U.S. military and beyond just USVs. Miller today did highlight the potential for possible cooperation with other services on drone boat efforts through this framework. He also said the Navy might be willing to consider additional acquisition strategies, including leasing uncrewed platforms, in the future.

Larger USVs have long been seen as key to bolstering the U.S. Navy’s overall operational capacity above the waves, and doing so in a cost-effective and rapidly producible manner. They are also viewed as central to enabling new, more distributed concepts of operations designed to help expand operational coverage and reduce the vulnerability of crewed ships, especially in any future high-end fight in the Pacific with China.

“Unmanned technology is redefining operations and providing our combatant commanders with unprecedented scale, persistence, and risk tolerance,” the Navy’s Miller said at the roundtable.

At the same time, as mentioned, the Navy has attempted to acquire operational fleets of larger drone boats in the past without success. Today, the service’s capabilities in this regard remain limited to a pocket force of still largely experimental optionally-crewed designs.

Since the Navy first unveiled it in March, MUSV has already faced certain hurdles. This includes a major leadership shakeup in August that saw PAE RAS Rebecca Gassler, the first person to ever hold that post, removed from her post after just eight months for reasons that are still not immediately clear.

In July, it also emerged that Blue Water Autonomy and Saildrone had filed suit against the Navy over being left out of Phase I of the MUSV competition. The companies alleged that the service did not follow its own selection criteria. That lawsuit is still ongoing. Blue Water Autonomy, among others, had also previously made investments in response to requirements the Navy had laid out for a previous effort called the Modular Surface Attack Craft (MASC) last year. The MUSV program has now fully supplanted MASC.

In speaking at the roundtable today, Miller acknowledged potential budget limitations and other hurdles that could still impact MUSV going forward. “I’m trying to be prepared depending on where that demand goes,” he said.

As said at the start, today’s MUSV announcement is an important new step forward for the Navy’s efforts to acquire fleets of larger USVs, but the service still has to transition these efforts into operational realities.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Michael Harris II hit a three-run homer in the first inning, Ray Kerr threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings and the Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-2 on Thursday night in the decisive Game 3 of their National League wild-card series.

Ozzie Albies hit a two-run homer in the fourth and Matt Olson added a solo shot in the seventh for the Braves, who advance to a best-of-five Division Series against the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers.

The Braves won a postseason series for the first time since winning the 2021 World Series and earned their first playoff series win against the Phillies. Philadelphia beat Atlanta in the 1993 NLCS and the 2022 and 2023 NLDS.

Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola was pulled after giving up three runs in 1 2/3 innings. Nola walked Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson with one out in the first before giving up the homer to Harris, who hit into two double plays in Wednesday’s 4-3 loss in 10 innings which forced Thursday night’s game.

Kerr made his postseason debut in only his fourth career start. Braves manager Walt Weiss wanted a left-hander to face Phillies left-handed hitters Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper at least once.

Kerr gave up only one hit — to Schwarber in the first — and one walk — to Schwarber in the fourth. Right-hander Grant Holmes followed Kerr and gave up one run in two innings to earn the win.

Kerr left to a standing ovation from the sellout crowd and acknowledged the cheers by lifting up his arm as he approached the dugout.

Left-hander Chris Sale, the starter in Atlanta’s 5-3 win in Tuesday’s series opener, struck out Harper to end the eighth and closed out the win in the ninth by striking out Bryan De La Cruz and pinch-hitter Otto Kemp.

Phillies right-hander Zack Wheeler, the winning pitcher in Sunday’s 7-3 victory over Tampa Bay that clinched the wild-card spot, walked Austin Riley in the fourth before giving up Albies’ homer to right field that gave Atlanta a 5-0 lead. Wheeler gave up two runs in four innings. Jonathan Bowlan, Philadelphia’s fourth pitcher, gave up Olson’s homer to center field.

Kerr, 32, flourished in the postseason spotlight. He pitched in only nine games after being recalled by Atlanta on Aug. 16. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2024 and didn’t pitch in 2025.

Philadelphia’s 2022 World Series loss to Houston began a streak of five straight postseason appearances with progressively quicker exits — the NL Championship Series, two NLDS exits and now the wild-card loss.

Yemeni government forces have advanced in western Taiz after successfully repelling a Houthi offensive.

Armed forces affiliated with Yemen’s internationally recognised government have retaken positions from the Houthis and are advancing in the southwestern Taiz province as clashes intensify.

Reporting from Taiz on Monday, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Yasser Hassan said forces loyal to the Saudi Arabia-backed Yemeni government advanced in western Taiz on Sunday after successfully repelling a Houthi offensive.

“This comes with the support of air strikes targeting Houthi gatherings. The air force continues to bomb the Houthis. On the west coast in Mocha, Dhubab, and their surroundings,” Hassan said, citing a source in government forces.

In a statement on Monday, the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (supporters of God), said they launched attacks on targets in Saudi Arabia using dozens of ballistic missiles and drones.

The group said the attacks targeted “military facilities and infrastructure, including aircraft hangars, radar installations, runways, ammunition depots and other targets at King Khalid airbase in Khamis Mushait”, Saudi Arabia.

It said the attacks were a response to a Saudi offensive, which involved more than 300 air strikes across Yemen over five days.

There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia on the Houthi claims.

