We should have gone all in on self-deploying mines and 1400 mile range Harpoon like mines that could do precision minefields to mine every port and harbor should the Chinese try anything. Cut off their supply chain and eliminate any re-supply of ground forces and the war would be very short indeed. No reason something like this should take a decade or more to field, either. We have the technology, and it should be relatively cheap.
Mine warfare needs to go through a renaissance of sorts. Regrettably it has historically taken a backseat to given the pomp and pageantry of ships of the line. Yet intelligent mines with the some AI capabilities engaging surface targets at a distance... not a particularly appealing picture if you are on a big gator crossing the Taiwan Strait.
Indeed. Just like the Army finding out it can't continue to ignore EW. You'd have thought that when the Prowler guys saved their bacon in Iraq running jammers vs their Iranian IED's that they would have wised up. Nope. Over a decade later and they still don't have a viable EW corps...something that takes over a decade to build. As you say, not sexy enough, but darn effective in war.
Two thumbs on that one as well. Given the nature and complexity of EW, how much of that is going to end up being AI on steroids. You may not have the numbers of EW personnel but I wouldn't be putting my hopes in preserving those numbers when the agility of an AI is trained relentlessly to adapt. It could conceivably be every bit as relentless as a UAV fighter doing ACM. It will just evolve...
Indeed, so true. The Growler uses automation to do the work 4 people used to do in the Prowler with 2 now. I'm sure that we will see a day when UAV's use AI to do even more. Given Loyal Wingman and other AI platforms using AESA and the inherant EW capabilities there, coupled with future developments, should be a rather dynamic and amazing environment. Just wish I were 40 yrs younger and starting out, instead of being the SSec crowd!
Hopefully the Army steps up (along with the USAF) and gets with the program. Too late once the fur begins to fly.
If I recall during his confirmation hearing Gen. Brown covered that rather extensively. Presuming he's confirmed, we'll get to see if he walks the talk. The army has a drone problem that they can't ignore so EW comes along whether they like it or not.
In the end, AI or ML boosts everyone's game playing because the tech will be accessible and affordable. Just because you have an exquisite solution doesn't mean there isn't a solution that an adversary can employ that meets the "more than good enough" standard.
“An unmanned version of what the Italians used against the Royal Navy in Egypt and what the Royal Navy did against Tirpitz.”
And what the Axis powers used against us - Grandpa Scoobs had a sea story about being awakened one morning by the GQ alarm going off while his carrier was anchored in supposedly secure Ulithi lagoon. He and his buddies rushed to the flight deck and saw a billowing smoke column in the distance - the fiery remains of the fleet oiler USS Mississinewa which had just fallen victim to the inaugural IJN Kaiten manned-torpedo attack.
1:23 point "Cannot be detected by Russian surveillance systems." The surface looks like just black paint and not anechoic tiles. I would think that active sonar would still work. I guess RUS will find out.
A spritely Black Sea naval scrap has happened in the last ~48 hours...
Most significant is the apparent use of the Ukr Neptune missile in a land attack role, launched by a "navy' that doesn't exist in a generally accepted sense, and took out an S-400 battery along with a 'Bastion' K-300P site.
One other thing I expect the Ukrainians to do is come up with a surface drone that launches a short range missile / flying drone so that it can pass over the various anti-boat drone nets and barriers. Flight range only needs to be half a mile max. Probably never achieves real flight just ground effect but even 10-20 ft altitude would be enough to get over the barriers, even perhaps a harbor wall, and then hit the target on the waterline
No one, repeat, no one knows the future. The best we can do without divine intervention is to make projections based on extrapolations of current trends. But unless a person has unbelievable levels of delusion about their powers of prophesy, he should always put bands of uncertainty around every independent variable in his projection. Anything else will create “solutions” that are very brittle, meaning they are easy to avoid or defeat. Captain Wayne Meyer had it right when he said, “Build a little, test a little, learn a lot.”
The 2023 Navy SCN budget is $66.152B. This does not include an acquisition program’s budget for R&D- numbers that are not inconsiderable. If every SCN program were “taxed” one tenth of one percent of each year’s budget, there would be $66M this year alone to build working prototypes of craft like the Ukrainian UUV simply to begin important fleet experiments.
The range/persistence is suspect
Good enough
Always a nominal figure...
https://twitter.com/CovertShores/status/1694666887391514691?s=20
Length - 6 m, Width - 1 m, so not much bigger than a Mk 48 (which is also a UUV), which doesn't have a range of 1,000km.
Why am I thinking 100km. instead of 1000?
Even if this is a paper machine, the Russians will divert resources to defend against it.
Have to honor the threat.
"you can't buy training like this"... now there's some stark truth right there. Taiwan? You paying attention to this one???
Pretty sure they are. They've donated lots of drones to Ukraine to test....
We should have gone all in on self-deploying mines and 1400 mile range Harpoon like mines that could do precision minefields to mine every port and harbor should the Chinese try anything. Cut off their supply chain and eliminate any re-supply of ground forces and the war would be very short indeed. No reason something like this should take a decade or more to field, either. We have the technology, and it should be relatively cheap.
