NATO is conducting maritime uncrewed systems (MUS) experimentation in the Baltic Sea to demonstrate both the capacity to accelerate capability delivery and the importance of multi-domain operations (MDO) in building maritime situational awareness (MSA) to secure seabed infrastructure and sea lines of communication (SLOCs).
Helsinki, Finland – The experimentation is assessing the contribution of different – and layered – MUS capabilities in providing persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and threat detection and tracking. Moreover, it is putting MUS equipment into the hands of NATO operators to understand what systems and capabilities work best in what operational circumstances and conditions.
In a media briefing in Helsinki on 16 June, a NATO official said the experimentation is part of a process of building capacity to assemble significant MUS numbers to ensure NATO can generate the ISR mass it needs in a particular region.
Called Task Force X Baltic, the experimentation – running from 9 to 27 June – is a pilot activity, the first at-sea application of NATO Allied Command Transformation’s (ACT’s) overarching Task Force X concept. Task Force X is designed to enable accelerated development, acquisition, and delivery of new technology and capability, including to meet the requirements of the alliance’s new Rapid Adoption Action Plan (RAAP), an acquisition approach set to be endorsed at NATO’s Hague Summit (taking place on 24-25 June).
The capability development will be showcased at the Summit. Commander James Schnadhorst, a Royal Navy officer posted to NATO Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) as Deputy Director for Exercises and Experimentation, told a sea-day media briefing on 17 June:
“The intent is to feed the data from the vehicles into a screen in The Hague, demonstrating the use of these systems in improving our knowledge and understanding of the Baltic region,”
This feed – supported by associated video and a short demonstration – will be seen in real-time.
The Task Force X Baltic activity is designed to develop and advance MUS use and integration into NATO operations. It encompasses several phases – branded holistically as ‘Dynamic Messenger’ – that are building towards MARCOM’s ‘Dynamic Messenger’ MUS innovation exercise, taking place in Portugal later this year. Phase 1 took place off Denmark in February; Phase 2 was conducted within MARCOM’s ‘Dynamic Mariner’ exercise off Spain in March. At Phase 4 in Portugal, ‘Dynamic Messenger’ itself will enhance the difficulty level of MUS operational integration.
In this latest activity, Phase 3, testing was conducted across the Baltic/North seas region, from the Netherlands, to Denmark (including the Skagerrak/Kattegat choke point), to Poland, and to Finland. The deployment of several MUS – especially uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) – to each location indicates the scale NATO is seeking to build to provide regional deterrence presence.
Being produced by a partnership of ACT, MARCOM, the alliance’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE), and participating allies, the activity is exploring MUS technology innovation and spiral development, how MUS systems can be best employed to generate operational output, and how MUS capability can be built at speed and scale.
The activity’s objectives are to employ and understand the assets, and to fuse them together to develop a common operational picture (COP) with all assets using standardized communications ‘language’. Applied tasks include capability development, COP compilation, critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) security, persistent ISR and MDO activities, and constructing an MDO surveillance barrier to support SLOC security.
The activity’s end-state aim is to build a real-time COP covering all four geographic areas, said Cdr Schnadhorst. The challenge is consistently compiling such a picture, which includes MUS positioning and the data they collect, and integrating this picture with that of a warship.
More broadly, the activity will provide NATO’s defence planning process with an assessment of MUS assets and capabilities against requirements, aiming to offer a recommended capability pool that NATO Baltic members and others can dip into with a view to procuring operational systems by June 2026.
NATO’s focus on developing MUS capability to deal with CUI risks and wider MSA challenges is attributable in large part to the well-documented CUI incidents that occurred in the Baltic between September 2022 and December 2024. At a ‘CUI Summit’ held in Helsinki in January 2025, NATO formally established its ‘Baltic Sentry’ maritime surveillance, presence, and deterrence activity, built largely around MARCOM’s Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1) surface ship-based high-readiness naval task force.
Task Force X itself was established to accelerate delivery of uncrewed capability to support and enhance high-end crewed platforms’ operational outputs, including broadening their operational area by generating greater surveillance coverage. “We wanted to make sure we would be ready should additional incidents occur,” the NATO official said. “That’s … why there now is this enhanced presence in the Baltic Sea region, to ensure we are ready, capable, and in a position to support NATO countries as they are protecting CUI.”
“We are creating a really good opportunity for the countries, because for one country alone it is difficult to maintain the speed of relevance, and the operational advantage,” Captain David Portal, a Spanish Navy officer posted as MARCOM’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Exercises and Training, told the briefing on 16 June. “Working together, we can achieve our goals.”
As regards maintaining speed of relevance against the increasing pace of technology change, Capt Portal added that testing MUS in an operational environment helps understand what tasks they are most relevant to, and which technologies could be force multipliers in maintaining advantage.
The experimentation’s multi-domain nature is reflected in the more than 40 assets contracted by ACT and deployed by MARCOM across the four locations, including USVs, uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs). Amongst others, these assets included the following USVs: Metal Shark Relentless; Exail DRIX H8; MARTAC T12, T18, T24, T38, and M18; Couach 600 Magellan; SeaOwl Beluga; Sirehna SeaQuest S390; Saildrone Voyager; Ocean Power Technologies WAMV22; Kraken K3 Scout; Maritime Robotics; Havoc AI Rampage; MAPC GARC; and Seasats Lightfish.
UUVs included the Alseamar SeaExplorer, fitted with an acoustic sensor. UAVs included Diodon HP30 and the Hoverfly tethered system.
The latter was embarked in and flew from the Metal Shark Relentless USVs, tethered by a power and data cable. This illustrated how MDO capability can be built around MUS themselves. This combination brings endurance from both assets, and extended surveillance from the UAV. Using a UAV to add height to the USV’s sensing capability is key to expanding the MSA picture, Cdr Schnadhorst explained.
MUS vehicles were provided by France, Germany, the UK, and the US. ACT and CMRE also brought their own vehicles. CMRE brought the NATO Research Vessel Alliance too, which led on the activity’s underwater elements, including assessing the common use of MUS capability for CUI and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) tasks.
The platforms and their sensors used NATO’s emerging MUS command-and-control (C2) architecture, including: the Standardisation Agreement (STANAG) 4817 multi-domain C2 standard; the Command, Control, Communication Maritime Robotic Exploitation (C3MRE) network, which maintains the COP; and the Mainsail data integration and analysis software tool. The ability to flow MUS data through these formats and links enabled such data to be shared more widely across the alliance at an operational level. “All these systems are now connected, and information on where they are and what they are doing is being fed into different NATO commands … and [to] the biggest exercise NATO has, in terms of testing the ability for us all to work together – CWIX [Coalition Warrior Integration Exercise],” Joao Alves, a Principal Scientist at CMRE, told the 16 June briefing. “CWIX is happening in Poland right now, [and] all this information is being captured in real time.”
The presence of large numbers of platforms across the domains also underscored a core Task Force X aim. “This is a multi-domain effort. It’s not just the maritime domain …. We are open to any capability that will support military effort in any area,” said Capt Portal.
“NATO needs to be and has an aspiration to be an MDO alliance by 2030,” Captain Tuomo Mero, the Finnish Navy’s ACT representative, added. “That’s what ACT is trying to provide, both for today and tomorrow.”
