Underwater drones could be the end of nuclear submarines

Swarming systems are small, lightweight, cheap, numerous—and networked together to cooperate like bees from the same hive.

National Interest, by Sebastien Roblin, 14 Sept 2020, Here’s What You Need To Remember: “Think of a flotilla of 20 low cost Chinese ‘trawlers’ all peacefully ‘catching fish’, but actually acting as a mother-ship each for 200 low-cost mass-produced mini-UUVs…This flotilla could be assisted by the fixed seabed and tethered anti-submarine sonar sensors China is already stringing across East Asian seas.”

After a post-Cold War hiatus, navies across the planet are pursuing new anti-submarine capabilities as a submarine arms race accelerates in the Pacific Ocean. Developing technologies like quantum magnetometers and satellite-based optical sensors are leading to forecasts that submarines may be on the verge of losing their stealthy edge by the mid-twenty-first century.

But swarms of cheap drones both above and below the water (unmanned underwater vehicles, or UUVs) may pose the biggest and most proximate threat to submarines.

Swarming drones are distinct from larger, higher capability (and more expensive) long-range autonomous unmanned vehicles like the Large-Diameter HSU-001 submarine, recently displayed by China, or the Extra-Large Displacement Orca being built for the U.S. Navy.

Swarming systems, by contrast, are small, lightweight, cheap, numerous—and networked together to cooperate like bees from the same hive…………….

Submarine analyst Peter Coates observes in a blog post that underwater swarming drones could particularly improve China’s surveillance capabilities………………………………………………………. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/underwater-drones-could-be-end-submarines-168940?fbclid=IwAR3_Q9AZnBfcQkRBhcw0De-7fp-yXZPFXjl7uUrErNASeoJ3_zh9jSzYTUs