American defense technology company Anduril has introduced its Copperhead-M – an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) that equips uncrewed submarines with a smart torpedo carrying up to 500 lb (227 kg) of high explosives.
If the submarine is the shark of the world’s navies, the torpedo is its teeth. Though a modern sub can carry an array of weapons up to and including nuclear weapons capable of obliterating a city, it’s the torpedo that is the most feared due to its ability to stealthily destroy ships and even other submarines.
If, like me, you’ve watched way too many old submarine movies, it’s easy to think that torpedoes are still the “tin fish” that were used by the major powers from the 1930s until well into the 1980s. Though there were many variants, most submarine torpedoes were similar to the US Mark 14 and the British Mark 8 – steam-driven devices carrying up to 805 lb (365 kg) of high explosives.
Anduril
Resulting from years of intensive development, their operation was very simple; locate a target, point the submarine at it or where it will be in a few minutes, execute the whole “Fire one! Fire two!” dramatic sequence, and launch a fan of torpedoes hoping that at least one will cripple the enemy ship’s hull and sink it.
Today, torpedoes are as advanced as the attack submarines that carry them. They are much faster at speeds of up to 80 knots (92 mph, 148 km/h) in comparison to their predecessors’ 55 knots (63 mph, 102 km/h), have ranges of up to 30 nautical miles (34.5 miles, 56 km) instead of under 9,000 yards, deliver a much more destructive explosive payload, feature sophisticated homing devices to lock onto and engage evading targets, and can be controlled by the mother submarine via a trailing digital wire.
While this is all well and good for US Virginia class or UK Astute class attack submarines, the new generation of autonomous submarines faces a challenge. These highly sophisticated vessels are too large, too costly, and too slow to produce for deployment on small robotic vehicles.
Anduril
Anduril has developed a new class of torpedoes specifically designed for use on AUVs like the company’s Dive-LD and Dive-XL. Named the Copperhead, it is available in two variations, the Copperhead and Copperhead-M, each with two models, the Copperhead-100 and the Copperhead-500.
Both variations feature a modular design that allows customization for specific missions and, as the names imply, they are available in two sizes, each capable of traveling at speeds exceeding 30 knots (34 mph, 55 km/h). The Copperhead-100, with a length of 2.7 m (8.9 ft) and a diameter of 324 mm (12.75 in), has a payload capacity of 100 lb (45 kg). On the other hand, the Copperhead-500 measures 4 m (13.1 ft) in length and 533 mm (21 in) in width, carrying 500 lb (227 kg) of cargo.
These adaptable crafts can be outfitted with various sensors, such as sonar, magnetometers, and chemical detectors. They are also designed to be carried by Anduril’s Dive-LD and Dive-XL. However, for the Copperhead-M variations, these models can exchange their sensors for warheads. The outcome: AUVs armed with real torpedoes, with the Dive-XL capable of transporting numerous Copperhead-100Ms and multiple Copperhead-500Ms.
Anduril
According to the company, the Copperhead-M isn’t just a way to give uncrewed submarines their own tin fish or to make robotic boats more able to go into harm’s way instead of humans. The idea is that combining cheap-to-make AUVs with their own heavy armaments that are equally cheap and linking them with an intelligent sonar network would create fleets of robotic subs able to engage enemy ships and submarines in numbers never before seen.
In other words, autonomous submarine swarms.
If this technology proves successful, we may one day see a fundamental transformation of submarine warfare, with crewed submarines keeping to the rear of the action to act as command centers and special ops platforms while far more numerous packs of autonomous boats equipped with small, smart torpedoes can deny whole sections of the oceans like mobile, aggressive minefields able to shift position and hunt down targets.
That would be enough to give even Captain Nemo conniption fits.
Source: Anduril
