Strategic Analysis Australia’s Michael Shoebridge considers the impact that small maritime autonomous systems such as C2 Robotics’ Speartooth Large UUV will have.
He writes, “These are existing technologies and designs. They show us two things: that large numbers of these small, affordable systems will be invaluable to Australia’s own military if it is to have that ‘impactful projection’ the Government wants it to build. And we need to plan and prepare now to be able to find, assess and deal with a potential adversaries’ swarms of these type of surface and undersea military systems.
Finding a static sea mine anchored to the sea floor is difficult. Clearing dumb sea mines from around ports and choke points is still almost as hard as it was back in World War Two. But finding hundreds – or thousands – of small, stealthy, mobile UUVs each carrying an explosive equivalent of a large sea mine is an exponentially more difficult task. A cleared port entrance can become uncleared fast as swarms of smart UUVs and mines simply relocate to repair the minefield.”