Navy hid autonomous 20-pound warhead from Congressional oversight
By Miriam Adler ·
Navy operators hid a system not of record from Congress to deploy a 20-pound warhead for autonomous attacks against command centers and SAM launchers.
The Sea Ferret weighs 145 pounds and measures 75 inches in length. According to a program description mirrored by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), this "all-weather missile" is designed to loiter for nearly two hours, reaching speeds over 300 knots, though it can slow to 80 knots for a search. It is small enough to be launched from a Sub-Harpoon missile canister or a buoyant capsule, meaning a submerged submarine can cast it into the air to provide what the document calls "real-time battlefield imaging."
While the public record describes the Sea Ferret as a reconnaissance drone, the FAS text is more explicit about its lethal intent. The device carries a 20-pound warhead. Its primary targets are not abstract strategic goals, but "smaller targets like command centers and SAM launchers."
December 1996
In late 1996, the Navy put the system through an operational demonstration in the Southern California operational areas and at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. The exercise was sponsored by the Commander Submarine Forces Pacific and involved the USS Asheville (SSN 758), a Marine Reconnaissance team, and an Army Aviation team.
To simulate an underwater launch, the Sea Ferret was attached to a Cessna 206 test aircraft. As the aircraft flew, it responded to commands transmitted to the missile, testing whether the control of the platform could be handed off from one unit to another without a break in the data stream.
During the first mission, the crew of the USS Asheville, operating at periscope depth, used the missile's daylight camera to locate an early warning radar site, a power station, and a surface-to-air missile site. The document describes a clinical hand-off of power: control was transferred from the submarine to a Marine Recon ground team to assist in the "simulated destruction of a SCUD missile."
"Not a program of record"
There is a specific kind of silence that accompanies the phrase "not a program of record." In the lexicon of defense spending, it suggests a project that exists outside the standard budgetary scrutiny of Congress, operating in the margins where oversight is optional and accountability is deferred.
For the Sea Ferret, this lack of formal status did not hinder its utility. Beyond the camera and the warhead, the missile functioned as a communications node. The FAS record notes that the different units—the submarine, the Marines, and the Army—exchanged electronic mail via laptop computer systems controlled by the missile. This allowed operators to alter the mission without using any other external communications link, creating a closed loop of surveillance and command.
On the second mission of the 1996 trials, the submarine used the drone to scout a shore area for a Marine Recon team's ingress. Once the team was inserted under the cover of night, the submarine transferred control of the missile to the Marines. The Marines, in turn, transferred control to a simulated Comanche helicopter attack force. The cycle ended when the attack force located the early warning radar and two SAM sites, one of which it "attacked."
A 20-pound warhead
The Sea Ferret represents a convergence of capabilities: the stealth of a submerged submarine, the eyes of a loitering drone, and the strike capacity of a cruise missile. The FAS text highlights its ability to conduct "precision directed or autonomous attacks on shore, sea and air targets."
The mention of "autonomous attacks" is particularly jarring. It suggests a move toward removing the human from the final decision to deploy the 20-pound warhead, replacing a moral choice with an algorithmic one. This is the logic of the "search and destroy" role mentioned in the text—a post-strike assessment to find "targets that survived the initial attack" and eliminate them.
Related files on drones and intelligence assessments exist in the NSArchive and the US National Archives, including Environmental Impact Statement files, but the specific technical evolution of the Sea Ferret remains fragmented.
The FAS mirror notes that the system had been under development by Northrop Grumman Corporation since 1991. Despite not being a program of record, the Navy indicated that interest continued to grow for further evaluations of the system after the USS Asheville trials.