The U.S. Navy’s newest generation of drone ships will be built at several Louisiana shipyards after the Pentagon announced plans to buy 30 crewless boats at a total cost of $1.2 billion from a trio of defense contractors.
In late September, the Navy placed orders with Austin-based Saronic Technologies , Virginia-based Huntington Ingalls Industries and Houma-based Edison Chouest. Each will build 10 autonomous boats in Louisiana at an average cost of $40 million each, with the first deliveries due by October 2027.
The purchase is the latest bright spot for Louisiana’s shipbuilding industry, where the number of jobs has fallen by 70% since its peak in the late 1990s. But with the Trump administration ramping up maritime military investment, the sector is poised for growth.
“If you look at what was already here, plus the relationships we have and the skills we have, it makes sense that it's coming together so big,” Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois said.
A Marauder in the water at Saronic's Franklin shipyard. As of October 2026, the company had begun production of a sixth Marauder, with two already in the water. Courtesy of Saronic Technologies
Each of the three contractors will be building different models. Navy officials laid out their requirements, let companies propose their own designs and tested them at sea. Those that passed have been added to a Defense Department "drone marketplace" — a pool of approved vendors military buyers can order from.
Saronic’s design — the 180-foot Marauder — will be built in Franklin, where the venture capital-backed startup last year purchased the former Gulf Craft shipyard and embarked on a $300 million expansion.
Huntington Ingalls Industries will divide construction of its 151-foot Romulus ships between Breaux Brothers Enterprises in the New Iberia area and Halimar Shipyard in Morgan City.
And Edison Chouest, which has not disclosed details about its model, will build its share of the ships at its LaShip shipyard in Terrebonne Parish, according to Navy officials. The company did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Making headway
The deal is a significant win for Louisiana's shipbuilding industry.
Two decades ago, some 14,500 people were employed in ship and boat building. As of last year, that number had declined to 4,900, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Much of that can be attributed to closure of Avondale Shipyard, formerly the state’s largest private employer, on account of Huntington Ingalls consolidating its Gulf Coast operations in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Now, the Navy push for more smaller, crewless ships is bringing some work back to Louisiana shipyards. And Bourgeois said the state’s supply of skilled workers and shipbuilding infrastructure gives it a head start.
“We have a workforce that has worked in the shipbuilding industry before we began to really see the dramatic decrease in those jobs,” Bourgeois said. “So we have the advantage of being able to just simply turn that back on."
In Iberia Parish, Breaux Brothers has already begun scaling up operations to produce at least five Romulus boats next year.
Owner and President Brannan Breaux said he’s looking to add 20 to 30 new workers to his staff of 75 — and even more if he embarks on a contemplated expansion of his 6-acre shipyard.
Workers at Breaux Brothers in New Iberia build a Romulus drone boat for Huntington Ingalls Industries. Courtesy HII
Though it will be his company’s first uncrewed vessel, Breaux said its 43 years of experience building custom aluminum hull boats for the offshore drilling industry has been good preparation for producing the Romulus.
“It's basically a glorified (fast supply vessel) with a bunch of electronics on it that makes it an autonomous vessel,” Breaux said. “So we basically build an FSV that would typically go work in the Gulf for the oil field, but strip down a lot of things that're unneeded because it's unmanned.”
Prototype procurement
The 10-ship orders could be the first of more in the future. That's because the Navy used an “other transaction” agreement that allows for follow-up orders without another round of bidding instead of going through the standard procurement process.
"Our message to the defense industrial base is simple: build fast, deliver on time, and match the urgency of the threat,” Hung Cao, acting secretary of the Navy, said in a release announcing the purchase.
In its request for prototype proposals in April, it required the new boats, known as medium unmanned surface vessels, to “operate autonomously and carry containerized payloads,” meaning two 40-foot shipping containers that can be loaded up with weapons or other equipment.
A rendering shows Huntington Ingalls Industries' Romulus medium uncrewed vessel. Courtesy HII
The new boats needed to be able to travel about 2,900 miles at nearly 29 mph in moderately wavy conditions and be able to continue navigating by themselves without emitting any radio signals. They also had to be ready for action within 18 months.
In June, the Navy picked seven companies to prove their prototypes at sea in more than 140 scenarios, testing their ability to spot other vessels using only their sensors, properly steer around other ships and complete a preset 483-mile course.
“Marauder went from initial design to on-the-water in under a year, and this evaluation demonstrated that the platform holds up under the Navy’s own toughest testing,” Dino Mavrookas, CEO and co-founder of Saronic, said in a release.
Saronic, which was valued at $9.25 billion in its latest funding round, aims to have the capacity to produce up to 20 Marauders a year at its Franklin shipyard. Earlier this year, it opened an office in New Orleans' Central Business District for the engineers, architects and other specialists working on the ships. The company now employs more than 400 people in Louisiana, and expects to hire more as demand grows.
Last month, the company broke ground on a $3.2 billion shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, that will more than double the nation’s current commercial shipbuilding capacity. Louisiana had been a finalist in the company's site selection.
The next phase of medium drone boat procurement has already begun. The Navy will begin reviewing new proposals next month and plans to keep taking them for five years.
Email Jonah Meadows at jonah.meadows@theadvocate.com or message him on Signal at meadows.504
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