Chinese Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV)
- Thread starter by78
- Start date
by78
General
More images of various manta ray UUVs developed by Northwestern Polytechnical University. The largest one weighs 800kg.
There's this brochure from Zhuhai 2024 which depicted an XLUUV with a largely similar dimension and roughly similar design (bar the stern section) as the sailless X-tail submarine seen in the satellite photograph at Guangzhou. Posted by @Hurin92 on Twitter.
As of present, while I don't think we can be absolutely confident that the sailless X-tail submarine is 100% an XLUUV, but I suppose that this isn't exactly out of the realm of possibility (or even feasibility at this point). It is quite likely that the sailless X-tail submarine is a new technological experimentation and evaluation platform/demonstrator/prototype - Which certainly point towards significant amount of research and developmental efforts being poured into the XLUUV (if not UL)UUV domain.
While the increase in size is notable, it is not out of line with what I'd expect future UUVs to look like. In fact once certain other challenges are overcome, notably in terms of autonomy and kill chain-authorisation, they would likely grow a lot more still. This is for the same reason UAVs that aim to complement and eventually replace crewed aerial platforms, have to assume very similar size/weight specs. A lot of capability driving design parameters on submarines is not actually related to accommodating a human crew.
In any case, the design in question here resembles existing UUVs in overall apearance rather than crewed designs, even for small littoral boats. Hence why the assumption that it is a drone is IMO reasonable. That of course doesnt mean its definitive, as already mentioned. It could well be an optionally crewed system as well, for the same reason the JARI-USV-A demonstrator is.
In any case, the design in question here resembles existing UUVs in overall apearance rather than crewed designs, even for small littoral boats. Hence why the assumption that it is a drone is IMO reasonable. That of course doesnt mean its definitive, as already mentioned. It could well be an optionally crewed system as well, for the same reason the JARI-USV-A demonstrator is.
lcloo
Captain
Being big has 2 advantages.
Firstly is long endurance beyond manned subamrines since they don't need to carry food, water oxygen etc for the crew. This allow for carrying more weapons (mines, torpedos, missiles), larger battery, more fuel, computing power and sensors.
Secondly, it can be placed under hibernation state or a sleeping condition to avoid draining its battery or other power source. It thus becomes a sort of underwater weapon station tens of thousands of miles away from base, it can change its location now and then, as it moves and hibernate on standby for new instructions. Thus it can be deployed for months or even years before going back to base for maintenance.
It may sound like sci-fi but technologically feasible today.
Firstly is long endurance beyond manned subamrines since they don't need to carry food, water oxygen etc for the crew. This allow for carrying more weapons (mines, torpedos, missiles), larger battery, more fuel, computing power and sensors.
Secondly, it can be placed under hibernation state or a sleeping condition to avoid draining its battery or other power source. It thus becomes a sort of underwater weapon station tens of thousands of miles away from base, it can change its location now and then, as it moves and hibernate on standby for new instructions. Thus it can be deployed for months or even years before going back to base for maintenance.
It may sound like sci-fi but technologically feasible today.
How feasible is it to use these XLUUVs as undersea "loyal wingman" drones of sorts, kind of like how modern manned aircraft is increasingly using CCA UCAVs? Would they have the range & speed to keep up with manned SSNs & the rest of the PLAN CVBG? Or would they need some kind of "carrier" vessel to tow them along until they're needed for duty?