On a completely unrelated note (as always)... here's more of Deathblows ever persistent, continuously annoying, yet completely unsolicited, interjections of opinion...
Some interesting quotes from the May issue of Seapower magazine regarding UUV development.
http://www.navyleague.org/sea_power/may06-14.php
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Seapower Magazine
The Navy doesn’t plan to produce the single-mission LMRS, but instead is leveraging the lessons learned from it and moving forward to acquire more advanced, reconfigurable, multimission UUVs. Navy Capt. Paul Ims, program manager for UUVs in the Program Executive Office for Littoral and Mine Warfare, said, “Our UUV programs are [now] focused on delivering more affordable, modular, autonomous systems with an open architecture.”
A contract to develop the first of these, called the 21-inch Mission-Reconfigurable UUV System (MRUUVS), is slated for award in mid-2007, and the UUV could become operational in 2013. An open architecture, or general blueprint, for computerized combat systems means they are standardized, transferable to other platforms and able to accommodate a variety of software applications.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Seapower Magazine
The service’s November 2004 UUV Master Plan cites ISR as the Navy’s top UUV priority, followed by mine countermeasures, and then antisubmarine warfare as a longer-term priority
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So its continuing to look like the ingame UUV capabilities aren't even close to those in RL... Heck, the statements in this article are suggesting that the USN probably doesn't even have UUVs currently fielded on subs with no plans to field them until 2013.
And even then the above statements proport that intelligence, survelance and recon are the first development goals, anti-mine the 2nd development goal, and *then* after than Anti-submarine warfare.
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Originally Posted by Seapower Magazine
The Navy plans to operate some existing, less-sophisticated UUVs from its forthcoming Littoral Combat Ships, particularly to hunt for mines, using surface launch and recovery. These include the 10-foot Battlespace Preparation Autonomous Underwater Vehicle developed by the Office of Naval Research and Bluefin Robotics of Cambridge, Mass. The ships are being designed to counter shallow-water threats in coastal areas, such as mines, diesel submarines and fast surface craft
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Why this super futuristic piece of technology is sitting in the 1980-1994 representation of ASW is still baffling to me.... I would not be opposed to limited to sensor ability of UUVs to make the good for anti-mine warfare and anti-mine warfare alone... might cause a ruckus though...
... then again whose to say the Russians don't have them... :hmm: