Ex-submariner and unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) analyst Bryan Clark.
---
Here is an interesting 8 minute video interview with full transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4240310.htm with Bryan Clark. He is increasingly becomming an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) analyst.
Clark was the retired US submariner, top aide to the US Chief of Naval Operations and
Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who published The Emerging Future in Undersea Warfare on January 22, 2015. While all of his comments are in the transcript I’ve summarised his more significant comments below:
- what we're seeing is the increasing ability to take a look at large areas and amass a large amount of information at one time and then process it very quickly [My comment - This underlines the trend towards the Navies of countries working closely with their NSA equivalents towards four dimensional modelling.]
- new detection techniques are emerging that would allow you to find man-made objects in the water more easily
- it is increasingly difficult for subs to operate with impunity in areas close to other countries. Manned sub coastal work is going to be come to an end against advanced adversaries in the next 20 years or so
- with new detection technologies out to a couple of hundred miles off an adversary's coast this will demand changes in the way subs are built and operate
- Subs may have to operate more like an aircraft carrier where they stay offshore, staying away from the threat, while subs deploy UUVs towards an adversary's coast
- for Australia’s future submarine selection Australia must consider the “new detection technologies.” Subs “may have to be larger" with much more communications equipment using more comms methods
- There are two big limitations to UUVs
: one is short endurance, short range and slow speed on battery. Although a small diesel engine might help.
: the other big UUV limitation is they don't have any accountability in terms of the human control over weapons use. And so even though you could autonomously program a UUV to go and shoot a torpedo at a target that it recognises, who will be accountable for the result if that torpedo hits a civilian ship instead of hitting a military ship? [My comment - Clark seems to be asking "Will Chinese UUVs be less constrained regarding these moral and legal aspects than the West?"].
- A UUV is not going to be susceptible to the fear factor that a manned sub might be. A limitation of a manned sub is if you shoot at it, it generally has to run away because it doesn't have a lot of self-defence systems and your crew's life is at stake. The UUV will not respond in that way. A UUV will continue to carry out the mission until you physically destroy it. So, countering UUVs is going to be a huge challenge - which the US Government is looking at.
------------------------------------------------------
Please connect with:
LDUUVs, UUV, AUVs and Undersea Cable Tapping, January 14, 2015 at http://gentleseas.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/sea-stalker-uuv-lduuv-auy-and.html .
Pete