ASW Via Drone Boats

Via the Early Bird Brief and C4ISRNet, comes this report of a product test, Elbit demonstrates anti-submarine drone:

Remotely guided by human operators through satellite communications, the Seagull sailed in the Haifa Bay, Israel, to perform the anti-submarine mission using control consoles 2,200 miles away.

“Operating its dipping sonar and Elbit Systems‘ proprietary software, Seagull performed real-time detections and classification of objects, demonstrating capability to deter and dissuade hostile subsurface activity,” according to a Elbit announcement. “The Seagull team included two operators, a USV operator and sonar operator.”

More from the Elbit corporate website:

The Seagull Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) systems have superior mine counter measures (MCM) capability. This USV facilitates end-to-end mine hunting operations, including detection, classification, location, identification and neutralization of bottom, moored and drifting sea mines while taking the sailor out of the mine field.

The Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capability provides the navy with a significant tactical advantage by effectively deterring and threatening enemy submarines using an available asset with significantly lower risk.

Featuring switchable, modular mission payload suites, Seagull can perform ASW and

MCM, electronic warfare (EW), maritime security (MS), hydrography and other missions using the same vessels, mission control system and data links.

And more here:

Seagull is a 12-meter long USV that can be operated from a mother-ship or from shore stations. It provides multi-mission capabilities including ASW, Mine Hunting & Mine Sweeping (MCM), Electronic Warfare (EW), maritime security and underwater commercial missions, leveraging modular mission system installation and offering a high level of autonomy.

It features inherent C4I capabilities for enhanced situation awareness and mission endurance of more than four days.

I can see a use for these things. Lots of uses, in fact.


All photos from ELbit Systems.

Friday Bonus Videos: DARPA/ONR and the Anti Submarine Warfare ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel ACTUV

The first ACTUV gets "christened":

The christening, to include the traditional breaking of a ceremonial bottle over the bow by DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar, signifies the beginnings of an entirely new class of ocean-going vessel—one able to traverse thousands of kilometers over the open seas for month at a time, without a single crew member aboard. Potential missions include submarine tracking and countermine activities.

“Although ACTUV will sail unmanned, its story is entirely about people,” said Scott Littlefield, DARPA program manager. “It will still be Sailors who are deciding how, when and where to use this new capability and the technology that has made it possible. And we could not have overcome the massive technical challenges to reaching this point without the creative, committed teamwork of our commercial partners and the Office of Naval Research.”
***
ACTUV is a 130-foot twin-screw trimaran, designed for enhanced stability in all kinds of weather. It has a number of unusual features because it does not need to accommodate people. For example, interior spaces are accessible for maintenance but aren’t designed to support a permanent crew.

But of broader technical significance is that ACTUV embodies breakthroughs in autonomous navigational capabilities with the potential to change the nature of U.S. maritime operations. Through at-sea testing on a surrogate vessel, ACTUV’s autonomy suite has proven capable of operating the ship in compliance with maritime laws and conventions for safe navigation—including International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, or COLREGS. ACTUV accomplishes this feat through advanced software and hardware that serve as automated lookouts, enabling the ship to operate safely near manned maritime vessels in all weather and traffic conditions, day or night.

ACTUV is designed to normally operate under sparse remote supervisory control but can also serve as a remotely piloted vessel, should the mission or specific circumstances require it. In either case, it would operate at a fraction of the cost of manned vessels that are today deployed for similar missions.

In September 2014, DARPA signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Office of Naval Research to jointly fund an extended test phase of an ACTUV prototype. DARPA will collaborate with ONR to fully test the capabilities of the vessel and several innovative payloads during open-water testing scheduled to begin this summer off the California coast after preliminary checkout and movement to San Diego. Pending the results of those tests, the program could transition to the U.S. Navy by 2018.

More and faster please.

I think that's "Sea Hunter" on her stern.









Update:DARPA just added this video:

Submarine Warfare Against Aircraft Carriers: Lessons the Chinese are Studying

Interesting piece by U.S. Naval War College Associate Professor Lyle J. Goldstein at The National Interest "How to Sink a U.S. Navy Carrier: China Turns to France For Ideas"

The revelation that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier group could be so vulnerable to a nuclear submarine did not make the mainstream media, and no mention was made by the many attentive defense analysts on this site, so it seems. However, the Chinese defense media does not miss much, especially concerning the capabilities of U.S. Navy carrier groups. In fact, a special issue of 兵工科技 [Ordnance Industry Science and Technology] (2015, no. 8) covered this “event,” featuring an interview with Chinese Submarine Academy professor 迟国仓 [Chi Guocang] as its cover story under the title: “A Single Nuclear Submarine ‘Sinks’ Half of an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group.”

There are a whole bunch of caveats, but the need for strong U.S. anti-submarine warfare skills is certainly suggested by the article.

Friday Fun Film: "ASW: Hunter/Killer Aircraft (1967)"

Anti-submarine Warfare is hard. Hard now and hard back in the late 60's when the Soviet sub force was big.



Shows the Navy's anti-submarine patrol in action during the late 1960s. Featuring flight operations off the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-18), fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft perform sweeps of the sea in the vicinity of the fleet main body. They are joined by destroyers and other warships equipped with sonar, depth-charges and ASW torpedoes. The Grumman S-2 Tracker aircraft is especially featured.

Sweden Versus Suspected But Unknown Submarine

It's a story too good for a retired Surface Warfare/Inshore Undersea Warfare guy to resist - the Swedes once again looking for a suspected submarine in their waters as Russia denies involvement with what may be the classic "who us?" quote of this undersea adventure:

“On Sunday the Russian Defense Ministry provided whatever aid it could to the Swedes in their futile search,” a Russian Ministry of Defense source told the state controlled Russia Today on Monday. (Hat tip to Sam LaGrone at USNI News)

And the Russians know this is a"futile search" how?

