Navy X-47 will be ISR & carry JDAMS.

via DefenseTech.

The Navy plans to load their next generation carrier drone with a wide range of weapons, including GPS-guided precision-strike air-to-ground weapons called Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, service officials said.
The Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike aircraft is being designed as a carrier-launched Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Targeting, or IRS&T, technology, will also be designed to accomodate a next-generation Active Electronically Scanned Array radar, or AESA.
The exact weapons payload to be engineered on the Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike aircraft is still a work-in-progress and something that will be influenced by the competing vendors offering designs, said Capt. Beau Duarte, program manager, unmanned carrier aviation program office.
While weaponization for the UCLASS is not planned as an immediate step, it is considered by developers to be an integral part of the platform’s future capabilities. It is expected the UCLASS will be able to draw from most of the weapons currently being used on the Navy’s carrier wings.
“Weapons requirements will be defined in the final proposals. It is up to the vendors to come back with proposals and leverage what is available,” Cmdr. Pete Yelle, UCLASS/UCAS-D requirements officer.
While adding weapons will be a significant future development for the UCLASS platform, the technology is still primarily intended as an ISR platform, Navy officials said.

Defense officials always talk about the F-35 being more than just a weapons platform but also an intelligence asset.

Now, so is the Navy UCAV.

So tell me.

Which is going to be more cost effective.  A carrier with UCAVs and F-18s or F-35s, F-18 and UCAVs?

If you said F-18s and UCAVs you're right.

Probably deadlier too.  You send your strike fighter after the Chinese anti-ship ICBMs, do you send your manned fighters or do you send UCAVs?  Which is easier to plan?  Destruction of vehicles if they're downed or destruction and recovery of pilots if they're downed?

UCAV for the win.

But more importantly, this is a direct shot across the bow of the F-35.  This convinces me more than ever that the Navy is actively planning for the F-35 to either fail or price itself out of future Navy Air Wings.