January 10, 2024

Lockheed Martin's Orca Derived Black Project(s)?

Quite interesting is Navy Large Unmanned Surface and Undersea Vehicles: Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report R45757, Updated December 20, 2023, written by Ronald O'Rourke, Specialist in Naval Affairs at https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R45757.pdf

Amongst other Unmanned Vehicle issues for Congress it contains familiar descriptions of Boeing’s winning Orca XLUUV technology developed from Boeing's Echo Voyager. A major mission envisaged for Orca appears on page 16 “to, among other things, covertly deploy the [General Dynamics Hammerhead Smart Naval Mine] a planned mine that would be tethered to the seabed and armed with an antisubmarine torpedo [eg. the US Mark 54 LWT], broadly similar to the Navy’s Cold War-era CAPTOR (encapsulated torpedo) mine.”

In August 2022 I wrote about use of the Hammerhead in the context of defending Taiwan against China.

LIKELY LOCKHEED BLACK PROJECT(s)

CRS R45757 page 16 also makes the passing comment “(The other [Orca] bidder was a team led by Lockheed Martin.)”. So Lockheed Martin (LM) notionally lost the Orca competition. But I haven’t heard that LM lamented its loss.

An LM Oct 30, 2017 caption for the artwork above read: "Lockheed Martin engineers in Palm Beach, Florida, will design an Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle, Orca, for the U.S. Navy to support the Navy’s mission requirements. Image courtesy Lockheed Martin."
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As LM is the world’s largest and most connected arms company I suspect it is still in the XLUUV business and that its entry for Orca has been further developed into at least 3 variants:

1.  As a highly stealthy intelligence gathering XLUUV particularly against Russian and Chinese “peer” competitors. Promoting stealth may mean it is smaller and more torpedo like than Boeing's "subway car" sized and shaped Orca. LM's intel gathering version may a have anechoic coating and very quiet propulsion using single or combined propulsion technologies including (fuel cell AIP, RTG, tiny nuclear PWR and/or electric propulsion). It might be small enough to be launched from a multipurpose Virginia Payload Tube  (VPT) and perhaps 4 can be launched from USS Jimmy Carter's Multi-Mission Platform.  

I recall seeing (years ago on the web) a green-brown-black camouflaged version of the LM artwork above. But for some reason the camouflaged artwork appears to have been taken down.

and/or

2.  Perhaps as a fast moving XLUUV carrying a high explosive or “special” warhead against peer competitor targets. Perhaps as a Mutually Assured Destruction deterrent to Russia’s NATO reporting name “KANYON” (aka. Poseidon or Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System”. KANYON is believed to be a conventional or nuclear warhead armed nuclear-powered XLUUV.

and/or

3.  As a UUV placed in front of a Russian KANYON in order to destroy that Russian weapon. A US/NATO network of numerous, distributed, AI sensors might expedite pre-positioning. This American UUV might be small enough to be air-dropped, rather than needing to chase a KANYON at 100 odd knots. 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Pete,

    So almost 60 years after Sweden introduced the X-shaped rudder US is following.
    First Look At Columbia Missile Submarine’s X-Shaped Stern

    "The first Columbia class submarine stern section has been delivered to General Dynamics Electric Boat. The massive component will serve as the propulsion section of the inaugural Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine, the USS District of Columbia. The vessel is the first of a planned 12 boat fleet designed to replace the existing 14 Ohio-class boomers in what the Navy says is its top-priority acquisition program.

    Images of the first stern section were released on Wednesday by HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding Division, which built the stern section and General Dyamics Electric Boat (GDEB), which is constructing the submarines."


    /Kjell

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks /Kjell at 1/11/2024 12:19 PM

    I've responded to your comment with article "Columbia SSBN Delays = Virginia SSN Delays" on Jan 11, 2024 at https://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2024/01/columbia-ssbn-delays-virginia-ssn-delays.html

    Regards Pete

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