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U.S. Special Forces Operate Helicopter From Autonomous Barge for the First Time
A U.S. Army MH-47G Chinook from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment conducted landing and replenishment operations from a Sea Machines autonomous barge in a first publicly disclosed demonstration of its kind. The vessel used the company's SM300 autonomy package, an architecture that can convert different hulls to long-range uncrewed operation and support resupply of aircraft, surface vessels or shore sites. The trial shows how a low-cost maritime platform could extend distributed special-operations aviation logistics, although it demonstrated a concept rather than announcing a deployed barge fleet or combat capability.