Chinese Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)
- Thread starter by78
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TWZ has an article now on this large UUV
one of the most interesting things
3000nm at 6 knots would be mild. That means 500 hours of 6 knots cruising or 20+ days without surfacing just on battery power alone. Amazing how much these things can last longer without having to accommodate humans.
The crazy thing is it still has a diesel engine that extends endurance to probably 2-3 months at sea.
If they actually remove the diesel engine and just do batteries, you can add another expand battery size by probably another 1/3. And then if you reduce the cruise speed to 4 knots, sub can conceivable stay in the water for 40 days and spend 4000 nm roaming.
It would be wilder if they put Stirling in there and it never has to surface.
So my other theory is that since it needs to surface probably once or twice a day to communicate with satellite, that's time for it to charge. If it can charge like 10 minutes a day while communication with satellites. Over 20 days, it'd charge for 200 minutes -> 3 2/3 hours. That might be enough to keep it going. So maybe there is a purpose for diesel generator
500hrs of cruising is quite long when using it's energy, the most scary part would be how much time it can lay on the bottom waiting on battery ? With a long buoy antenna for mission update it could become quite a foe.