U.S. Transfers Surveillance Drone Boats to Philippine Military

The U.S. has supplied the Philippine Navy with unmanned drone boats to help with surveillance tasks in the South China Sea, according to the Pentagon. 

During outgoing defense secretary Lloyd Austin's fourth and final trip to the Philippines this week, he visited a base on Palawan to meet a forward-deployed U.S. training unit - dubbed Task Force Ayungin, after the Philippine name for a hotly-contested shoal in the Spratly Islands. 

Philippine sailors walked Austin through their inventory of American-built Mantas T-12 drone boats. These small high speed surveillance craft measure about 12 feet in length and have a range of about 30-40 miles, making them suitable for short-distance, light-payload applications. Images released by the Department of Defense appear to show a Starlink terminal mounted on a deck hatch, along with a FLIR night vision camera system. The transfer also included at least one Mantas T-38, a larger and more capable speedboat-sized unit. 

More USV transfers are expected under a $500 million defense assistance package for Manila. "These developments ensure that the Philippines has the capabilities it needs to defend its rights and its sovereignty throughout its exclusive economic zone," Austin said in a statement. 

An enlisted officer with the Task Force told DefenseScoop that there are four T-12s and one T-38 on Palawan, the province nearest the disputed Spratly Archipelago and the home base for Philippine military operations in the region. The next assistance package will include a significant investment in cyber readiness for the Philippine military to ensure that it can maintain command and control of its new unmanned assets, Austin told the outlet. 

“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to help [Philippines Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro] increase his domain awareness, his ability to protect his sovereign territory and his interests — and cyber plays a critical role in that respect," Austin said.