On Sunday, the Saudi civil defence agency sent alerts for the city of Abha and the region around Khamis Mushait, but they were quickly lifted shortly afterwards.

Fighting in Yemen’s more than 10-year civil war reignited in July, threatening a United Nations-brokered truce that halted large-scale violence in 2022, after the Houthis declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia and began targeting its ships in the Red Sea.

The fighting soon spilled over beyond the country’s borders, with the Houthis carrying out air attacks on southern Saudi Arabia, including oil facilities. Dozens of people were wounded in those attacks.

Clashes in Yemen intensified last week after the Houthis captured parts of the country’s Red Sea coast, fortifying their hold on the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a key waterway which handles about 12 percent of global trade, including 11 percent of maritime oil and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The waterway has been an economic lifeline for Saudi Arabia and its oil exports, as the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively blocked by Iranian forces since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran in February.

The Houthis captured more strategic islands in the southern Red Sea, The Associated Press news agency reported on Monday, citing Yemeni government and Houthi officials.

Houthi fighters were deployed on the islands of Greater Hanish and Lesser Hanish about 86 nautical miles (160km) north of the Bab al-Mandeb, according to two government officials and a Houthi official, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration said on Sunday the fighting in Yemen in recent weeks had displaced nearly 86,000 people.

It added that some of those displaced by the conflict were fleeing Yemen altogether, with more than 2,000 people reaching neighbouring country Djibouti.

The rapid Houthi advance down Yemen’s Red Sea coast this week is an astonishing military victory, but not quite the game-changer it is being portrayed as.

The group has been able to threaten the vitally important shipping route, but they have been doing so since 2023. This new victory consolidates that control, proving that Yemen’s government is not currently in a position to defeat them.

The prior Houthi control over the northern section of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, including the major port city of Hodeidah, has allowed the Iran-allied rebel group, for years, to first attack shipping linked to Israel and the United States – and then, in recent months, Saudi Arabian-linked vessels.

That control also damaged the global economy. Long before the US war with Iran and the transformation of the Strait of Hormuz into a tool to throttle international trade, Houthi attacks around Yemen had turned Bab al-Mandeb into a similar weapon, and led to bombing campaigns against the Houthis by the US, the United Kingdom, and Israel.

Houthi officials themselves have emphasised this, with one leading official, Abdulqader al-Murtada, saying earlier this week that the group did “not need control over Bab al-Mandeb, for the blockade [on Saudi ships] is already in place”. Al-Murtada could point Saudi ships that have avoided Bab al-Mandeb since the Houthis began attacking them in July, even before their latest progress.

However, the Houthi lightning advance makes it even easier for the group to disrupt shipping. They now have access to the Red Sea’s narrow entry point and several islands in it, allowing them to use shorter-range weapons and more easily reach vessels they want to attack and board, as well as potentially using sea mines to further restrict shipping.

Not going away

The increase in the Houthi ability to target shipping – even with the caveats outlined above – does have an impact on market sentiment. Oil prices have increased as traders price in the ability for Iran and its allies to disrupt shipping in Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, the two maritime chokepoints of the southern Arabian Peninsula.

However, the consequences of this advance are not limited to the increased ability of the Houthis to attack shipping, but to the increasing reality that the Houthi problem on the Red Sea is not going away.

For months, after Saudi Arabia backed a Yemeni government campaign against southern Yemeni separatist forces earlier this year, the mood had shifted in the country’s anti-Houthi camp.

The perception was that the Yemeni government, led by the Presidential Leadership Council, had finally gotten its act together. President Rashad al-Alimi repeatedly spoke of a unified military chain of command, allowing the military to overcome the divisions blamed for its inability to defeat the Houthis.

Yemeni and Saudi officials had hinted at an anti-Houthi campaign all year. The Red Sea coastline was a possible location: the largely flat geography suited the government, allowing Saudi Arabia to effectively use its air power; much of the population is not made up of the Houthis’ traditional support base; and prior Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping meant that there would likely be international buy-in for such a campaign.

The seizure of the Red Sea coastline has broken all of those narratives.

The momentum the Yemeni government thought it had, even at the start of this week when it claimed advances in al-Jawf, to the east of the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, is now gone.

After months of projecting unity, Yemen’s anti-Houthi camp is once again turning on itself, trading accusations of blame for the defeat.

Saudi dilemma

The message the Houthis have for Saudi Arabia is clear: ‘Your partners in Yemen can’t defeat us.’

Therefore, the potential Houthi argument is that Saudi Arabia has to make a deal with them and agree to their terms, including Riyadh funding public sector salaries, access to income from Yemen’s oil and gas reserves, and no restrictions on flights and shipping to Houthi-controlled ports.

The Houthis have an incentive to lock in their gains and raise the cost of escalation before Saudi-backed Yemeni forces can reorganise.

Their attacks on Saudi Arabia, escalating in the past week, have been damaging, and the group is promising more if Riyadh increases its military support for the Yemeni government.

The risk of any such intervention is clearly there for Saudi Arabia. But so is the risk of inaction. The Houthis have repeatedly demanded more concessions when they were in positions of strength.

With the Yemen war unresolved, the Houthis may decide to escalate again in the future, even if a deal is agreed now.

And so, policymakers in Riyadh could determine that it makes more sense to make a concerted effort to deal with the problem head-on now, rather than allow it to fester into the future.