The US Navy’s new robot submarine is primarily a minelayer, the official leading the program has revealed. The 84-foot Orca is designed to lay so-called “clandestine-delivered mines,” Captain Matt Lewis – a submariner and program manager for the Navy’s Unmanned Maritime Systems office – told The War Zone. “That’s the initial concept,” Lewis said.
This makes sense. Minelaying is the most straightforward task fleet leaders could assign to the Boeing-made Orca as the type undergoes intensive testing this year ahead of its formal entry into front-line service. The US Navy could acquire dozens of the autonomous submarines in the coming years, spending $50 million per boat to help fill an anticipated shortfall in manned submarines as old Cold War vessels decommission.
Sea mines could be some of the most effective – and most efficient – weapons for the most urgent crisis the American fleet could face in the next few years: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Assuming US President Donald Trump honours the longstanding American commitment to defend Taiwan – hardly a safe assumption, given Trump’s day-one executive order halting all US foreign aid – Orcas dispensing keel-breaking mines could transform the Taiwan Strait into a watery graveyard for the Chinese fleet.
The US Navy’s new robot submarine is primarily a minelayer, the official leading the program has revealed. The 84-foot Orca is designed to lay so-called “clandestine-delivered mines,” Captain Matt Lewis – a submariner and program manager for the Navy’s Unmanned Maritime Systems office – told The War Zone. “That’s the initial concept,” Lewis said.
This makes sense. Minelaying is the most straightforward task fleet leaders could assign to the Boeing-made Orca as the type undergoes intensive testing this year ahead of its formal entry into front-line service. The US Navy could acquire dozens of the autonomous submarines in the coming years, spending $50 million per boat to help fill an anticipated shortfall in manned submarines as old Cold War vessels decommission.
Sea mines could be some of the most effective – and most efficient – weapons for the most urgent crisis the American fleet could face in the next few years: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Assuming US President Donald Trump honours the longstanding American commitment to defend Taiwan – hardly a safe assumption, given Trump’s day-one executive order halting all US foreign aid – Orcas dispensing keel-breaking mines could transform the Taiwan Strait into a watery graveyard for the Chinese fleet.