Why DARPA's MANTA RAY submersible is nightmare for enemy subs

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On April 8, Northrop Grumman officially unveiled its new prototype deep sea drone, the Manta Ray uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV). This new undersea drone is designed to conduct extended-duration autonomous operations at long ranges with minimal need for human support, making it uniquely suited for a wide variety of undersea scientific and potential combat operations.

But arguably, it's most potent use could be as an element of America's anti-submarine warfare strategy.

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Citations:

[CaptainBrawnson]

"FLUID DYNAMICS IS FLUID DYNAMICS" -Northrop Grumman Engineer furiously drafting flying wings to operate in every medium.

[epapa]

I yearn for the day i hear "and this is Sea Power!" *Sea shanties start playing*

[jonathanregan]

So this is the subs version of the F-35’s loyal wingman drone.

[galexymitzelplik]

Russian Sub: sir that fish just told us "Go Home"

[MajinLiveTV]

Knowing DARPA's press releases on other projects this thing has probably been in development since the 1990s and is already operating in the Black Sea.

[vincetheboxingdude]

I'm Duke Leto Atreides, and this is desert power!

[dan]

Whenever I hear Manta Ray and submarine in the same sentence I think of the old TV series Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea.

[StudioVoodooMusic]

Fishing off the coast near San Diego, we captured an underwater drone that surveys the ocean and collects deep ocean data for weeks and months completely independently. It surfaces from time to time to transmit the data, and that's when we caught it. This technology has evidently been evolving for a long time and is relatively unknown by the public.

[joeybabybaby]

14:09 "way outside my depth". Oh that is perfect. Alex, you're the best at mking the dry and technical quite human.

[deepbludude]

Very cool! back in the day I was a hardhat diver working for various Gov agencies I remember once doing a subcable inspection in 280FSW sitting on a deco platform and watching a whole platoon of huge manta rays just cruising around sucking up plankton.

[RMartin]

I tell people that the US has weapons that no one even knows about... until it's needed.

[mikeck]

How could the Russian subs know that they were never detected?. US subs used to follow Soviet subs around for weeks and they never knew it. It’s not like when we’re done following them we announce that we’ve been there.

[ChrisLichowicz]

If they're showing this, there's something even better down there.

[EverybodysEnoch]

General “does it need to be shaped like a manta ray”
Northrop “oh yeah no no yeah no yeah 100%”

[blvck.]

This thing has the potential to literally be the drones of Ukraine but underwater. You would have no idea your being watched until its too late. Imagine 50 of these just sitting and waiting in chinese harbors or the east china sea. It would be a check mate to any navy.

[jloiben]

“Significantly stealthier [Russian vehicle]” is an insanely low bar. Of course any actual attempt to do more stealth would lead to significant improvements. But that doesn’t mean the actual vehicle has anything close to real stealth. Like a modern F-16 represents more stealth compared to most Russian aircraft but that doesn’t mean the F-16 is stealthy.

And the fact that they are saying this is supposedly 2x stealthier than what America has only really demonstrates the validity of the above paragraph

[MrGameMeister]

The manta’s deployable drones should be called “Long range Autonomous Marine Patrol and Renewable Energy, or LAMPRE. Lockheed Martin you can thank me later.

[rippingbag]

Next step is for them to use whale song and dolphin clicks to communicate with each other and the US Navy. Potentially add fuel cell technology to charge internal batteries, needing to only sporadically surface for air, and you’ve got the perfect submersible weapon. One that blends in perfectly with the ecological background.

[Greg_Andrews]

"Five times quieter" = Sounds like 100 stampeding horses instead of 500 stampeding horses. Great improvement!
(just playing around....I think)

[xm]

Really love the firepower and sea power series. Cant wait for the desert power series to start so we can get a video about the ornithopter!