Page 20 - ADT NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2023 Online Magazine

revealed at the Underwater Defence and talking about oceans becoming transparent,” said Adm
Security Conference that the Royal Navy has Radakin. “And yet they remain opaque. We continually horizon scan,
awarded a contract for a large autonomous analyse new developments, look at the capabilities that we and our
underwater vehicle. adversaries possess – and there is nothing.

Plymouth-based MSubs Ltd are to provide the
senior service with a 30-metre underwater vehi- “On the land, in the air, increasingly even at sea, there
cle, which has a range of up to 3,000 nautical is nowhere left to hide. But underwater remains impen-
miles. etrable. This is good for us.” Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has
Acquired through the Defence and Securities recently released a request for proposals for a Medium Unmanned
Accelerator - the collaboration between the Underwater Vehicle (MUUV) that is meant to streamline two existing
MOD, industry and academia to quicken pro- unmanned systems into a single open architecture UUV. The RFP is
curement and develop new tech - the XLUUV, for the design, development, test, and production of the MUUV, and
also known as Manta has been designed and the Navy notes it may award multiple contracts for this programme.
built in just 14 months. Today the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) community already
uses the Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish UUV to find mine-like objects in the
“I am really excited by the possibilities water. Crews launch and recover the tube-shaped UUV from rig-
id-hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) using a small handling system, and
that this offers to increase our reach the UUV searches the waters and sends information back to a
and lethality, improve our efficiency and post-mission analysis cell ashore.
reduce the number of people we have
to put in harm’s way,” said Adm Radakin. The submarine community has been developing a Razorback UUV
that was initially meant to be launched and recovered via a sub-
marine’s dry deck shelter and would carry environment-sensing
He went on to tell the Southampton conference
that the underwater environment had always payloads. The Navy determined it also wanted a Razorback variant
been defence’s biggest problem. that could be launched and recovered from a submarine’s torpedo
tube, USNI News previously reported.

“For my entire career we have been The MUUV will ultimately cover the Kingfish’s surface-launched mine

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