The technical parameters remain mysterious, and the combat scene triggers conjecture! The United States and Australia have successively announced the progress of the development of large submersibles

Source: Global Times

According to US media reports, Australia and the United States recently launched the "Ghost Shark" and "Manta Ray" unmanned underwater vehicles, respectively, while China also unveiled its super-large underwater vehicle earlier this month. Experts say unmanned underwater vehicles may represent the direction of future undersea operations.

Australia launches 'ghost shark'

According to a report by CNN on the 13th, Australia launched a prototype of the "Ghost Shark" unmanned underwater vehicle last month, and called it "the world's most advanced underwater autonomous driving platform". "The Ghost Shark will provide the Navy with stealthy, long-range autonomous undersea combat capabilities that can perform sustained intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions," with the first production models expected to be delivered by the end of next year, according to a statement from the Australian Department of Defence.

Australian officials and senior executives of manufacturer Anduril Australia said they could not share any detailed parameters of the "ghost shark" because they remained classified, the report said. But they touted the speed of the submarine from idea to test, and the program began only two years ago. According to Senior Vice President Anduril, the plan was completed ahead of schedule and implemented on budget, which was rarely the case before.

"Ghost Shark"

According to the website "Naval Technology", Anduril initially began commercial negotiations with the Royal Australian Navy in May 2022, with plans to build and deliver three ultra-large autonomous underwater vehicles (XL-AUVs) on Australian soil within three years. The Ghost Shark is optimized to carry different payloads to support a variety of military and non-military missions, including advanced intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance, infrastructure inspection, and targeting. In an announcement on April 17 this year, Anduril said it was a "modular, multi-purpose system" that could flexibly respond to the Australian Defence Force's mission requirements and become an "agile force multiplier". The first "ghost shark" prototype was built by an engineering team of 121 people from 42 different Australian companies.

An article published on the US "War Zone" website believes that it may be more realistic for the "Ghost Shark" to carry out anti-submarine/anti-surface warfare missions, or to carry out electronic reconnaissance missions. Another role worth considering is as a "mothership" for other UAVs or UAVs to carry smaller UAVs or UAVs. At the same time, it will rely heavily on AI technology to ensure that it can perform its tasks autonomously, especially in high-threat environments.

According to CNN, Emma Salisbury, a researcher at the Geostrategy Committee of the British think tank, said that the "ghost shark" looks a lot like the "killer whale" super-large unmanned underwater vehicle being developed by the United States. "I think they can all be used for broadly similar missions — sustained intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and strike capabilities, particularly in the anti-submarine domain," Salisbury said. ”

The U.S. Navy said at a press conference last December that the Orca, an unmanned underwater vehicle built by Boeing, is "a sophisticated, autonomous, unmanned diesel-electric submarine with a modular payload that can perform a variety of tasks." Having a modular payload means that the Orca could theoretically carry different types of weapons depending on the mission, or be equipped with specialized equipment and equipment for reconnaissance, intelligence gathering. The U.S. Navy report said the Killer Whale had been in development for more than a decade, in stark contrast to the speed at which Australia was developing the Ghost Shark. Anduriel chief strategy officer Chris Brose said the company and Australia are proving that these capabilities can be built faster, cheaper and smarter. Anduril Australia said the fully domestically produced Ghost Shark will be used for export after joining the Australian Navy fleet.

U.S. Open Manta Ray

The Killer Whale is not the only unmanned underwater vehicle being developed in the United States. According to CNN, the newest unmanned underwater vehicle in the United States is Northrop Grumman's Manta Ray, the prototype of which was tested in southern California in February and March. According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Manta Ray has the advantage of being able to switch payloads depending on the mission. According to Northrop Grumman, it can be disassembled and loaded into 5 standard containers, transported to where it will be deployed, and reassembled on site. A prototype of the unmanned underwater vehicle was built in Maryland and then reassembled off the coast of California.

Kyle Werner, head of the DARPA Manta Ray project, said in a press release: "The combination of transnational modular transportation, on-site assembly and subsequent deployment demonstrates the first-of-its-kind capabilities of this ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicle." He also said that the modular approach to transport, rather than having it arrive at the deployment site on its own, means that the Manta Ray can conserve its own energy to carry out its mission. The Manta Ray program began in 2020, but DARPA did not set a goal for Manta Ray to join the US Navy.

According to the Warzone website, Northrop's underwater gear was inspired by the "graceful gliding" of the sea creature manta rays. This unmanned underwater vehicle has a "lifting body" similar to the characteristics of an underwater glider, but is not a real underwater glider (it does not strictly use variable buoyancy propulsion, but uses thrusters or propellers to propel it forward).

Essentially, Manta Ray is capable of "long-term, long-range missions in marine environments inaccessible to humans," and a key part of its functionality is related to additional energy-saving technologies that allow it to sleep at low power on the ocean floor, as well as energy regeneration technologies. The regenerative technology was developed by Northrop in collaboration with the renewable energy company Seatrec. Visuals previously released by the company showed the Manta Ray also propelled by two smaller propellers.

According to CNN, these unmanned underwater vehicles may represent the future of undersea warfare. According to the report, the use of drones in air combat has become commonplace. They are widely used by the US military in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and newer and cheaper drones have become key military equipment for both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Ukraine has also built unmanned surface boats, which have caused significant losses to the larger and more expensive ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. However, there are still some difficulties to overcome in the operation of unmanned underwater vehicles. Unmanned equipment in the air and at sea can be controlled using satellites, light waves, and radio waves, but they are not the same in the depths of the seabed. A 2023 study published in the Swiss journal Sensors argues that underwater communications require more energy, but still see a lot of data loss due to factors such as water temperature, salinity, and depth. And the manufacturers of the new generation of military unmanned underwater vehicles do not say how they will overcome the problems of underwater communications.

"China is also making progress"

CNN's report claims that while the United States and Australia are developing unmanned underwater vehicles, China, which the U.S. military has called a "looming threat" in the Pacific region, is also making progress in unmanned underwater vehicles. "Although details are scarce, like most Chinese systems, they have been in development for at least 15 years and may now have an unmanned underwater vehicle similar to the American 'killer whale' (but with a torpedo) that is in the testing phase," said Emma Salisbury. ”

Sutton, an expert on U.S. submarines and underwater combat systems, even claimed that based on an analysis of open-source intelligence, it is believed that China has at least six super-large unmanned underwater vehicles under development. In addition to Australia, the United States and China, other countries engaged in UUV research include Canada, France, India, Iran, Israel, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, Sutton said.

According to an article entitled "How China's New Ultra-Large Underwater Vehicle Compares with the American 'Manta Ray'" in the US "Newsweek" on the 13th, China demonstrated an unmanned underwater vehicle at the Asian Defense Exhibition held in Malaysia earlier this month.

Sutton believes that the ability of the series of ultra-large unmanned underwater vehicles (XLUUV) to be equipped with weapons and exported, "highlights Beijing's determination to develop autonomous underwater weapons." Sutton also believes that "China is a world leader in this emerging technology".

However, Chinese military experts told the Global Times that Western countries led by the United States are accelerating the development of unmanned underwater vehicles and other unmanned underwater equipment, and are working to use them in distributed combat systems. However, in this process, they did not forget to use China as a target to exaggerate the speed of China's development in related fields and the increasing degree of threat, which is completely smear and hype, and is nothing more than so that the US military can win more military budget under the guise of China's military threat.