See how you guys like living in Our Brave New World:
To the world it might be called a robot boat, but its proper name is the Unmanned Surface Vehicle, and the U.S. Navy expects it to be a major tool in countering what officials believe is a growing threat posed by quiet diesel-powered submarines owned by rogue nations.
In advance of the official roll-out today, reporters were allowed to see the boat on Thursday at Naval Base Point Loma before it took a trial run on San Diego Bay.
The goal is to greatly expand the Navy’s ability to detect hostile submarines by sending the unmanned boats, equipped with sonar, to probe the nooks and crannies where subs might be hiding to ambush a Navy ship or a merchant vessel.
The boats will be controlled by sailors at a safe distance on a much larger ship.
Laugh on, sub dudes. You’re next.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Dude! Did you see the price tag?
“The first of the two boats, developed and stuffed with sonar-detection gear, cost $197 million.”
“In the future, the price is slated to drop to $46 million per boat.”
Tell you what… pay me half of that, say $23 million and I’ll buy 2 brand new bass boats , some ski rope, 2 masks, and 2 snorkles. I’ll tow my sons in law around and they can look for submarines. We’ll go anywhere you’d like!
We used to call these sonobouys back in the day. Nice that the new version is self-propelled and recyclable I suppose.
$46M! That’s one expensive sonobouy.
Take a look at the lead story over on DefenseTech.org today – based on the Navy’s recent (lack of) success in shipbuilding, I’m starting to have serious doubts about their ability to build a rubber dingy, much less this thing.
“The boats will be controlled by sailors at a safe distance on a much larger ship.”
Please let me Red Team “safe distance.”
Ho humm another robo thang…with my tax dollars. All I see is a $46 million dollar sonobuoy with crap for weps…So what?
I’m sure the Google generation will think it’s adequate though.
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Interesting fighter stuff more up your alley (literally):
“Pentagon May Redefine ‘Tactical Aviation’ ”
In the wake of an unprecedented war game, senior Pentagon officials are examining how to better manage the U.S. military’s fighter portfolio and mulling whether the decades-old definition of tactical aircraft needs a face-lift. The Pentagon is moving ever closer to the day when it will have just one active U.S. defense manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, building fighter jets. Costs for the two fleets Lockheed is building, the F-22 and F-35, have soared, driving down the number the Pentagon can afford and prompting concerns from defense officials and experts about the health of the U.S. fighter industrial base. Once Boeing stops building its F/A-18s, it may not make business sense for the Chicago-based company to get back into the fighter game, defense observers say. “Once a company is out of the fighter business, it is nearly impossible for it to start back up that capability,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at the Fairfax, Va.-based Teal Group. “It would be very, very costly.” Yet James Finley, deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, said the current and future condition of the U.S. fighter industrial base “is not a concern.” Instead, he calls it “an area of great interest.” Senior Pentagon and industry officials, joined by congressional aides and Wall Street analysts, gathered in late June for what sources have described as a rolling three-day discussion aimed at unearthing ways the U.S. military might save money within its tactical air programs, enhance competition, and address warnings that the Navy and Air Force could have too few warplanes to carry out future missions. Pentagon officials challenged industry teams from Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to propose “innovative ideas” that could repair the fighter industrial base and help defense officials better manage tactical air programs, sources said. Finley said a consensus emerged during the war game “that the industrial base matters.” Specifically, a coming Office of the Secretary of Defense report on the event likely will review several of the proposals, including using multiyear procurement deals, funding flexibility within program plans, foreign sales, “depot 50-50,” and long lead procurement funding, among others, he said. The industry official-turned-Pentagon decision-maker also said the war game led some to mull whether the Defense Department should rewrite its decades-long definition of the term tactical aircraft, which typically has meant fighter and air-to-ground attack jets. Because new technologies have been fielded in recent years that have changed how the American military fights, platforms like UAVs and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft might need to be added to the TACAIR portfolio, Finley said. Aboulafia said the need to revise the definition “was true 25 years ago and it’s still true today. While they’re at it, why not put tankers in there, too?” To fill its gap, the Navy is looking at upgrading some older planes to delay their retirements, buying from 50 to 282 more F/A-18s, and either speeding or delaying the F-35 Lightning II.” ………. “”It does frustrate me,” Finley said. “But we cannot ignore issues” identified by the services. As defense officials continue building the 2010 Pentagon budget, which will be turned over to the new administration to make changes in the few weeks before it is submitted to Congress in early February, more deliberations on the fighter programs is a sure thing, sources say. For instance, Finley recounted a recent budget proposal he reviewed within the TACAIR portfolio that, if reflective of that service’s intentions, will trigger high-level meetings. “There was one line . that constituted a major change,” he said. Finley’s reaction to what he saw was, “Did I read that right?” He said he hopes he misread something because “if I did read it right, someone is looking at the numbers the wrong way.” He declined to specify which program office or service generated the budget figures.
