Drone Subs, the next evolution for the US Navy. What say ye? The highly autonomous underwater vehicles could be sent to scout ahead of attack submarines, or to guard valuable undersea targets. The U.S. Navy plans to deploy a squadron of underwater drones within the next four years, including the Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle, or LDUUV, a 10-foot, highly autonomous, and very, very yellow subdrone, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said today. Mabus made the announcement at Tuesdays AUVSI Unmanned Systems Defense 2015 conference, the day after the New York Times reported on Pentagon concerns about Russian submarine movements near critical undersea data cables.....snip~ http://www.defenseone.com/technolog...rine-drone-squadron-2020/123179/?oref=d-river
Nothing new, UUV's (Unmanned Undersea Vehicle's) have been around for decades. At first heavily used in oceanography research, search and rescue, salvaging and mine counter warfare. https://www.usnwc.edu/getattachment...e/Excerpts-from-UUV-and-USV-master-plans.aspx It's like the young geeks who claim that the UAV (drones) are the wave of the future unaware they have been around long before they were conceived in the back seat of their parents car. The U.S. Navy was operating UAV's from destroyers going back to the 1950's, some armed with nuclear tipped torpedoes. DASH http://www.gyrodynehelicopters.com/dash_history.htm http://www.gyrodynehelicopters.com/ - - - Updated - - - Wire guided maybe ???
Heya Korozif. What do you mean with the communications? Why would there be trouble.....other than worrying if they can be hacked?
Heya Apache. Yeah I remembered something about UUVs back from the 50's. But not much was hyped on back then.
Water absorb microwave so no sat communication at depth. Radio wave are also impacted and those can be intercepted or scrambled and probably limited to ELF and VLF band and even those are problematic and quite limited. Submarine have to either surface or at least get near the surface enough for an antenna to break surface for more than teletext communications.
The Russians were working with a Nuke tipped Drone themselves. So then they would have the same problems correct?
Yes. Water is a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)... Except if you're a fish. Drones are for the most part a solution in search of a problem. In the end, the only sure way of defeating an enemy is by putting men in harms way. Trying to wage wars from the other side of the globe with "toys" that can be disabled by ECM or a hack is bloody stupid. You want to win a war, well you have to spend blood doing it.