Well, if it was their boat and it has escaped from Swedish waters then they know where it isn't - meaning that it's not there for the Swedes to find.

Because if it is -say- a Bolivian submarine operating for some odd reason in the Baltic and in Swedish waters, then the search being conducted by the Swedes might not be so . . . futile, right?

Salamander has thoughts on, among other things, anti-submarine warfare readiness here.

What is the ASW package on those cool looking Visby corvettes?

Small Russian subs? How about Project 1910, Kashalot (picture above)

Friday Fun Film: "ASW: To Catch A Shadow" (1969)

Old school look at ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare):



Description:

Featured in the film is footage of P-3 Orion search aircraft, DASH drone helicopter, and the ships USS Yorktown (CV-1), destroyers USS Leary (DD-879), USS Walker (DD-517), and USS Bridger (DE-1024) and various submarines including USS Scorpion (SSN-589).

By the way, ASW is hard. You might find Lt. Cmdr. Jeff W. Benson, USN's A New Era in Anti-Submarine Warfare interesting reading:

When comparing the undersea with other warfare area such as anti-air warfare, the science and understanding of the ASW operating environment is a more complex tactical problem. Given the complexity of ASW, training personnel in mastering oceanography and anti-submarine operations must remain a high priority. For the last twenty years or more, ASW has not been a significant operational requirement as a result of the Cold War ending and a decade of fighting in the war on terrorism. A culture change from a primarily air warfare centric navy to an emphasis more in ASW must occur to improve proficiency among naval personnel at all ranks. This culture change must occur from the top down led by the Navy’s senior officers afloat and ashore.

Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare: Smaller might be the right fit for some countries and missions

Photo: Hawker Beechcraft

What if your neighborhood submarine threat is very local and does not consist of big hulking ballistic missile subs or other large subsurface craft? Well, then, you might hop on to this-  Beechcraft sees opportunity in anti-submarine King Airs:

Beechcraft Corp. is interested in possibly adding anti-submarine warfare to the list of special-mission capabilities of its King Air 350.

According to a report from Defense News, the Wichita company has already been approached by several systems integrators about using the King Air as a platform aircraft for such missions.

There is interest in the type of anti-submarine warfare capability such an aircraft could provide as the use of smaller submarines — such as those of Iran — is increasing.

The Defense News article also mentions the use of such aircraft in locating "drug subs" . .. .

Boeing Image

Mini-submarine numbers are on the rise. United Arab Emirates Navy chief Rear Adm. Ibrahim al Musharrakh recently told the Gulf Naval Commanders Conference that Iranian midget submarines are an imminent threat they were looking to counter.
***
Drug smugglers are also known to use mini-subs to transport narcotics in places like Latin America.

 I'm guessing an ASW King Air would be  less expensive (and admittedly, also would be less capable) than a P-8 Poseidon. On the other hand, they mostly would serve differing missions, wouldn't they?

U.S. Navy's New Tool? The Unmanned Submarine Follower

Ah, robots!

Faced with high ship building, operating and personnel costs, the U.S. Navy tasks the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) to come up with some help in the hard job of keeping track of quiet diesel- electric submarines for long periods. DARPA has responded with s plan for something called the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV). DARPA says:

The program is structured around three primary goals:

1. Explore the performance potential of a surface platform conceived from concept to field demonstration under the premise that a human is never intended to step aboard at any point in its operating cycle. As a result, a new design paradigm emerges with reduced constraints on conventional naval architecture elements such as layout, accessibility, crew support systems, reserve buoyancy and dynamic stability. The objective is to generate a vessel design that exceeds state-of-the art platform performance to provide complete propulsive overmatch against diesel electric submarines at a fraction of their size and cost.
2. Advance unmanned maritime system autonomy to enable independently deploying systems capable of missions spanning thousands of kilometers of range and months of endurance under a sparse remote supervisory control model. This includes autonomous compliance with maritime laws and conventions for safe navigation, autonomous system management for operational reliability, and autonomous interactions with an intelligent adversary.
3. Demonstrate the capability of the ACTUV system to use its unique characteristics to employ non-conventional sensor technologies that achieve robust continuous track of the quietest submarine targets over their entire operating envelope.

So, as reported in the Navy League's Sea Power magazine:

DARPA selected six industry proposals for the ACTUV concept in January 2010 for Phase 1 of the program, the concept definition phase. In August 2012, DARPA selected Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) to design, construct and demonstrate an ACTUV prototype under the next three phases of the program under a $58 million contract. SAIC “proposed a trimaran platform: key features and innovations for the vessel, sensors, autonomy and
software. The scope of the program includes developing and testing a Remote Supervisory Control System,” Littlefield said.

In March, Raytheon Co. announced that it had been selected by SAIC to provide the sonar system for the ACTUV. The Modular Scalable Sonar System (MS3), a fifth-generation development of the company’s 30-yearold medium-frequency, hull-mounted SQS-56 sonar will have both active and passive acoustic search, detection, passive threat filtering, localization and tracking capabilities. It also will provide torpedo detection and alert and avoidance of small objects.

DARPA ACTUV Simulator Screen Shot

*** The ACTUV’s sonar will need to be autonomous, performing the difficult task of submarine tracking without an operator directing its operation. It will need sophisticated algorithms for automatic tracking, including maintaining a low false-target detection rate. The sonar also will help the ACTUV observe the rules of safe navigation applicable to any vessel at sea.

If this concept works, it will be quite the force enhancer.

UPDATE: DARPA want you to have fun exploring this concept - with its Can You Outsmart an Enemy Submarine Commander? bit, including a chance to run through a simulator.