Navy shows off unmanned submarine-detecting craft - Los Angeles Times

Navy shows off unmanned submarine-detecting craft - Los Angeles Times

The U.S. Navy is planning to stock up with "Robot Boats" to patrol Litorral waters.

SAN DIEGO -- To the world it might be called a robot boat, but its proper name is the Unmanned Surface Vehicle, and the U.S. Navy expects it to be a major tool in countering what officials believe is a growing threat posed by quiet diesel-powered submarines owned by rogue nations.

In advance of the official roll-out today, reporters were allowed to see the boat on Thursday at Naval Base Point Loma before it took a trial run on San Diego Bay.

The goal is to greatly expand the Navy's ability to detect hostile submarines by sending the unmanned boats, equipped with sonar, to probe the nooks and crannies where subs might be hiding to ambush a Navy ship or a merchant vessel.

The boats will be controlled by sailors at a safe distance on a much larger ship.

The Navy wants to have 32 of the unmanned boats, each packed with the most-sophisticated electronic gear available.

The first of the two boats, developed and stuffed with sonar-detection gear, cost $197 million.

In the future, the price is slated to drop to $46 million per boat.

Each aluminum-hulled boat is 39 feet long, weighs 17,000 pounds and can carry up to 5,000 pounds of intelligence-gathering technology while traveling up to 35 knots in rough waters.

If all goes as planned, the first will be deployed in 2011, possibly to the Persian Gulf, where the Iranian navy says its submarines, lurking undetected, could close the Strait of Hormuz, through which tankers carrying much of the world's oil supply travel.

The boats are meant to be launched by the so-called Littoral Combat Ships, shallow-draft ships that can maneuver close to shore.

My son will complete Secondary Training in his Primary Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) at the end of the month ... Master at Arms. Also known as Shore Patrol, or Military Police. That is to say, he will be a Military Cop. He will be stationed at San Diego for the next three years.

I assume that this is one vessel which will not call for a MoA to be stationed on the deck.

Or however the Gobs say it.