U.S. Navy Explores Low-Cost Unmanned Combat Vessels with Textron’s MMUSV.

Textron Inc. says its Textron Systems division has introduced the Multi-Mission Uncrewed Surface Vessel, a fifth-generation evolution of the Common Uncrewed Surface Vessel, aimed at meeting growing U.S. Navy and allied demand for affordable maritime autonomy. The platform reflects a broader Pentagon push toward attritable, scalable unmanned systems that can extend naval reach while reducing risk to crewed ships.

On January 13, 2026, Textron Systems introduced the Multi Mission Uncrewed Surface Vessel (MMUSV), describing it as the fifth-generation evolution of its CUSV craft and positioning it as a low-cost, rapid-production answer to Navy and allied demand for unmanned surface capacity. The company says the platform is intended to stretch unmanned operations beyond dedicated mine warfare into surface warfare, ISR and SIGINT missions, with development work backed by an August 2025 Low-Cost Unmanned Maritime Solution (Large) award through the Expeditionary Mission Consortium-Crane (EMC2).
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Textron MMUSV is a multi-mission USV for mine countermeasures, ISR and SIGINT, offering up to 13,000 lb payload and fuel, autonomous navigation with swarm behaviors, and Sea State 4 operations for low-cost distributed missions (Picture source: Textron Systems).

MMUSV is being marketed as a step-change in capacity and survivability rather than a clean-sheet curiosity. Textron states the craft doubles fuel and payload capacity compared to earlier CUSV generations, reaching up to 13,000 pounds for combined fuel and mission payload, while retaining a towing rating above 4,000 pounds of force at 20 knots. In practical terms, that towing figure matters because it translates directly into the ability to pull influence-sweep or other towed payloads at tactically relevant speeds, a core requirement for modern mine countermeasures.

Sea-keeping is another deliberate design signal. Textron lists full operations in Sea State 4 and survivability up to Sea State 5, a threshold associated with roughly 4-meter waves in company literature for the CUSV family. That is not “oceanic” in the large-USV sense, but it is enough to keep unmanned craft on-station through the weather that frequently degrades small-boat operations in the Western Pacific, the North Atlantic, and the Arabian Sea.

The brochure’s most consequential line for tacticians is autonomy: collision and hazard avoidance coupled to modular mission behaviors, including “advanced swarm behaviors.” That phrasing is careful, but it hints at coordinated employment where multiple MMUSVs can distribute sensors, share contacts, and complicate an adversary’s targeting cycle. Textron also claims a 50 percent cost reduction compared to the fourth-generation CUSV and a doubled range versus that baseline, suggesting an explicit design goal of mass and persistence rather than exquisite survivability.

The mission set Textron lists maps to where the U.S. Navy feels pressure today. Mine countermeasures is the obvious anchor: Textron notes it is the originator of the CUSV used for the Navy’s Unmanned Influence Sweep System program of record, tied to the Littoral Combat Ship mine countermeasures mission package, and it is also working on next-generation minesweeping payload development. MMUSV’s larger capacity and improved sea-state operability would allow the Navy to push unmanned sweeping farther from the host ship, reducing risk to crewed platforms while sustaining tempo in mined chokepoints.

The more strategic value, however, is in distributed sensing and coercive presence inside an adversary’s weapons engagement zone. The Department of the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations concept explicitly addresses operating against a peer, particularly China, that can detect and strike surface ships with anti-ship missiles and other systems. In that context, a network of low-cost, unmanned surface nodes carrying ISR, SIGINT, and electronic warfare payloads becomes a way to extend the fleet’s eyes and ears without offering the opponent a single, high-value point of failure.

This is where MMUSV fits the broader U.S. turn toward attritable systems across domains. Pentagon leaders have framed Replicator as a push to field large numbers of attritable autonomous systems to offset an adversary’s mass and impose a punishing cost exchange. At sea, that logic is even more acute: recent conflict has reinforced how cheap uncrewed systems can force expensive intercepts and disrupt capital ships, and U.S. industry is already testing concepts to arm large maritime drones with missiles based on lessons drawn from Ukraine’s sea-drone campaign. MMUSV is not advertised as a missile truck in Textron’s release, but its payload capacity and modular bay architecture place it in the category of vessels that can credibly host containerized effects if the Navy chooses.

U.S. Navy’s unmanned surface push is converging with the drone revolution already reshaping land and air warfare: build cheaper platforms, accept losses, and use scale plus autonomy to destroy or neutralize assets the adversary cannot afford to trade away. If Textron can translate brochure claims into fleet-ready reliability, MMUSV offers a pragmatic bridge between today’s mission-specific mine warfare USVs and tomorrow’s larger autonomous combatants, while giving commanders a new option for persistent maritime pressure without putting sailors in the first wave.