Pentagon Pulling Guard Selects Raytheon to Shield U.S. Sealift From Drone Boat Threats.

RTX’s Raytheon has been selected by DARPA to provide sensing and targeting systems for Pulling Guard, pairing semi-autonomous escort craft with airborne sensors to shield unarmed U.S. sealift and merchant vessels from unmanned surface threats. The program signals a shift toward scalable, remotely supervised convoy defense with less reliance on high-end warships.

RTX’s Raytheon has been tapped by DARPA to deliver an advanced sensing and targeting package for Pulling Guard, a program designed to give unarmed commercial shipping and naval logistics vessels a fighting chance against fast-evolving maritime threats such as unmanned surface vehicles. Announced on February 2, 2026, the award signals a deliberate shift in how the United States is thinking about convoy protection: keep engagement authority under remote human supervision, but inject enough autonomy that a single operator can oversee multiple escort systems over a secure connection. The ambition is not to build another high-end combatant. It is to field a modular escort capability that can be bolted onto existing sealift and merchant hulls, scaled quickly, and refreshed as the threat evolves.
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DARPA's Pulling Guard pairs a towed semi-autonomous escort craft with tethered aerial sensors to spot and defeat hostile small boats and USVs, giving unarmed logistics and merchant ships a scalable, modular layer of convoy protection without relying on high-end warships (Picture source: DARPA).

DARPA’s own program materials describe a semi-autonomous platform intended to enhance the survivability of unarmed logistics vessels, with threats primarily in the uncrewed surface vehicle category. The artwork DARPA released is unusually revealing for an early-stage effort: an armed, remotely operated tow-behind surface craft is depicted engaging hostile small boats while an overwatch drone provides elevated detection and threat classification for the host vessel. That pairing matters tactically. A low-profile surface craft trailing the ship can carry sensors and effectors without forcing major modifications to the merchant hull, while a tethered or organic airborne node pushes the detection horizon outward and reduces reaction time against fast-closing contacts.

The U.S. rationale is clear and increasingly urgent. Commercial and military sealift ships still move through predictable routes and chokepoints where asymmetric attackers can concentrate cheap systems against high-value cargoes. The Navy has traditionally leaned on premium assets like guided-missile destroyers to protect key routes, but scaling that model is becoming unsustainable. Pulling Guard is DARPA’s wager that convoy defense can be distributed and service-like, shifting routine protection tasks to unmanned escorts that are affordable enough to deploy broadly, including in peacetime deterrence patrols and crisis surges.

The most important capability is the kill chain compression that Pulling Guard aims to deliver. The system is built around integrating and marinizing existing sensors and effectors, with modularity in both hardware and software so components can be swapped as threat profiles evolve. In a realistic escort scenario, the airborne overwatch element cues the surface platform with early classification of ambiguous contacts such as fast skiffs, explosive-laden USVs, or low-profile craft attempting to blend into sea clutter. The escort craft can then maneuver to place itself between the threat axis and the towed vessel, maintain standoff from the host ship, and present a dedicated defensive firing and jamming arc without exposing a merchant crew to close combat.

Raytheon’s announced work package hints at how DARPA wants performers to approach the problem technically. The company says its system will combine EO/IR sensors, advanced detection software, and robust command-and-control, with sensors deployed via a tethered drone connected to a semi-autonomous unmanned platform towed by commercial and naval logistics vessels. Importantly, Phase One emphasizes simulated engagements to validate performance and operator workflows, while Phase Two transitions toward integrating operational launchers and effectors for live operations. That sequence signals a hard focus on human-machine teaming and rules-based engagement design before putting real weapons on the line.

DARPA is also pushing a less visible, but arguably decisive, technical demand: resilient software that starts secure and builds capability, with a preference for formal methods that can generate machine-checkable evidence of software performance. In escort missions where communications can be jammed, spoofed, or intermittently denied, autonomy is only useful if commanders trust it. Formal methods will not make the sea less chaotic, but they can reduce the risk that a cyber flaw or edge-case autonomy failure turns an escort craft into a liability alongside civilian shipping.

From a programmatic standpoint, Pulling Guard is structured to push quickly toward operationally relevant prototypes and then into commercial transition. DARPA outlines two phases: an 18-month Development Phase and a 21-month Integration, Manufacturing, and Commercial Transition phase, with multiple performers early and a reduced set later. The Development Phase is expected to split work between platform development and sensor or kill-chain development, forcing cross-performer agreement on physical and digital interfaces. Separately, the solicitation framing emphasizes an ecosystem in which two commercial entities provide semi-autonomous point-defense overwatch and escort systems as an escort service in partnership with DoD. That language is a clear indicator DARPA is thinking beyond a one-off prototype and toward repeatable, deployable capability.

Industry already appears to be aligning around that model. Saronic was identified as a participant, with the company emphasizing modularity, standardized interfaces, and a pathway to protection as a service that could persist beyond the R&D effort. Saronic’s existing product line illustrates the type of commercial hardware-based DARPA wants to exploit: its 24-foot Corsair autonomous surface vessel is advertised as modular, with a 1,000+ nautical mile range, 35+ knot top speed, and roughly 1,000-pound payload capacity. In the same market tier, firms like Metal Shark have promoted compact military USVs such as the 21-foot HSMUSV designed for unmanned operation with human-in-the-loop control, a relevant design philosophy for escort missions near civilian traffic.

The rest of the Pulling Guard team will likely be a mosaic of payload and systems suppliers rather than a single prime doing everything. The modular escort craft can accept stabilized EO/IR turrets, compact surface-search radars, electronic support measures, acoustic cueing, and AIS fusion for maritime pattern-of-life, with C2 nodes built to share tracks to remote operators and, when authorized, to naval commanders. On the effector side, the program’s stated intent to integrate operational launchers in later phases suggests a menu that could range from remotely operated guns and dazzlers to small interceptors and non-kinetic counter-swarm effects, selected for legality, collateral-control, and cost per engagement.

Pulling Guard is DARPA’s attempt to unbundle convoy protection into affordable modules that can be towed, networked, supervised, and refreshed faster than the threat can iterate. If the program succeeds, it could give the United States and partners a scalable way to defend sea lines of communication without permanently tying up frontline combatants, while also creating a commercial escort services market that can surge in crisis and persist in the gray zone.

Written by Evan Lerouvillois, Defense Analyst.

Evan studied International Relations, and quickly specialized in defense and security. He is particularly interested in the influence of the defense sector on global geopolitics, and analyzes how technological innovations in defense, arms export contracts, and military strategies influence the international geopolitical scene.