US Army tests UFORCE MAGURA uncrewed surface vessels as drone carriers

What's happening: US Army soldiers used UFORCE's MAGURA V5 uncrewed surface vessels as small, fast drone carriers during a lake exercise in Michigan in mid-October 2026, the company confirmed, following earlier reports that US special forces had used Ukrainian-designed drone boats to sink a target ship at exercise Balikatan in the Philippines. The MAGURA V5, battle-proven in Black Sea operations against Russian warships, has since been developed in armed variants carrying missiles and machine guns.

Why it matters: The US Army test marks the latest step in UFORCE's push into US and NATO programmes: the company previously secured a teaming deal to build MAGURA sea drones in the US with ReconCraft and has pursued the Pentagon's SWAP-USV prize. US interest in attritable armed surface drones continues to grow alongside the service's focus on massed unmanned systems, and the Michigan exercise directly demonstrated the USV-as-drone-carrier concept on US soil.

Read more: The Defence Blog