On Thursday, Aug. 16, Naval Oceanography personnel from Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi performed maneuvers with UUVs in the Mississippi Sound.

The Navy's Fleet Survey Team (FST) prepares their UUVs — including those with sonar capability — to go up against the Naval Oceanographic Mine Warfare Center (NOMWC) and their underwater drones.

“We're going to have three boats on the water,” says Lt. Nate Brown, FST team member, via WLOX.com. “We're going to be launching two UUVs from our boat. NOMWC is launching their UUVs from their boat. We're going to be running the same pattern of collection and survey over an area to try to identify targets underwater.”

The objective of the Aug. 16 exercise was to compare equipment.

If this were wartime, the NOMWC staff and the FST team would be looking for mines outside the harbor if a potential enemy could lay mines outside the harbor where U.S. ships are docked. The goal is to have the UUVs do all the work completely underwater, without having to surface.

“The enemy can see that,” says NOMWC’s Wesley Bell. “We don't want that. We want to be underwater the whole time.”

​With a mind toward achieving this goal, the time spent on the water for this exercise was that much more valuable for everyone involved.

“Today in the navy, there's no ship that sails, no sub that sails or aircraft that flies without first the people of Naval Oceanography and the analysis that we do and the products we provide to reduce the risk of the naval service members,” says Lt. Travis Miller of the Navy’s Oceanographic Mine Warfare Center.