Posted on 02/19/2019 11:07:58 AM PST by blam
The Navy is bulking up its fleet of autonomous robot vessels with the purchase of a cadre of four of Boeing's extremely large and incredibly grandiose unmanned Orca submarines.
On Feb. 13, the Navy awarded Boeing a $43 million contract to produce four of the 51-foot Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) that are capable of traveling some 6,500 nautical miles unaided, the US Naval Institute reported.
According to USNI, the Navy could potentially deploy the Orcas from existing vessels to conduct "mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, electronic warfare and strike missions."
But as Popular Mechanics points out, the Orca's modular design and relatively inexpensive price tag make the robo-subs a potential game-changer for a Navy that's struggling to grow to 335 hulls:
Orca could even pack a Mk. 46 lightweight torpedo to take a shot at an enemy sub itself. It could also carry heavier Mk. 48 heavyweight torpedoes to attack surface ships, or even conceivably anti-ship missiles. Orca could drop off cargos on the seabed, detect, or even lay mines. The modular hardware payload system and open architecture software ensures Orca could be rapidly configured based on need.
This sort of versatility in a single, low-cost package is fairly unheard of in military spending. The nearest rough equivalent is the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship, which costs $584 million each and has a crew of 40. While LCS is faster, has the benefit of an onboard crew, and carries a larger payload, Orca is autonomous—and cheaper by orders of magnitude.
The purchase comes amid a push into autonomous vessels for the Navy, and not just because of President Donald Trump's newfound focus on artificial intelligence.
An Echo Voyager fully autonomous extra large unmanned undersea vehicle (XLUUV) class UUV. Boeing
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
it would be cool if it could procreate...
The great news is that Robots don’t have a gender!
And after that... Terminators!
Does that make them “questioning”?
I’ll be able to get a knock off mini version at Harbor Freight eventually.
If it will work more than once, if at all ,who knows?
Thanks blam. Except for Iran of course -- running into one of the Iranian subs with an inflatable raft should do the trick.
Low frequencies do.
Neither do people, but that hasn't stopped the ignorant from misusing the word.
It’s amazing how costs can be trimmed for military equipment if they don’t require a toilet seat.
About 70 years ago a comic book depicted the battle of Armageddon and soldiers were faunting at the bit to get into the battle but the generals sent in the robots and drones. In the end angels came down and took the robots up with them and left the men.
Science fiction does a good job of predicting the future, huh?
I am confident China has all the hardware and software related to Orca. Chicom spies have swarmed over our universities and industry for decades.
What we have—they have and will soon be in production.
With depth limits.
Sure they do, in strongly gendered languages. Submarines (in German) are neuter. In French, Italian, or Spanish they're masculine.
But you said “robot” not “submarine”. Robots are masculine in German, French, Italian, and Spanish.
If they receive orders via satellite, they will be just one more item that won’t work when the Chinese start a war by disabling our communications satellites and also delivering an EMP.
Not a concern.
“faunting at the bit “
?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.