Mitch McConnell Asks Navy Secretary: How Do We Bring Down Cost Of Drone Development?

Forbes Breaking News

At a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) asked Navy Sec. John Phelan how to sustainably fund research into drones in the future.

Transcript

00:00Well, we've heard a lot of discussion about the amazing development of drones and what

00:07they can do in the Black Sea, for example.

00:15Without much of a navy of its own, the Ukraine use of drones has produced some pretty good

00:27results and neutralized Russia's Black Sea fleet with cheap drones.

00:38On land, more than two-thirds of the casualties since Russia's escalation have come from drones.

00:45In the Red Sea, the rebels managed to bring international shipping to a near standstill

00:53and repeatedly target U.S. Navy vessels using a mix of cheap Iranian drones and missiles.

01:03Clearly those conflicts offer valuable lessons for the Navy and Marine Corps on the future

01:09of warfare, particularly when it comes to both fielding and countering drones.

01:16What are the lessons?

01:17You've covered some of this, but I'd like to hear it one more time.

01:20What are the lessons you've learned?

01:22What are the investments you're making?

01:25What are you doing to drive down costs of producing and countering drones in the air and at sea?

01:37Thank you for the question, Senator.

01:41We are all learning lessons in real time.

01:43I'd say the one thing I would say to you as it comes to drones, and I kind of touched on

01:48it a little bit in my opening statement.

01:51How we fund our drone development is going to be very important.

01:54And I think programmatically funding it is going to be tricky because the technology is changing

02:00so quickly that if we get stuck on one program, we could end up being obsolete very quickly.

02:09We are testing a number of different drone systems undersea, on the surface, in the air.

02:14Both forces are doing a lot of incredibly good work.

02:19How that fits in with the whole force design is something we're spending a lot of time.

02:24We have to think about defense, offense, and surveillance.

02:29All the things we are doing as we speak, they are cost effective, they're very effective,

02:38and so we will continue to stay very focused on that, and I promise you we are taking learning

02:43lessons from all of the conflicts in real time and incorporating that into how we look

02:49at things.

02:50I don't know if General Smith or Admiral Kilby.

02:52I'll just go really quick.

02:53I agree with what the Secretary said.

02:55We're sharing information from the Naval European Forces Commander Admiral Munch with Admiral Koehler

03:02in the Pacific.

03:04One of our areas is called non-traditional sea denial, which is a combination of unmanned

03:09air, surface, and undersea vessels.

03:13So we are making an investment in this, and I agree with the Secretary that we have to treat

03:17it differently than our traditional platforms.

03:19But I believe it will be a mix of unmanned and manned aircraft in what we call a hybrid

03:24fleet that will be most effective for the United States Navy.

03:28Senator, we have an attack drone team at Quantico that constantly is looking to do additive manufacturing

03:34and 3D printing of our own drones.

03:36Because what I don't want to do is I don't want to be committed to one vendor and then have

03:41something better pop up, and now I'm committed to a five-year contract with one vendor.

03:45I want to be able to self-produce drones and attack munitions, one-way attack drones.

03:49We can already do that.

03:51We've demonstrated that at Quantico, and with great effect and with great efficiency and

03:55with great economic sense.

04:01Well, if there are no further questions, Senators have one week to submit additional questions

04:09for the subcommittee's official hearing record.

04:11We request your responses be received within 30 days of receiving the questions.

04:20The subcommittee stands in recess, subject to the call of the chair.

Category

Transcript

Recommended