DSEI UK 2025: Blue Ops launches USV 7 production

Blue Ops, a US-based uncrewed surface vessel (USV) manufacturer and subsidiary of Red Cat, announced on September 9 that it had partnered with Hodgdon Shipbuilding to produce the first five USV 7 prototypes at its facilities in the US. At DSEI UK 2025, Calibre Defence spoke with company president Barry Hinckley to learn more.

Barry confirmed that Blue Ops’ Variant 7 had begun construction with plans for boats to be in the water by December 1, 2025. Currently, Variant 7 is the only USV in production, but there are plans for Variant 5 to begin production in the near future, Barry said. 

Variant 7 is a 7-metre-long USV with a variety of capabilities, including ISR, kinetic, surface-to-air missile and UAS launch capabilities. The UAS launch capabilities currently have two launch configurations, one configuration launches a larger UAV and the other launches eight small UAVs. Variant 7 is powered by a six-cylinder marine diesel engine and can carry 1,200 litres of diesel. It can be equipped with a machine gun, according to Barry.

Blue Ops has several other models, including Variant 5, a 5-metre long USV with both kinetic and ISR capabilities, and Variant 11, an 11-metre long USV, which Barry described as essentially “a mini-aircraft carrier.” It is capable of launching 22 UAVs and the company is exploring the possibility of carrying out resupply missions in the future.

Barry stated that one key advantage of USVs is their ability to serve as a “durable advance team.” Without the drawbacks of human operators, they avoid issues such as fatigue or unnecessary supplies, ensuring that all equipment on board directly supports the mission. However, the level of human involvement increases if the USV has to deploy drones. According to Barry, kinetic UAVs can be launched and operated autonomously, requiring no human input. In contrast, ISR UAVs must be recovered and stored manually once their mission is complete.

In a previous conversation with Red Cat, the owner of Blue Ops, Stan Nowak, confirmed that the existing tech stacks and software used in its Black Widow drone were robust enough to apply to the Blue Ops USVs, with the expectation that the USVs would also have the capability of operating in a GPS-denied environment, through Doodle Labs’ frequency hopping software.

Blue Ops: Production 

The first five Variant 7 prototypes will be produced at Hodgdon Shipbuilding’s facilities in Boothbay and Damariscotta, Maine. Additionally, Blue Ops has leased a 155,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Valdosta, Georgia, to scale full-rate production of its USVs. Blue Ops is not the first company to do this, Saronic acquired Gulf Craft in April in order to accelerate its autonomous ship building. And in August, Kraken Technology Group partnered with German shipyard NVL to accelerate its USV production.

The manufacturing facility in Georgia would be able to produce 600 USVs a year on one shift per day, Barry said. However, he added that the company remains highly scalable and can increase production through multiple shifts per day if required. Additionally, Blue Ops has overflow capabilities at a second manufacturing facility in Florida, where production could be scaled to 1,100 USVs per year.

Blue Ops’ current focus is on delivering USVs to the US military, but Barry added that through the existing Foreign Military Funding and FMS Foreign Military Sales initiatives, it would be possible for US allies to acquire Blue Ops USVs.

Calibre Comment

The US Navy’s 2027 readiness goals are set to address the need to “scale robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed.” The role that USVs are expected to play is evolving, but there are definitely applications for them in terms of anti-submarine warfare and extending the sensor network of a naval group. 

By Austin Haywood, published on September 18, 2025. Credit for the lead image is Blue Ops.