Mine warfare needs to go through a renaissance of sorts. Regrettably it has historically taken a backseat to given the pomp and pageantry of ships of the line. Yet intelligent mines with the some AI capabilities engaging surface targets at a distance... not a particularly appealing picture if you are on a big gator crossing the Taiwan Strait.
Mineman, how we miss ye....
Minepersons? Minegenderfluidmeathusks?
MineZir
Person with mine affinity. You don't kow-tow to "people first" language at your own risk.
Indeed. Just like the Army finding out it can't continue to ignore EW. You'd have thought that when the Prowler guys saved their bacon in Iraq running jammers vs their Iranian IED's that they would have wised up. Nope. Over a decade later and they still don't have a viable EW corps...something that takes over a decade to build. As you say, not sexy enough, but darn effective in war.
Two thumbs on that one as well. Given the nature and complexity of EW, how much of that is going to end up being AI on steroids. You may not have the numbers of EW personnel but I wouldn't be putting my hopes in preserving those numbers when the agility of an AI is trained relentlessly to adapt. It could conceivably be every bit as relentless as a UAV fighter doing ACM. It will just evolve...
Indeed, so true. The Growler uses automation to do the work 4 people used to do in the Prowler with 2 now. I'm sure that we will see a day when UAV's use AI to do even more. Given Loyal Wingman and other AI platforms using AESA and the inherant EW capabilities there, coupled with future developments, should be a rather dynamic and amazing environment. Just wish I were 40 yrs younger and starting out, instead of being the SSec crowd!
Hopefully the Army steps up (along with the USAF) and gets with the program. Too late once the fur begins to fly.
If I recall during his confirmation hearing Gen. Brown covered that rather extensively. Presuming he's confirmed, we'll get to see if he walks the talk. The army has a drone problem that they can't ignore so EW comes along whether they like it or not.
"how much of that is going to end up being AI on steroids"
I've got to think essentially all of it within a decade. Of course, that goes both ways
In the end, AI or ML boosts everyone's game playing because the tech will be accessible and affordable. Just because you have an exquisite solution doesn't mean there isn't a solution that an adversary can employ that meets the "more than good enough" standard.
concur
“An unmanned version of what the Italians used against the Royal Navy in Egypt and what the Royal Navy did against Tirpitz.”
And what the Axis powers used against us - Grandpa Scoobs had a sea story about being awakened one morning by the GQ alarm going off while his carrier was anchored in supposedly secure Ulithi lagoon. He and his buddies rushed to the flight deck and saw a billowing smoke column in the distance - the fiery remains of the fleet oiler USS Mississinewa which had just fallen victim to the inaugural IJN Kaiten manned-torpedo attack.
1:23 point "Cannot be detected by Russian surveillance systems." The surface looks like just black paint and not anechoic tiles. I would think that active sonar would still work. I guess RUS will find out.
A couple more pictures at HI Sutton. http://www.hisutton.com/Ukraine-Marichka-AUV.html
Followed his link to the OEM,
https://ammo.army/
It looks crowd funded and feels scamish.
Well, if you can't build and maintain a real navy, at least get some toys to play with.
Verdict is probably still out on the "is it a toy" question...
6m x 1m...so an autonomous torpedo?
Are there any torpedoes with a 1,000km range?
A spritely Black Sea naval scrap has happened in the last ~48 hours...
Most significant is the apparent use of the Ukr Neptune missile in a land attack role, launched by a "navy' that doesn't exist in a generally accepted sense, and took out an S-400 battery along with a 'Bastion' K-300P site.
https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1694400034085728284?s=20
Purportedly, the missiles were launched from one of the offshore platforms.
One other thing I expect the Ukrainians to do is come up with a surface drone that launches a short range missile / flying drone so that it can pass over the various anti-boat drone nets and barriers. Flight range only needs to be half a mile max. Probably never achieves real flight just ground effect but even 10-20 ft altitude would be enough to get over the barriers, even perhaps a harbor wall, and then hit the target on the waterline
copycat of Russian "Poseidon", neh? Slava Ukraini!
No one, repeat, no one knows the future. The best we can do without divine intervention is to make projections based on extrapolations of current trends. But unless a person has unbelievable levels of delusion about their powers of prophesy, he should always put bands of uncertainty around every independent variable in his projection. Anything else will create “solutions” that are very brittle, meaning they are easy to avoid or defeat. Captain Wayne Meyer had it right when he said, “Build a little, test a little, learn a lot.”
The 2023 Navy SCN budget is $66.152B. This does not include an acquisition program’s budget for R&D- numbers that are not inconsiderable. If every SCN program were “taxed” one tenth of one percent of each year’s budget, there would be $66M this year alone to build working prototypes of craft like the Ukrainian UUV simply to begin important fleet experiments.
Submitted for your consideration.
Is this the drones we hear about in the news that are being used against Russian ships recently?
No. They're surface vessels.
Thanks
I can see uses for this, especially with powerful enough batteries, with a long enough life to allow it to lurk in the shadows, until needed.
Most naval innovation starts out from private sources. It's the new Whitehead
My concern is Big Navy will keep piling on requirements for the system to a point it will be to expensive and won't be able to carry out its mission.