On April 28, 2022, in Huntington Beach on the Pacific coast of the United States, the U.S. Navy's first super-large unmanned underwater vehicle (XLUUV) "Orca" was launched.
Boeing Orca XLUUV plunged into the water to smash champagne
Schematic diagram of the U.S. undersea war
According to the U.S. concept of submarine warfare, the seabed is defined as a unique war zone, with undersea infrastructure providing reconnaissance and perception capabilities, and undersea weapon systems providing reconnaissance, strike and destruction capabilities. U.S. research institutions attach particular importance to the role of unmanned systems, especially the very large unmanned underwater vehicle (XLUUV). The U.S. Navy is moving toward the goal of having a very large unmanned underwater vehicle (XLUUV) equipped with cruise missiles, torpedoes, mines, and small UAVs.
Orca is the first XLUUV-class unmanned submarine with a length of 10 meters, with a partially raised mast, and is currently focused on undersea mine warfare and undersea combat theory research, paving the way for future larger armed XXLUUV research.
Schematic diagram of orca XLUUV in the United States
The future U.S. XXLUUV will play a broader operational role, and the current design will eventually be equipped with up to 12 heavy composite launch tubes, with a weapon module with bomb hatches at the bottom, containing three rows of four heavy composite launch tubes that tilt at an angle and torpedoes and missiles are launched downward through the bomb hatches. Launch tubes can carry torpedoes for anti-submarine and anti-ship strikes, cruise missiles that can be used for land attacks, and XLUUV, mines, is used to perform ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and multi-purpose countermeasure (MCM) missions, and may also be developed in the future based on nuclear-powered attack submarines and other anti-submarine platforms, and may revolutionize underwater warfare.
U.S. future submarine warfare equipment
Schematic of the existing XLUUV weapon module
Schematic diagram of the future XLUUV weapon module (left)
It can be seen from this that the unmanned military equipment in the future has become a development direction, and the unmanned underwater platform can complete combat tasks such as reconnaissance and surveillance, intelligence collection, target strike, mine clearance, anti-submarine and damage assessment by carrying different mission modules. In the future, a real "ghost fleet" will appear at the bottom of the sea!