A US Navy Warship 3D-Printed 1,000 Parts and 12 Drones at Sea

Manufacturing Underway in Sea State 5

Firestorm Labs deployed its containerized xCell manufacturing platform aboard the USS Essex for a two-week trial that sailed from San Diego to Hawaii. The ship faced sea state 5 conditions, with waves reaching 12 feet, and the printers kept running. The team produced more than 1,000 components and assembled 12 Squall first-person-view drones before the vessel arrived for RIMPAC 2026.

The demonstration was organized through the Naval Postgraduate School CAMRE network and facilitated by FLEETWERX. The goal was simple: prove that warships can manufacture their own spare parts and drone fleets without waiting for shore-based resupply.

What They Actually Printed

Hardware fell into three buckets. First, mechanical test pieces to validate the printers under maritime conditions. Second, parts for Squall FPV drones. Third, crew-requested repair items that would normally require a supply chain.

The crew asked for more than 20 specific items. The list included deck tie-down inspection gauges, reverse-engineered valve handwheels, electrical covers, cable hardware, door components, a Starlink deployment mount, and a nonconductive digging knife for explosive ordnance disposal teams. One part stood out: an Apache rotor guard droop stop designed during the first Army-Navy Apache operations conducted at sea. That single component protected a $500,000 main rotor from deck strikes that could cost $230,000 per blade.

The Drone Component

Firestorm assembled 12 Squall drones during the voyage and flew them at RIMPAC in Hawaii. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines received training in additive manufacturing, drone assembly, and flight operations. Marines from the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion then used the drones as adversary aircraft during a three-day counter-UAS exercise at Makua Military Reservation on Oahu.

The Indo-Pacific logistics problem is real, and most of the answers on offer live in a pitch deck. We printed flight-ready aircraft and the parts a crew actually needed, in the conditions they would actually face. That is what manufacturing at the edge looks like when it works.

Why This Matters

Deployable additive manufacturing shortens repair timelines from weeks to hours. It keeps vessels operational longer and allows forces to regenerate expendable drone capacity without returning to port. For contested maritime regions where supply lines are vulnerable, on-board fabrication is not a convenience. It is a resilience strategy.