The Silent Hunt: The Rise of Underwater Drone Warfare

While all eyes are on the skies, a new and equally important battle is taking shape in the depths of the ocean. The use of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) is poised to revolutionize naval warfare, from covert surveillance and mine-hunting to the audacious new tactic of using explosive-laden UUVs to attack ships in port. This SITREP explores the unique challenges and opportunities of this new, silent war.

While the skies over Ukraine are buzzing with drones, a new, and perhaps even more consequential, battle is taking shape in the silent depths of the ocean. The rise of the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) is poised to revolutionize naval warfare, just as the aerial drone has revolutionized land warfare. From covert surveillance and mine-hunting to the audacious new tactic of using explosive-laden UUVs to attack ships in port, the silent hunt has begun.

The underwater domain is the most challenging environment on Earth for communications and navigation. Radio waves don't penetrate water, and GPS doesn't work. This has made it incredibly difficult to operate unmanned systems in the deep. But with the advent of new technologies like acoustic modems, inertial navigation systems, and AI-powered autonomous control, we are finally beginning to crack the code.

The war in Ukraine has given us a glimpse of what is possible. We have seen the audacious use of explosive-laden UUVs to attack Russian warships in the port of Sevastopol. These attacks, while not always successful, have demonstrated the potential of this new kind of asymmetric warfare. A small, cheap UUV can hold a billion-dollar warship at risk, fundamentally changing the calculus of naval power.

But the real revolution will not be in these headline-grabbing attacks, but in the more mundane, but equally important, missions of surveillance, reconnaissance, and mine-hunting. A swarm of autonomous UUVs can be deployed to create a persistent, covert sensor network that can monitor a contested strait or a critical piece of undersea infrastructure. They can be used to hunt for mines, a slow, dangerous, and expensive task that is currently performed by manned vessels. And they can be used to track enemy submarines, the apex predators of the deep.

The challenges are still immense. We need to develop more reliable and higher-bandwidth underwater communication systems. We need to create more powerful and more energy-efficient UUVs. And we need to develop the sophisticated AI that will allow these systems to operate with a high degree of autonomy. But the prize is immense. The nation that can master the silent hunt will have a decisive advantage in the great power competition of the 21st century.