NSWCDD was initially established 16 October 1918 as a remote extension of Maryland's Indian Head Proving Ground used for testing naval guns.

NSF Dahlgren was also previously home to Naval Space Surveillance System Command (NAVSPASUR) before that function was transferred to the Air Force in 2004.

Prior to 1918, the Navy operated a proving ground at Indian Head, Maryland, but it became inadequate as advances in gun designs and ordnance made its range obsolete.

Thus, to recruit and retain the highly specialized work force required, the Navy promised to supply housing, food and medical services, schools, recreation, and other socially needed infrastructure.

But, until World War II, much of the principal work at Dahlgren surrounded the proofing and testing of every major gun in the Navy's arsenal.

The computer and ordnance work going on attracted a number of brilliant young scientists and engineers to the area during the war, and some were tapped to help with the ongoing Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb.

Two such people include Dr. Norris E. Bradbury, who later became the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Deak Parsons, the weaponeer on the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dahlgren was on the leading edge of naval surface weapons work with programs such as the Tomahawk missile, which improved the Navy's capacity to perform attacks on land targets from a distance that decreased the risk to ships.

[6] Distinguished figures who have worked for the NSWCDD include physicists Albert Einstein, Edward Teller, Carl Norden, and computer pioneers Howard Aiken[5] and Grace Hopper.

Engineering projects of historical or military significance developed at NSWCDD include the triggering device on the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the Norden Bombsight used on most American bombers such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator and B-29 Superfortress during World War II, the Standard missile used on modern United States Navy warships, and the warhead for the AIM-54 Phoenix.

NSWCDD mentors support summer academies, such as the Virginia Demonstration Project, where they introduce robotics and basic engineering principles to area middle and high school students through hands-on activities.