Chinese UCAV/CCA/flying wing drones (ISR, A2A, A2G)

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ChineseToTheBone

New Member
Registered Member
iewgnem said:
Which means theres a good chance there are ASW modules too, i.e. ASW containers with towed/variable depth sonar, containerized torpedo/UUV launchers, drone helicopter in containers with dipping sonars. Those can all arguably be much easier to hide than EMAL on deck or radar arrays.

The ability to put full ASW suite on hundreds or even thousands of cargo ship, big and small, with cargo ship acustic profiles and visually indistinguishable from an unarmed ship, is a nightmare scenerio for US subs that has even greater implications than destroyer or EMAL drone carrier configurations.
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Not saying this will be impossible or will never happen, but that kind of towed sonar adaptation could be the most difficult conversion for merchant vessels given how noisy they are. Even purpose built military vessels like the Freedom class ships designed in part for anti submarine warfare failed at getting dedicated modules because they were more noisy than destroyers.

I agree with your third point about dipped sonars, as the only feasible way I can see merchant vessels getting anti submarine warfare capability would be through installing proper helicopter maintenance facilities or at bare minimum large helicopter drones. That presents a lot of potential for sure but also significantly ups the number of actual military naval personnel required to be stationed on a relatively poorly defended vessel.
 
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Andy1974

Senior Member
Registered Member
ChineseToTheBone said:
Not saying this will be impossible or will never happen, but that kind of towed sonar adaptation could be the most difficult conversion for merchant vessels given how noisy they are. Even purpose built military vessels like the Freedom class ships designed in part for anti submarine warfare failed at getting dedicated modules because they were more noisy than destroyers.

I agree with your third point about dipped sonars, as the only feasible way I can see merchant vessels getting anti submarine warfare capability would be through installing proper helicopter maintenance facilities or at bare minimum large helicopter drones. That presents a lot of potential for sure but also significantly ups the number of actual military naval personnel required to be stationed on a relatively poorly defended vessel.
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I don’t see why you can’t use signal processing to cancel out your own noise.
 
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iewgnem

Captain
Registered Member
ChineseToTheBone said:
Not saying this will be impossible or will never happen, but that kind of towed sonar adaptation could be the most difficult conversion for merchant vessels given how noisy they are. Even purpose built military vessels like the Freedom class ships designed in part for anti submarine warfare failed at getting dedicated modules because they were more noisy than destroyers.

I agree with your third point about dipped sonars, as the only feasible way I can see merchant vessels getting anti submarine warfare capability would be through installing proper helicopter maintenance facilities or at bare minimum large helicopter drones. That presents a lot of potential for sure but also significantly ups the number of actual military naval personnel required to be stationed on a relatively poorly defended vessel.
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I think ability to field hundreds of towed sonar more than make up for sub-optimal performance, especially with, as already pointed out, modern auto-noise cancelation or directional gain.
Even just forcing enemy subs to treat every merchant ship as a potential ASW threat has enormous tactical advantages.

Obviously this is getting off topic for UCAV thread, perhaps a dedicated threat is needed for this new platform.
 
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valysre

Junior Member
Registered Member
Andy1974 said:
I don’t see why you can’t use signal processing to cancel out your own noise.
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It'd be tricky to work out your own noise, but it's not an impossible task at all. I would think experience on similar products in the consumer markets would translate very well.
 
GTI

GTI

Junior Member
Registered Member
Surely a viable ASW option would be UUVs?

HSU100 and AJX002 should be able to fit on decks w/o too many issues, if they can engineer a way to lower them into the water (and recover). They could also have semisubmersible floating dock lift ships in the convoy / with the container ship(s), though for merchant convoys this begins to defeat the purpose (enemy can just start by sinking the odd ones out of the bunch).

Then there’s that XXXLUUV from 9.3, the one that’s ~42m long. It’s conceivable they could escort convoys, and surface to be recharged by one of the convoy ships if required.

This is all on top of laying / guardrail-ing convoy routes with intelligent mines like AQS003A, and ASW via rotary wing / VTOL drones.
 
tankphobia

tankphobia

Senior Member
Registered Member
iewgnem said:
This ship has migrated to UCAV thread so I'll just post it here:

The concept is evidently more than just containerized missiles or EMAL modules, its a systemic approach to extending naval capabilities to cargo fleet beyond one off conversions.

Which means theres a good chance there are ASW modules too, i.e. ASW containers with towed/variable depth sonar, containerized torpedo/UUV launchers, drone helicopter in containers with dipping sonars. Those can all arguably be much easier to hide than EMAL on deck or radar arrays.

The ability to put full ASW suite on hundreds or even thousands of cargo ship, big and small, with cargo ship acustic profiles and visually indistinguishable from an unarmed ship, is a nightmare scenerio for US subs that has even greater implications than destroyer or EMAL drone carrier configurations.
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One must wonder, whether this containerahip was a one off purpose build for this test, or there's an common class of ships that have already been built with this eventuality in mind.
 
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