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Wait until some fishermen lasso one and take it home….
Bounty of the Sea and all that.
Well, the only uniform I’ve ever worn says “Boy Scouts of America” over the pocket. So from my viewpoint anything that keeps the good guys farther out of harms’ way (I do realize that’s a relative term, not an absolute one) while keeping the heat on the bad guys is a good thing. Not so much fun for the guys in uniform, perhaps. But let’s keep the larger objective in mind. I think General Patton said something about the idea being getting the other guy to die for his country.
re: the cost, I’ll bet that’s the total program, or at least the total mission package cost. The individual boat shouldn’t have been more than $3 million or so.
The UUV idea reminds me of the “Seaquest DSV” series that used those small remote chingaderas flitting about the Seaquest while cruising that were used as remote sensors and comm links.
It’s ok. I’m sure these things won’t be able to find us either.
badbob:
Its interesting that the article talks like Boeing will wash its hands of the whole aircraft development business. I have several friends that work in Dallas on the F35 program and they have talked numerous times about how intertwined the defense contractors are. Even if the F35 is built by LockMart, its my understand that several major components are manufactured by Boeing. Just so that what the article describes, won’t happen. Give them enough to keep making it worth their while so that if WW3 breaks out, we will have someone else in the ballgame that can also manufacture airplanes.
Adam, manufacturing isn’t the issue. Design is.
That being said, Northrop-Grumman seems to be serious about staying in the airframe business – there had been some speculation that they would confine themselves to avionics.
And Boeing is likely to be building more Hornets. From what I’m hearing, F-35 is looking more and more like it will be strangled by price increases. And the Navy was never that hot on JSF anyway. The future is F/A-XX.
Naw, us sub guys want a UAV to go along with our new fangled SSGN.
I wanna be on Salamander’s team…
Give me a bass boat for I intend to go in harm’s way…
Eagle1, don’t forget the quarter sticks of dynamite for fishin’
Since this thread already drifted from subs into fighters, I’m going to drift it some more…anyone see the article about the semi-subs being used by cocaine smugglers?
The news said that some smugglers in them, when confronted by the Coast Guard, just scuttle the sub and then ask to be rescued.
“Sorry, Senor – I don’t know what was on the sub…if you can find out when it’s at the bottom of the ocean, you can prosecute me…”
Solution: Sink the damn things on sight…good practice for ASW and legal problems solved…
Comments?
We have been playing around with UUV’s for years (some might say decades)…I may or may not have some experience in that area…
But I do agree with Fastnav.
Remember : only two types of ships.
Midwatch, all I can say on that is “Be careful what you ‘wish’ for.” Though I personally wonder a bit about the notion – ballistics and crusie missiles (being one-way machines) make a certain amount of sense to use from subs. UAVs one usually expects to recover though, which for a sub might be a bit more troublesome.
Latching onto Mike’s comment, would a “good enough/better than the last” incremental design philosophy help drop those design costs any? This is assuming there’d be a faster design/development process for each generation of product, and that the perfect being enemy of the good is a lot of what’s driving the long design cycles currently. I’m thinking along the lines of the rapid sequential improvements to the Century-series and the still-relatively-quick Teen-series, compared to the current stuff.
Back in the day, at least in the RVN the Navy had remotely controlled MSRs, most of the time they were operated manually because the R/C systems were not reliable. The end result was a very expensive and uncomfortable john-boat, I am afraid this sounds like more of the same.
Advokaat –
It’s the law of the sea. The drug smugglers aren’t doing it with just their semi-subs.
Back when I was going CD ops, they would change into white outfits, set their boats on fire, and then jump off knowing that the Coast Guard was required to pick them up. The white suits were so they’d be visible in the water.
Not a new tactic. Just a new method of transportation.
Adam,
Hope you’re right, our shipbuilding was fine once, too…That’s what’s scary.
I’ll break out my old cliche- “In 1987 DoD consumed over 90% of all integrated circuits produced in the US. In 2000 we we only used 15%.”
Boeing makes more making trash-haulers that it ever did fighters..
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