Source: People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Trumpet
Author: Pan Xuanhong, Tang Mengzhou, Huang Lipeng
 |
In recent years, unmanned combat systems have developed very rapidly, which can be described as "sudden emergence". As an important part of the unmanned combat system, unmanned underwater vehicles are gradually becoming a "hot spot" for the research and development of military equipment from all over the world, including the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany.
According to the US "Newsweek" report, on December 20 last year, the US Navy officially received the first "killer whale" ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicle.
This unmanned underwater vehicle weighs 50 tons, has the characteristics of high autonomy, high stealth, long endurance, etc., mainly used to perform anti-mine, anti-submarine, anti-surface warfare and electronic warfare missions, is an important equipment for the US Navy to build a new manned/unmanned cooperative combat system.
With the continuous development of the information age and the concept of zero-casualty warfare, unmanned underwater vehicles, as an important part of the unmanned combat system, are like a "dark horse" that has broken into the underwater battlefield, stirring up a wave of innovation in the form of underwater warfare. So, what are the advantages of unmanned underwater vehicles in underwater warfare, and what are the development prospects? Please see the interpretation in this issue.
"Dark horses are not black" -
It has been quietly developing for decades
Unmanned underwater vehicle refers to an intelligent device that is unmanned and relies on remote control or automatic control to perform tasks under water, which has the characteristics of strong concealment, high degree of intelligence, small activity restriction and low combat cost, and is known as the "force multiplier" of the modern navy.
In fact, early unmanned underwater vehicles were mainly used in the civilian field, and were used to replace divers in dangerous underwater operations such as deep-sea exploration, shipwreck salvage, underwater exploration, and underwater cable laying.
With the development of science and technology, unmanned underwater vehicles can gradually perform a variety of tasks underwater for a long time without being affected by the underwater hydrological environment. As a result, the navies of various countries gradually realized their potential value in the military sphere.
The development of unmanned underwater vehicles in the military field can be traced back to the late 40s of the 20th century. At that time, the U.S. Navy began to develop a remotely controlled unmanned underwater vehicle called "CURV" to find and recover wrecked aircraft and other equipment in the sea.
In order to facilitate underwater navigation, unmanned underwater vehicles are usually designed to resemble submarines or torpedoes, with a teardrop-shaped head and a cylindrical body, and a conical tail equipped with "cross-shaped or X-shaped" rudder blades and propellers. In terms of shell materials, unmanned underwater vehicles usually use lightweight alloy materials with light weight, high strength and corrosion resistance.
In the 80s of the 20th century, with the rapid development of computer technology and sensor technology, the functions and performance of unmanned underwater vehicles have been greatly improved. The militaries of various countries continue to invest manpower and resources in the field of unmanned underwater vehicles to accelerate the innovation and development of unmanned underwater vehicle technology.
The U.S. Navy's Orion-class unmanned underwater vehicles can be used for undersea reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, with a high degree of autonomy and remote operation capabilities, and can conduct covert activities in the deep sea.
After entering the 21st century, Russia has continuously increased its investment in unmanned systems, and a new generation of unmanned underwater vehicles has developed rapidly, including the "Harpsichord" series of large unmanned underwater vehicles, "fake" unmanned underwater vehicles specially designed to simulate the physical characteristics of submarines, and "Juno" small unmanned underwater vehicles. It is worth noting that the "Poseidon" nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicle developed by it has the ability to navigate underwater for a long time and has a huge strike power, and is mainly used for maritime strategic deterrence and strategic strikes.
Britain, France, Germany and other countries have also developed multiple types of unmanned underwater vehicles according to their own national strength and the needs of naval development. The UK has mainly developed the Autosub series, the "Talisman" series and the "Whale" ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicle. In the 70s of the 20th century, the French ECA company developed the famous PAP104 mine extinguishing equipment, and at present, there are mainly "Alister" series and "Olister" unmanned underwater vehicles. The German company Atlas Electronics has developed the "Sea Otter" series and the DeepC reconnaissance unmanned underwater vehicle.
