U.S. Navy Submarines Will Launch Drones UAVs & UUVs

 

The U.S. Navy is finally adding underwater drones to its fleet of nuclear attack submarines. A new version of the Navy’s Razorback unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) will have the capability to both launch and be recovered via torpedo tubes, allowing any submarine in the fleet to operate them on patrol. The drones, equipped with their own sonar systems, will allow naval submarines to search for enemy ships and submarines without revealing themselves.

According to U.S. Naval Institute News, the Navy has been eager to add unmanned (UUV) to its submarines, but technical issues have stymied their deployment. While the Razorback drone can be launched from a torpedo tube, recovering it after a mission has been a problem. So far, recovery has only been possible using divers and a dry dock shelter (DDS), a hump-shaped module that allows divers to enter and exit a submarine underwater. Only a handful of submarines in the fleet can carry a dry dock shelter, limiting the Razorback’s ability to deploy.

USNI News reports that the Navy has solved the recovery issue, and that the submarines will now be able to reel a Razorback back inside the way it came, through a torpedo tube. The process even works when the submarine is moving. Rear Admiral Casey Moton, the program executive officer for unmanned and small combatants, told USNI News that the system works and will soon be operational.

The Razorback is built by Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), a shipbuilding company that also builds submarines, aircraft carriers, and amphibious warships. It is specifically a medium unmanned undersea vehicle and modeled after the Huntington’s REMUS 600 UUV. The 600 in the REMUS’s title is the drone’s diving depth in meters, or 1,968 feet. The REMUS 600 is an untethered, autonomous drone capable of operating on its own for up to 24 hours.

The REMUS 600 is equipped with dual frequency side-scan sonar, which is deployed in arrays along the length of the drone’s body, allowing it to scan to port and starboard as it passes through the ocean. All of this makes underwater noise that adversaries can detect and track, so better a (UUV) does it than a crewed submarine.

The Navy has a fleet of 71 submarines of all types, including 53 attack submarines of the Los Angeles, Seawolf, and Virginia classes, 14 Ohio-class nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines, and four converted Ohio-class guided missile submarines. All submarines are equipped with standard 533-millimeter (21-inch) diameter torpedo tubes, and presumably all of them would be able to use the new Razorback drone.

Each type of submarine would likely use a sonar-equipped Razorback differently. Attack submarines could lie low and quietly launch their Razorbacks, relying on them to find enemy targets, like a fox hunter releasing his hounds. Even if the enemy were to detect the drones, it would not necessarily detect their submarine mothership. If the drones did locate an enemy vessel, the submarine could then maneuver into position unseen, setting up an ambush.

Larger Ohio-class submarines, on the other hand, would likely use them defensively, the drones forming an outward-looking underwater picket line to warn the crewed submarine of approaching danger.

The Razorback (UUV) will make attack submarines more effective and keep the bigger submarines and their missile payloads better protected. On land, at sea, and in the air, drones are stepping in to do the jobs too dangerous for humans.