Navy moving to realign resource sponsor for UUV family

ANNAPOLIS, MD -- The Navy is in the process of moving the resource sponsorship for unmanned undersea vehicles from expeditionary warfare (N95) to undersea warfare (N97), according to a Marine Corps official.

"The N9's interpretations of [the chief of naval operation's] guidance and direction on that was . . . to try and make virtue of getting the UUV things to take advantage of our strengths, both intellectually and to align it [toward] undersea dominance," Maj. Gen. David Coffman, expeditionary warfare division director (N95), told reporters at an expeditionary warfare conference here yesterday.

Coffman also said he sees this as a Navy trend, looking at how the service works across warfare domains such as air, sea and undersea. He noted that mine countermeasures, which were a dominant topic yesterday at the conference, are an example of the Navy needing to work across domains.

"MCM is just a really challenging one because it's got all of those and part of the idea was to [put] them together. Now we're kind of thinking, well, maybe a hybrid model to that," he said.