Navy preparing to launch kamikaze drone from submarine

 

 

Unmanned aerial warfare is heading underwater. The Navy is preparing to test-launch a small, kamikaze drone from a submarine next year, Defense Tech reports.

The Switchblade drone, essentially a self-propelled, remotely guided missile, will be enclosed in a special launch canister and fired from one of the sub's trash chutes at periscope depth, Def Tech explains, citing Aviation Week. The canister floats to the surface, where the electric-motor, folded-wing drone launches itself.

The launch is planned during the biennial RIMPAC, billed as "the world's largest multi-national maritime exercise," next year in Hawaii.

The Army has used the Switchblade against Taliban targets and will resume such attacks next year, Bloomberg reported in October. The aircraft can be carried in a soldier's backpack.

The Army paid AeroVironment $4.9 million this summer for a small initial squadron of Switchblades. More on that from Wired.

Here's how the manufacturer describes its little killer:

The Switchblade is designed to provide the warfighter with a "magic bullet". It can rapidly provide a powerful, but expendable miniature flying Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) package on a Beyond Line-of-Sight (BLOS) target within minutes. This miniature, remotely-piloted or autonomous platform can either glide or propel itself via quiet electric propulsion, providing real-time GPS coordinates and video for information gathering, targeting, or feature/object recognition. The vehicle's small size and quiet motor make it difficult to detect, recognize, and track even at very close range. The Switchblade is fully scalable and can be launched from a variety of air and ground platforms.

Def Tech wonders "how the Navy controls the tiny UAVs without signals from its subs being detected."