Submarine Force Commander Highlights Innovation, AUKUS Integration at Exercise Lanternfish 26

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.— Vice Adm. Rick Seif, Commander Submarine Forces, engaged with defense industry professionals and AUKUS partners during the Distinguished Visitor Day for Exercise LANTERNFISH 2026 at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story on June 24.

The event showcased AUKUS Pillar II Subsea Seabed Warfare-driven rapid integration of commercial unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) and subsea technologies designed to enhance defensive subsea and seabed warfare capabilities. As the seabed becomes increasingly contested, protecting critical undersea infrastructure such as global communications cables and energy grids has emerged as a key national security focus.

“The seabed is a warfighting domain,” said Seif. “It is a challenging operating environment that holds the vital infrastructure keeping our global communications and energy grids online. LANTERNFISH demonstrates our commitment to working alongside our AUKUS partners to monitor, detect, and deter threats in this critical environment.”

LANTERNFISH 26 serves as a practical execution of AUKUS Pillar II. The exercise brought together the U.S. Navy, United Kingdom Ministry of Defense explosive ordnance disposal units, Royal Australian Navy UUV Operators and defense industry professionals to build seamless interoperability. The primary goal was to test how developmental allied systems can integrate to fight as a unified force to deter adversaries in the Indo-Pacific.

The multi-week exercise executed simultaneously across Keyport, Wa., Panama City, Fl., and Monterey Bay, Ca., with theater command and control directed from Norfolk, Va. The execution required the simultaneous, in-water integration of 50 distinct technologies sourced from 26 separate industry partners.

At the Little Creek facility, operators from Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Group One (UUVGRU 1) and allied partners provided static displays demonstrating how these diverse commercial assets were successfully synchronized into cohesive tactical vignettes.

“We laid out an open challenge to our industry partners,” said Seif. “Seeing twenty-six different industry partners bring fifty distinct technologies to the table proves that we can rapidly bridge the gap between commercial innovation and fleet integration.”

By bringing diverse technologies from various industry partners into a single distributed exercise, LANTERNFISH 26 forces rapid integration. This environment allows the Navy to apply recent deployment lessons, evaluate commercial concepts in real time, and build a concrete capability roadmap for fiscal year 2027.

U.S. Submarine Forces execute the Department of the Navy’s mission in and from the undersea domain. In addition to lending added capacity to naval forces, Submarine Forces are expected to leverage those special advantages that come with undersea concealment to permit operational, deterrent, and combat effects that the Navy and the Nation could not otherwise achieve.

U.S. Submarine Forces and supporting organizations constitute the primary undersea arm of the Navy. Submarines and their crews remain the tip of the undersea spear.