According to relevant statistics, many countries in the world have carried out research on unmanned underwater vehicles for military use either alone or jointly, and unmanned underwater vehicles have gradually become a key part of underwater warfare.
"Dark Horse Effect" -
It is intended to become a new weight for seizing underwater supremacy
The Royal Navy and Plymouth Technology have signed a £15.4 million contract for the Whale, a cutting-edge ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicle, The Times, as reported by The Times on December 1, 2022.
Admiral Ben Keay, First Sea Lord, declared that the Whale, as the largest and most complex unmanned underwater vehicle operated by Europe, would help Britain "dominate the underwater combat space."
The high attention and key development of unmanned underwater vehicles in various countries are closely related to their unique advantages. Compared with other manned combat platforms, unmanned underwater vehicles have obvious advantages -
First, it has good concealment performance and strong survivability. Unmanned underwater vehicles are generally small in size and light in weight, and most of the power systems rely on batteries and ocean wave energy, so their characteristic signals such as noise radiation and electromagnetic radiation are relatively weak and are not easy to be detected. In addition, unmanned underwater vehicles can dive to depths of hundreds to thousands of meters, which greatly increases underwater survivability.
Second, it is suitable for a wide range of sea areas and has a long battery life. On the one hand, large and ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicles have a cruising range of several hundred kilometers or even thousands of kilometers; small unmanned underwater vehicles are usually carried and deployed by surface ships, submarines, and other manned platforms, and can be dispatched in batches and in multiple waves, thereby further expanding the operational area and increasing the combat duration. In addition, unmanned underwater vehicles can also be covertly deployed in some shallow waters that cannot be reached by manned combat platforms, and the forward deployment capability has been further enhanced.
Third, the use risk is small and the use cost is low. Due to the use of "unmanned systems", unmanned underwater vehicles are ideally suited to perform a variety of highly dangerous, complex environments, and combat missions that are difficult for personnel to sustain. At the same time, the cost of unmanned underwater vehicles is relatively low, and the cost of combat use is lower than that of manned combat platforms, and it has good economic affordability.
Based on the above advantages, the "Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Master Plan" issued by the US Navy clarifies nine specific combat responsibilities of unmanned underwater vehicles, including intelligence collection, reconnaissance and surveillance, anti-submarine attack and battlefield bait. Various countries have also regarded unmanned underwater vehicles as a new weight to seize underwater supremacy and vigorously developed them. At present, the combat application of unmanned underwater vehicles mainly includes the following typical styles:
- Underwater reconnaissance. Unmanned underwater vehicles can carry various sensor equipment, including sonar and optical cameras, to conduct long-term covert reconnaissance in the enemy's territorial waters and understand the seabed topography of the target area, enemy military facilities, and ship activities. This provides important intelligence support for policymakers.
- Anti-mine/mine-laying operations. When used to counter mines, unmanned underwater vehicles can effectively detect and locate the mines laid by the enemy, and some advanced unmanned underwater vehicles can also carry tools such as lasers or underwater robotic arms to carry out actual mine removal tasks; and in mine-laying operations, unmanned underwater vehicles can remotely and autonomously and covertly sail to enemy bases, ports, waterways, and other areas to lay mines.
- Underwater attack. In real combat operations, manned platforms far from the zone of danger can act as a "mother ship" for unmanned underwater vehicles. As a sensor or information source of the "mother ship", the unmanned underwater vehicle can carry out all-round three-dimensional detection, tracking, and even attack on enemy submarines. If multiple unmanned underwater vehicles form a cluster together, they can also share detection information with each other, further expand the detection range of the "mother ship", and enhance anti-submarine capabilities. Some unmanned underwater vehicles carrying torpedoes, missiles, and other weapons can immediately activate the combat mode once they discover the enemy's large submarines, aircraft carriers, and other high-value targets, and carry out a close-range surprise attack on the target, thus achieving unexpected combat results.
