SOUTHCOM looks to acquire Special Mission Vessel ‘mothership’ for maritime operations

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is on the way to acquiring a Special Mission Vessel (SMV) capable of transporting helicopters and uncrewed systems.

Specifically, the US Navy issued a request for information (RFI) on 20 July 2026 delineating the vessel’s specifications: it will be 300-400 ft in (91.4 to 121.9 m) long, with a sustained speed of at least 10 kts (18.5 km/h) and a range of 9,600 nautical miles (17,779 km) at 10 kts. The ship must be able to conduct “primary operations and survive in Beaufort Wind Scale 6 (Sea State 5) or greater” while also being able to perform boat launch and recovery operations in Beaufort Wind Scale 4 (Sea State 4).

As for the platforms on board, the SMV will have a flight deck/helicopter pad capable of launching and recovering Sikorsky SH-60, MH-60 Seahawk, MH-60T Jayhawk, and MH-65 Dolphin helicopters, as well as the capability to launch and recover vertical take-off Class 2/3 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Moreover, the SMV must have a non-deck-crane-based small boat launch and recovery system capable of supporting various boats between 24 and 44 ft (7.3 to 13.4 m) in length and weighing up to 35,000 lb (15,875 kg). A support crane is also required for the emergency recovery of UAVs/unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and other watercraft.

The vessel’s weapon systems will include anti-terrorism/force protection (AT/FP) .50 cal machine gun mounts and a storage facility for small arms is also required.

Interested parties who want to submit a proposal for the requirement have until 19 August 2026.

The announcement in itself is not new, as SOUTHCOM has considered the acquisition of this type of ship for some time. The author of this commentary published an analysis of SOUTHCOM’s role in the development of the US Navy fleet back in February 2025 for Janes. A SOUTHCOM spokesperson interviewed at the time stated, “Our next step is a navy mother ship and to continue to integrate contractor-owned, contractor-operated (COCO) USVs into that mother ship to truly be a hybrid fleet.” A year-and-a-half later, an RFI has finally been released.

The announcement of the SMV comes at a time when the US military continues to test and adopt uncrewed systems into daily operations. The US Navy, in particular, continues working toward the development of a larger, more modern, hybrid fleet in which uncrewed systems like uncrewed surface vessels and uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) support crewed hulls.

As Warsight recently discussed, the Command created the SOUTHCOM Autonomous Warfare Command (SAWC) in April 2026. In a May podcast for War on the Rocks, SOUTHCOM commander General Francis Donovan explained that SAWC will “direct[ly] report to me” and will be “initially led by a Marine colonel,” specifically Colonel Ian Fletcher, formerly of the II Marine Expeditionary Force. If SOUTHCOM does acquire an SMV, the ship will help test new technologies under the umbrella of SAWC.

The US military has increased its operations across the Eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea over the past year-and-a-half as Washington is focused on cracking down on maritime drug trafficking via Operation ‘Southern Spear’. The US military also led Operation ‘Absolute Resolve’ in January 2026 in Venezuela and participated in a humanitarian operation in the same country after two major earthquakes hit the coast on 24 June.

The fight against drug smugglers continues across SOUTHCOM’s maritime area of operations. The landing platform dock USS San Antonio (LPD 17) participated in early July in the relief mission in Venezuela and it is now back in the Caribbean, adopting a “warfighting posture in support of missions to disrupt cartels and narco-terrorist networks in the Western Hemisphere”, the command said in a social media post. On 20 July Joint Inter-Agency Task Force South “spearheaded a multinational effort to disrupt a go-fast vessel transit” that resulted in the seizure of almost three tons of cocaine.