Free Republic

War tensions have been high since last week's announcement by the South Korean government that a 60-foot North Korean submarine fired a torpedo that sank a South Korean corvette and killed 46 sailors at the end of March. The South Koreans stated that a Yeono-class (alternatively spelled "Yono") midget submarine fired the torpedo in March. (They also field a larger midget submarine, the Sang-O, that fits 15 sailors. At least one of these subs was also on patrol when the attack happened, according to an international team of investigators looking into the incident with South Korea.) The attack occurred in...

In the U.S. the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is planning to introduce unmanned frigates for long missions shadowing diesel-electric submarines. The vessels, dubbed Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessels or ACTUVs, are designed to be unmanned, with only intermittent communication from operators on shore or on a ship, and to require no maintenance for months. They will also obey navigational rules and be able to avoid collisions at sea. The three main objectives of the program are to build an “X-ship” that operates without anyone stepping aboard at any point in its operating cycle, secondly to demonstrate the...