Australia's Department of Defence reported on 9 November that Australian, British and US teams completed a three-week Maritime Big Play Pacific demonstration around San Diego. Defence called it the partners' largest demonstration of interoperable maritime autonomous systems to date. The activity used uncrewed aircraft, surface craft and large underwater vehicles in realistic scenarios.
Missions and enabling technology
Defence lists intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, contested resupply, an anti-submarine warfare barrier and underwater warfare experimentation among the exercise activities. It also says acoustic communication technology enabled underwater vehicles to collaborate over greater distances. The announcement marks the culmination of a three-year Maritime Big Play series. It gives no platform-by-platform test matrix, distance measurements or named vehicle-to-payload results.
What changed since earlier announcements
Earlier Australian and UK announcements described modular payload work for Ghost Shark, Speartooth and BlueBottle and planned AUKUS underwater payload development. This release reports completion and broad outcomes of the Pacific exercise; it does not prove that every proposed payload was fitted or qualified on those vehicles. Demonstrated interoperability in an exercise should be distinguished from procurement, fleet service and operational acceptance. Detailed test reports would be needed to establish which configurations met defined requirements.
Publication history
- — Added Australia's exercise-completion report with cross-domain missions and acoustic communications, separating aggregate claims from configuration-specific results.
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Follow the evidence
Source types identify who makes the claim. Programme milestones and supplier statements should be read in context.
- Australian Department of Defence, Maritime Big Play Pacific, 9 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)Government exercise report
