Naval News updates

U.S. Navy Submarine First In World Fitted 

With Silent Caterpillar Drive

Submarines use stealth to dominate the seas, presenting an illusive yet deadly threat. Now U.S. Navy submarines will take stealth to a new level. American submarines will now be fitted with magnetohydrodynamic drive.

American submarines will further extend their advantage in the undersea domain. In the first of a kind, the U.S. Navy has fitted a new form of propulsion, magnetohydrodynamic drive (MHD), to a Virginia class submarine. This promises to make the submarine virtually undetectable, the holy grail of naval warfare.

The Magnetohydrodynamic drive is being developed under the PUMP program by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), first reported in 2023. Water passing through it is accelerated by means of a magnetic field using superconducting magnets. This is often likened to the way a caterpillar crawls leading to the colloquial term ‘caterpillar drive’.

USS Montana

The new propulsion may be fitted to more submarines if the trials are successful. These are likely to include new-build Virginia class attack submarines and the future ‘SSN-X’ type. It is unlikely to be fitted to the Columbia Class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) however as this would likely constitute a first strike capability. There is no reason to make a nuclear deterrent submarine so stealthy if it is only intended for retaliatory strikes.

USS Montana is expected to undergo sea trials on the Penobscot River in Maine. This will make it more difficult for the Russian Navy to observe the tests.

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US Navy Achieves Engine Testing Milestones For LUSV Program

The U.S. Navy’s Large Unmanned Surface Vessel (LUSV) program reached pivotal milestones earlier this year after several industry teams successfully completed extended reliability demonstrations of four different engine configurations, officials announced today.

LUSV with an optionally-manned bridge

(Image by Austal Shipbuilding, Australia) 

The four 720-hour [30 days] tests demonstrated the capability and durability of different engine plants to operate for extended periods without human intervention – a critical enabler for advancing unmanned maritime operations and the Navy’s manned-unmanned Hybrid Fleet concept.

Mandated by a congressional requirement in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, the engine testing milestones must be completed before the LUSV can proceed into a formal development phase. An engine system only qualifies for use in the program after successful demonstration events.

Demonstrations of each engine configuration took place over 720 continuous hours. No human intervention or preventative/corrective maintenance on the equipment was permitted during this time.

Four teams have successfully completed their separate 720-hour testing milestones.

LUSVs will supplement the Fleet’s missile magazine capacity as part of the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept. Currently, the LUSV is envisioned as a vessel greater than 200 ft. in length with a full load displacement of approximately 1,500 tons. LUSVs are intended to be low cost, high endurance, modular USVs that can employ a variety of payloads.

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US Navy Restarts Snakehead LDUUV Program

The US Navy’s largest Submarine-launched UUV is set to resume testing this year after a pause.

The US Navy plans to restart its Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (LDUUV) program this year. Snakehead is a modular, reconfigurable, multi-mission underwater vehicle that can be deployed from a submarine

The Snakehead LDUUV program witnessed a lull in activity following a lack of funding for the program in FY23. Following the completion of the first Phase, the program was originally scheduled to move forward with its second Phase,

This year, the Navy will restart demonstrations and experiments with the single prototype it currently has in inventory. Testing will include deployment of the system from surface vessels of opportunity.

Cheryl Mierzwa, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport’s technical program manager for the Snakehead Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, christens the underwater vehicle at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility in Newport, Rhode Island, on Feb. 2, 2022

(I hope that is cheap bubbly)

Is it just me, or does future warfare seem to be destined for remotely operated drones first, people second?