The US Navy has awarded Lockheed Martin a $43m contract to develop a giant unmanned subsea vehicle called Orca.
Officially referred to as the Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV), Orca will have long-range autonomous capabilities. Whereas the current crop of unmanned subs are generally deployed from a mothership at the surface, Orca will be able to travel independently to its theatre of operation and return to base once its mission is complete. How exactly the XLUUV will be powered remains to be seen however, as details of propulsion have yet to be released at this stage.
According to Lockheed, a reconfigurable payload bay will give Orca capability across a variety of missions, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; mine countermeasures; indication and warning notification. The subsea drone will also serve as an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training platform.
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Though it will not be supported by a mothership, Orca will still have the ability to periodically establish communications and give mission updates. Critically, unlike other unmanned subs, Orca will not require military personnel on the front line to facilitate its operation.
“With each new undersea vehicle that Lockheed Martin designs, we bring to bear the state-of-the-art in technology, and innovative system integration of those technologies, to increase the range, reach, and effectiveness of undersea forces and their missions,” said Frank Drennan, director of Lockheed Martin’s submersibles and autonomous systems division.
The current design stage is the first in a two-phase competition, and will be followed by a competitive production phase for up to nine vehicles. Development of Orca will take place primarily at Lockheed Martin’s Palm Beach, Florida facility, with additional support from employees in Virginia and New York.
Last year, Lockheed successfully launched an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). At September’s DSEI event in London, the UK arm of the defence giant unveiled Outrider, a canister-launched drone capable of reaching speeds up to 50 knots.
I read today that most ‘dating’ -the initiating of pleasant friendly mental and thence physical links between individuals- is now ‘on-line’. Is it too much to hope that in future most ‘conflict’ -the initiation of attacks and anger -often against complete strangers- will now move to similar electronic means. Means whereby physical blows will be superseded by intellectual and social intercourse? I do hope so. The idea of an unmanned patrolling item ranging over the surface of both sea, land and the sky above both: perhaps meeting one of a potential opponent and greeting such with an electronic smile, even a handshake rather than a blow has much to commend it? Well, doesn’t it?
No, because that will depend upon the AI program onboard, who does the programming?
Hey, why not go the whole hog, and put the entire ‘conflict’ thing on a simulator. All those expert gamers might find there is a demand for their hard-won skills after all!!
sadly, the only “problem” with simulator war-gaming is that the loser will be still be around to have another go at disabling the software and infrastructure of their opponents(s)–whereas warfare per se is usually pretty final on the level envisaged-includes basic structure, not just software. So not as final as warfare as desired by the victors-assuming that they can strike in a way which catches the other side completely off-guard. Could put your digital experts up against them on the hope that it didn’t get out of hand…………Some years back (on the northern Dew Line of computer defence, radar picked up images which looked exactly like a Soviet surprise air attack coming over the North Pole. ONLY the calm restraint shown by rapidly calling the Soviets on the hotline between the two powers to talk to their High Command, was an awful disaster avoided. Think of it-faulty software left to itself could never have avoided that…..nasty
Many years ago there was an episode of Star Trek where two planets engaged in warfare by computer simulation with agreed casualties. Captain Kirk showed them the error of their ways of making war too comfortable.
He explained that war should be terrible, the more terrible the better, as that was the biggest deterrent of all, and minimised the chance of war.
Todays remote control weapons are a step towards the sanitisation of war – watch a TV screen, press a few buttons, then home for tea with a nice wine. The banning of land mines, gas and dum-dum bullets are also a step in the same direction.
WAR IS TERRIBLE. IT SHOULD BE SEEN AND FELT AS TERRIBLE.
This one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon
“……which looked exactly like a Soviet surprise air attack.”
If you are going to use this example, go even further back (I am old enough to remember the film) and think about the book and film “Fail Safe”. Here the story line is that by a mistake (what another one?) the US realises that its ‘air-fleet’ is on its way to the USSR and cannot be recalled: so the young President – a thinly disguised Kennedy (knowing that his wife is opening a children’s home in New York with his two young children with her) authorises another US bomber (piloted by his oldest friend!) to drop its load there to demonstrate to the President of the USSR, who cannot respond in time that its ‘tit-for-tat’ and both are to be devastated.
Fiction of course: or what.