Navy Nightmare: Meet the 1 Thing That Could Make Submarines Obsolete

Michael Peck

Security,

Underwater drone swarms? 

Fact: Submarines can run—but they can't hide—from drones.

That's the contention of a 2016 report by a British think tank, which argues that the growing numbers and sophistication of drones are depriving submarines of their stealthiness.

The report, authored by science journalist David Hambling for the British American Security Information Council, was written as a briefing paper for Britain's Parliament, which must consider whether to modernize or scrap the UK's Trident nuclear missile subs.

The report points out the century-old method of hunting subs is changing:

"In the past, antisubmarine warfare (ASW) has been carried out by a small number of highly capable ships and manned aircraft. Their task has been like that of a handful of police looking for a fugitive in a vast wilderness. Lacking the manpower to cover the whole area, they have to concentrate their forces on the most likely paths and hideouts, and hope for a lucky break."

Now, highly expensive subs must contend with an expanding array of cheap robot sub-hunters that can blanket the ocean, sort of in the same way that German U-boat "wolfpacks" ganged up on Allied convoys in the North Atlantic. These include small handheld drones that the U.S. military is designing to operate in swarms, air-launched drones like the U.S. Coyote that can be dropped by ASW aircraft, and sonar-equipped underwater robot gliders that quietly search the ocean.

"Small unmanned platforms can carry many types of sensors active and passive sonar, magnetic anomaly detectors, wake detection LIDAR, thermal sensors, laser-based optical sensors capable of piercing seawater and others," Hambling writes. "A submarine which can be seen by any one of these will cease to be invisible. A submarine whose location is exposed is highly vulnerable to instant attack. If submarines are easily detectable, they lose all their advantages as strategic weapons platforms."