By Scott R. Gourley
TAMPA, Florida — Naval Special Warfare operators are working on a short timeline to ensure the rapid integration of equipment and technologies to optimize their capabilities.
Capt. Jared Wyrick, Special Operations Command’s program executive officer for maritime, measures his modernization timeline against the so-called “Davidson Window,” a timeframe named after a 2021 warning by then-Indo-Pacific Command Commander Adm. Philip Davidson, who indicated that the Chinese were on a potential military readiness path to invade Taiwan by 2027.
“Thanks to a lot of attention from our leadership across the entire DoD, when I look at our portfolio, I don’t think about it at the strategic — the DoD level — where you see a lot of the talk,” Wyrick said. “I look at it in [2027] at the operator level.”
“Now, I’m also aware that we’re not the best at predicting when a major confrontation will occur, but I still think we need to be tracking towards something as a pacesetter,” he said during a recent briefing to industry at the SOF Week conference in Tampa, Florida.
Using January 2027 as that pacesetter date, Wyrick said there are currently young sailors graduating from boot camp, initial technical training, specialized training, officer candidate school and the Special Warfare Combat Crewman school who will be using gear now under development during their first sea tour.
“You [industry] here in this room are what’s going to help us ensure that their kit is loaded to the max extent possible, to ensure they are poised to succeed when that window opens up,” he said.
“We have to work to ensure that every ounce they have is filled with only the best equipment, with no wasted space or something not fully committed to ensuring that their lethality and survivability is higher than anyone else in the arena,” he added.
Recent changes on the battlefield itself are influencing what this future kit might look like, he said.
“If you had asked us five years ago today, I’d be shocked if any of us could have predicted what a battlefield right now looks like. How many would have envisioned thousands of miles of fiber optic cables thrown across fields? You’ve got people in trenches, but you also have people on heads-up displays and laptops. You’ve got enemy warships and enemy airplanes being shot down by unmanned systems — and that just happened this weekend,” he said.
Program Executive Office Maritime typically does not receive equipment from its parent service, the Navy. Rather, the majority of platforms are “special operations peculiar,” meaning that they are not only specifically built to meet Naval Special Warfare requirements, but also that the program office’s responsibilities include full life cycle system management, from requirements definition to retirement, disposal and system replacement.
In terms of defining requirements, Wyrick said the process begins with special operators at the table to talk through their needs.
“And as we go, we want to keep pushing for faster ways to get to ‘yes,’ from contracting strategies to testing protocols to creative material and production solutions that help us continue to find new ways to tackle those old problems and new ways to eliminate tomorrow’s problems,” he said.
Program offices within PEO Maritime cover a tactical spectrum of surface systems, undersea systems, maritime technology, undersea special mission systems, combat diving and expeditionary mobility.
The surface systems portfolio, for example, includes the Combatant Craft Heavy, Combatant Craft Medium, Combatant Craft Assault, Special Operations Craft – Riverine, Next-Gen Combatant Craft Forward Looking Infrared and Maritime Precision Engagement.
The program office is currently sustaining the first three Combatant Craft Heavy platforms — manufactured by Vigor Works LLC — while production is ongoing of the fourth and fifth boats by Fincantieri Marinette Marine.
Meanwhile, 31 of the Combatant Craft Medium have been fielded. Initial market research and discussions with industry are ongoing for a new follow-on to those platforms.
Production and delivery of additional Special Operations Craft – Riverine vessels by U.S. Marine Inc. are also ongoing to maintain a fleet of 24. That follows two years of presidential drawdown requests for the platforms to support efforts in Ukraine.
Emphasis on placing the forward-looking infrared sensors on the combat crafts will shift toward requirements development for a next-generation FLIR system, Wyrick said.
Installation of the Maritime Precision Engagement standoff weapons starts on multiple surface platforms beginning this fiscal year, and there is some exploration of introducing new “non-kinetic capabilities” for future applications, he added.
The undersea systems portfolio includes the SEAL Delivery Vehicle, Dry Combat Submersible, Dry Deck Shelter, Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle and Uncrewed Surface Vehicle.
The SEAL Delivery Vehicle fleet transition is currently underway to replace the MK 8 MOD 1 SDVs with new MK 11s from Teledyne Brown Engineering. Enhancements will include Intel Core i7 processors, an enhanced ethernet backbone, improved software and user interface, increased cargo and payload capacity and increased range.
Ten MK 11s were delivered to Naval Special Warfare units between 2018 and 2024, with a bridging strategy that has kept four of the MK 8 MOD 1 boats in inventory for a total of 14 SEAL Delivery Vehicles, although the MK 8 MOD 1 boats are projected to leave service over the next 18 months, Wyrick said.
With initial operational capability in fiscal year 2023 and full operational capability in 2024, the Dry Combat Submersible provides special operators with a multi-mission platform with diverse mission sets, Wyrick said. The acquisition strategy has featured a full and open competition for a production representative system with options for up to two additional systems, he added.
The Dry Deck Shelter is a certified diving system that attaches to the decks of modified submarines, providing a large interface to allow deployment and retrieval of special operators and equipment while remaining submerged. Originally delivered to the fleet in the 1990s, the systems are heavily used, with command representatives acknowledging that five of the shelters are currently in use across the fleet.
Due to their heavy use — and conceptual plans to keep them operational through 2040 — significant emphasis is placed on overhaul and maintenance, with the current shelters’ maintenance contract awarded in 2018 to Oceaneering International Inc.’s marine services division. Current Naval Special Warfare plans are to release a request for proposals for a follow-on five-year maintenance contract later this summer, with contract award expected in fiscal year 2026, officials at the conference said.
In addition to maintaining current Dry Dock Shelters, planning began last year on a next-generation system, or DDSNext, a concept that will leverage the strengths of both legacy and modified shelters and be compatible with both current and future Virginia-class submarines. Potential capabilities of the next-generation shelter will include supporting wet manned submersible missions, unmanned platform missions and mass swimmer lockout missions.
As for robotic systems, the Small Class Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle enables access to high threat areas in the maritime domain, expands access and reach into littorals and reduces risk to naval personnel or manned platforms. The acquisition strategy calls for procurement of a service-common UUV program of record and then augmenting that system with special operations peculiar modifications.
Initial operational capability for the platform was achieved in 2021, with a transition underway from acquisition of the MK 18 MOD 1 — based on a REMUS 100 vehicle — to the MOD 3 Lionfish, which is based on a REMUS 300 vehicle.
During the underwater robotics program briefing in Tampa, Navy representatives pointed to an “imminent” release of a request for information for a “smaller UUV” focused on a form that could better integrate in a SEAL Delivery Vehicle and more easily be used in submarine lockout operations.
That RFI, which was subsequently published on May 19 by Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division, stated a requirement that it be “less than 45 inches in length” and “less than 200 pounds threshold” in weight — an objective weight of 120 pounds or less.
Another unmanned program, the Small Class Uncrewed Surface Vehicle, provides forces access in contested areas and the ability to deliver scalable effects for both short and long-endurance missions.
The acquisition strategy calls for procurement of commercial off-the-shelf small boats that are subsequently augmented with purpose-built modular plug-and-play sensors and payloads to meet special ops peculiar requirements. Upcoming program milestones include the planned fiscal year 2027 procurement of 13 short-endurance and 12 long-endurance USVs, according to information provided at the conference.
Other critical elements within the maritime portfolio range from combat diving to maritime technology.
According to Jim Knudson, program manager for combat diving within PEO Maritime, the overall strategy in this area is to take off-the-shelf items “and blend those with thresholds and objectives to turn that equipment into key pieces of SOF gear for the combat diver today.”
Knudson identified a range of representative requirement areas within the combat diving arena as maritime environmental protection, including enhanced thermal regulation; life support systems, including an excursion-capable oxygen underwater breathing apparatus; diver navigation; diver propulsion; and underwater communication.