Подводные лодки проекта 705 и 705К

Integrate a large-displacement unmanned undersea vehicle (LDUUV) into the undersea force. The development and fielding of capable LDUUVs will increase the productivity of the undersea force because they will do some of the tasks currently accomplished by submarines. To permit the effective integration of LDUUVs into the force, a number of technical challenges will need to be confronted. Although unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are in many cases remotely piloted, the connectivity challenges associated with UUVs do not permit that option. The vehicles must be autonomous. As the technical challenges of future LDUUV missions grow, the complexity of the necessary autonomy must also grow.

In addition to autonomy, there is the well-known challenge of extending LDUUV endurance. There is good reason to believe that the aggressive investments of the automobile industry in battery technology may result in improvements that can be leveraged for LDUUVs, but this is not a given.

These vehicles need not be operated from submarines, but their greatest value in helping pick up gapped submarine taskings will, by definition, arise from forward employment in areas accessible by submarines. Submarine launch and recovery of LDUUVs forward, close to the desired operational site, will permit effective military utility even for craft with limited endurance. As their endurance grows, they will be capable of being launched by other platforms at standoff ranges. Until this endurance is achieved, forward LDUUV operations will be best supported by submarines. Even after long endurance becomes a reality, some missions will continue to require submarine launch and recovery in order to achieve the required timing and positioning. Waiting for vehicles to transit in or out from long standoff would introduce time delays that may be unacceptable in fast-moving contingency or combat operations.

The most operationally useful LDUUVs will be capable of launch and recovery from a variety of platforms, will have long endurance, will be guided by sophisticated autonomy, will have strong information-assurance capabilities to prevent risk even if the vehicles were lost, and will be capable of deploying a variety of payloads that are adaptively tailored to the mission.