-- Construction of underwater communications and combat networks. Traditional underwater communication equipment is limited by fixed deployment and transmission distance, while unmanned underwater vehicles can be used as mobile nodes and as relay stations to realize the transmission and diffusion of underwater communication signals. Through the deployment of unmanned underwater vehicles, the coverage of the underwater communication network has been expanded, and the stability of the entire underwater communication network has been significantly improved.
According to foreign reports on deep-sea operations, deep-sea space will play an important role in the future strategic competition between the international economy and national defense and security. As a "sharp weapon" in the underwater battlefield, unmanned underwater vehicles will play an important role in assisting the "asymmetric" confrontation in deep-sea space.
"Dark Horse Breakthrough" -
The ever-expanding new track makes the competition more intense
As modern warfare increasingly pursues the demand for fewer casualties, unmanned underwater vehicles, as an important part of unmanned combat systems, have become a "hot spot" in the research and development of military equipment in various countries around the world.
Looking at the development status and practical combat application of unmanned underwater vehicle equipment technology in various countries around the world, unmanned underwater vehicles are accelerating their development and constantly expanding new tracks.
- Longer-term energy support. Unmanned underwater vehicles are dropped and deployed outside the opponent's defense zone, and after long-range maneuvering, they enter the target area; they "lurk" underwater for a long time, continuously providing relevant intelligence information or launching a fatal blow at a critical moment...... The tasks to be performed by unmanned underwater vehicles require that their endurance power must be strong enough. Traditional unmanned underwater vehicles generally use traditional batteries such as lead-acid batteries and silver-zinc batteries for energy, but the traditional batteries have poor performance and cannot meet the requirements of unmanned underwater vehicles for endurance.
At present, with the continuous improvement of the new energy system, unmanned underwater vehicles in many countries have begun to switch to lithium-sulfur batteries and lithium-air batteries. In addition, some countries use nuclear power to support the operation of unmanned underwater vehicles.
- Deeper integration into the system. Today, major military powers are actively incorporating unmanned combat platforms into their maritime combat systems to meet the needs of future maritime joint operations. In the future, unmanned underwater vehicles will become the nodes of systematic combat terminals at sea, forming a distributed manned/unmanned cooperative combat system based on the naval battlefield combat network.
In 2017, the French Naval Construction Agency conducted a demining demonstration through a newly developed mission system that simultaneously controls drones, unmanned boats and D-19 unmanned underwater vehicles to carry out a demonstration of demining operations, and in 2019, South Korea's Hanwha Systems announced the AS-WUUV anti-submarine unmanned underwater vehicle, which can work in conjunction with surface ships, unmanned surface boats, other sensors and combat platforms to "join forces" to lock on and destroy targets.
- Possess "intelligence" to a greater extent. With the support of artificial intelligence and other technologies, unmanned underwater vehicles in the future will become more and more "autonomous". In 2021, the U.S. Navy released the "Intelligent Autonomous System Technology Strategy", which pointed out that in the face of increasingly diverse and sensitive underwater sensing methods and a more complex and changeable combat environment, unmanned underwater vehicles need to further improve their autonomous capabilities.
At present, quite a number of large and ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicles are changing their previous forms of operations such as auxiliary reconnaissance and offensive mine-laying, improving their direct combat capability and carrying out coordinated combat missions. For example, the American "Killer Whale" unmanned underwater vehicle and the Russian "Poseidon" unmanned underwater vehicle are already capable of attacking targets on their own, and their power is huge, and the "Killer Whale" unmanned underwater vehicle is still developing in the field of electronic warfare.
To sum up, whether as auxiliary warfare equipment or main battle equipment, whether it is a formation operation or an independent operation, the unmanned underwater vehicle, as a new concept of unmanned combat platform weapon, can realize long-term underwater missions and comprehensive monitoring of the vast sea area, fill the blind spots and blind spots of traditional anti-submarine means, improve the comprehensiveness and depth of anti-submarine warfare, and will surely become a new force that cannot be ignored in future underwater operations.
(Produced by the People's Liberation Army Daily, China Military Horn)