The use of maritime drones that cover submersible, surface and air is only limited by our imagination and funding. The communications linkage is problematic but advances in AI as currently used in drones provided by Germany to Ukraine open new possibilities and threats. Drones can linger on the ocean bottoms for long periods of time until activated and deployed. These are all the logical, technological advances of torpedoes, mines, missiles and rockets. The ethical considerations in their use are certainly only considered by western cultures. The Russians, Chinese, N Koreans and Iraqis will not be hindered by those considerations. We simply must develop our own, highly lethal versions, develop defenses to enemy efforts, sabotage enemy production and, when the time comes, destroy the facilities where they are created. I suspect each of these domains is fractured and not developed in a synergistic way under a single leader.
One thing is certain. Ships in ports are the most vulnerable which suggests they be underway for long periods of time to be less vulnerable and unpredictable.
It is not necessary to arm an ISR scout submarine, to use a moniker of mine of some years past, the SSQ, which greatly reduces the problems of giving them sufficient autonomy. AI is greatly hyped up because it drives stock valuations of the companies involved and the fortunes of its chief players, expect the AI "bubble" to implode some time in 2027. My nuclear powered self driving car has not arrived at my house to tell me its mine to drive around in for the rest of my life, and yet how many years and decades ago were those promises made? In order to achieve "intelligence" will require another order of math beyond calculus and massive quantities of electricity to run all those modified GPU's. However, navigation and other definable types of operation are already available in less complex environments, like the open air and sea, as is common knowledge, which is why they have been in use for years now. Attempting more than that, unfortunately, results in well reported delusion and hallucination, in a weapon system an extremely dangerous situation with potentially severe consequences including human faked delusions in autonomous armed platforms, problems only solvable by a higher order of logic that existing math and technology can not accomplish at the present time unless I decide to privately finance the effort (don't hold your breath).
A modern torpedo has the power to weight ratio to fly through the air at ten times the speed and range that it could underwater if it were provided with lift wings and an aero-propulsor, so it is not necessary to arm a SSQ, it can send its acquired data back to manned fleet assets in flash transmissions so that humans can determine whether or not a weapons launch is correct (even that can be subject to human failings). A heavyweight torpedo could be launched from a SSN from hundreds of kilometers away and arrive within an hour with up to date target info before it dives to attack The best analogy that could be provided here is that of a hound barking signals to the hunter about the whereabouts of the fox, a detection and response chain that has been technologically possible for years now.
In order to power the SSQ or similar systems also requires the use of aluminum-air fuel cells with ten times the gross energy capacity of lithium batteries so that it can make 30 knots for a day or maintain low energy covert operations for a year. Presently, there has been little to no effort to develop optimized 9000 series aluminum fuel alloys with sodium and other alkali elements and interstitial common earth elements like iron.
The use of maritime drones that cover submersible, surface and air is only limited by our imagination and funding. The communications linkage is problematic but advances in AI as currently used in drones provided by Germany to Ukraine open new possibilities and threats. Drones can linger on the ocean bottoms for long periods of time until activated and deployed. These are all the logical, technological advances of torpedoes, mines, missiles and rockets. The ethical considerations in their use are certainly only considered by western cultures. The Russians, Chinese, N Koreans and Iraqis will not be hindered by those considerations. We simply must develop our own, highly lethal versions, develop defenses to enemy efforts, sabotage enemy production and, when the time comes, destroy the facilities where they are created. I suspect each of these domains is fractured and not developed in a synergistic way under a single leader.
One thing is certain. Ships in ports are the most vulnerable which suggests they be underway for long periods of time to be less vulnerable and unpredictable.
H.I. Sutton www.hisutton.com Covert Shores is a good open source for submersibles.
It is not necessary to arm an ISR scout submarine, to use a moniker of mine of some years past, the SSQ, which greatly reduces the problems of giving them sufficient autonomy. AI is greatly hyped up because it drives stock valuations of the companies involved and the fortunes of its chief players, expect the AI "bubble" to implode some time in 2027. My nuclear powered self driving car has not arrived at my house to tell me its mine to drive around in for the rest of my life, and yet how many years and decades ago were those promises made? In order to achieve "intelligence" will require another order of math beyond calculus and massive quantities of electricity to run all those modified GPU's. However, navigation and other definable types of operation are already available in less complex environments, like the open air and sea, as is common knowledge, which is why they have been in use for years now. Attempting more than that, unfortunately, results in well reported delusion and hallucination, in a weapon system an extremely dangerous situation with potentially severe consequences including human faked delusions in autonomous armed platforms, problems only solvable by a higher order of logic that existing math and technology can not accomplish at the present time unless I decide to privately finance the effort (don't hold your breath).
A modern torpedo has the power to weight ratio to fly through the air at ten times the speed and range that it could underwater if it were provided with lift wings and an aero-propulsor, so it is not necessary to arm a SSQ, it can send its acquired data back to manned fleet assets in flash transmissions so that humans can determine whether or not a weapons launch is correct (even that can be subject to human failings). A heavyweight torpedo could be launched from a SSN from hundreds of kilometers away and arrive within an hour with up to date target info before it dives to attack The best analogy that could be provided here is that of a hound barking signals to the hunter about the whereabouts of the fox, a detection and response chain that has been technologically possible for years now.
In order to power the SSQ or similar systems also requires the use of aluminum-air fuel cells with ten times the gross energy capacity of lithium batteries so that it can make 30 knots for a day or maintain low energy covert operations for a year. Presently, there has been little to no effort to develop optimized 9000 series aluminum fuel alloys with sodium and other alkali elements and interstitial common earth elements like iron.
Good informative article here...