HII delivers mine-hunting USV pair to US Navy

HII announced the delivery of the first two Lionfish small uncrewed undersea vehicles (UUVs) to the US Navy under a program that could scale to 200 vehicles, with a contract value exceeding $347 million.

Lionfish is based on HII’s Remus 300 platform, a modular, open-architecture UUV engineered for multi-mission adaptability, and the program was developed in collaboration with the US Navy and Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), to accelerate the adoption of dual-use commercial technologies into US Department of Defense programs.

The program is the US Navy’s first transition from a transaction prototype to full-scale production. HII said the Lionfish UUV is the first, and only, cyber-compliant uncrewed underwater vehicle.

“The success and on-time delivery of Lionfish is the product of close collaboration between the government and industry team that will put a critical mine hunting capability in the hands of sailors and marines in an operationally relevant time frame,” said Duane Fotheringham, President of Mission Technologies’ Uncrewed Systems business group.

HII was awarded the US Navy’s Lionfish system program contract in 2023, and production of the Lionfish is underway at HII’s uncrewed systems facility in Pocasset.

Lionfish is designed to address undersea warfare needs, including mine countermeasures, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), anti-submarine warfare, and electronic warfare.

The open-architecture design allows rapid payload integration, enabling mission-specific configurations and future tech insertions.