Exclusive: The US Navy is building a drone fleet to take on China. It's not going well.

• Software issues led to crashes, mishaps in drone boat tests
• Pentagon paused an autonomy software contract with L3Harris
• Navy’s key acquisition program rocked after top admiral fired

NEW YORK, Aug 20 (Reuters) - During a U.S. naval test off the California coast last month, which was designed to showcase the Pentagon’s top autonomous drone boats, one vessel stalled unexpectedly.

As officials scrambled to fix a software glitch, another drone vessel smashed into the idling boat’s starboard side, vaulted over the deck, and crashed back into the water – an incident captured in videos obtained by Reuters.

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