Submarines

Elbit Systems completed recently a trial test torpedo launch from its Seagull multi-mission, autonomous Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) system. Lightweight torpedoes are often used by anti-submarine vessels, helicopters, and aircraft against submarines located in shallow waters. This is the first instance where such weapons are used from unmanned platforms.

The Vanguard class submarines maintain the UK strategic nuclear deterrent force.

Taiwan's Defense ministry has approved the guidelines for the design and construction of an indigenous submarine. Design and development is slated to begin in 2016 and span over four years at a total cost of about US$95 million.

France has beaten Japan and Germany to win an Australian mega-deal to build a fleet of 12 new submarines in Australia, for the Australian Navy SEA 1000 program. The decision was formally announced by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today.

Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd (ST Engineering) today signed an agreement to set up a Singapore-based joint venture company (JV) with Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd (IAI). The JV named Proteus Advanced Systems will market and sell advanced naval missile systems, including next-generation anti-ship missile systems.

General Motors, the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory announced Thursday, June 23, 2016; they are cooperating to incorporate automotive hydrogen fuel cell systems into a next-generation of Navy unmanned undersea vehicles, or UUVs.

The construction of Astute class attack submarines is ongoing, in April 2017 MOD announced the conclusion of negotiation of the contract to build the Agamemnon, the sixth of seven Astute class attack submarines that will cost £1.4 billion.

North Korea launched what appeared to be a ballistic missile from a submarine in the East Sea Saturday, the South Korean military said. South Korea's defence ministry said the missile, fired from a submarine in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), flew around 30 kilometres (18 miles) and that the test showed "certain technological progress" in the North's SLBM capability.

Stretched along the eastern Mediterranean Sea and linked to the Indian Ocean through the Gulf of Eilat and the Red-Sea, Israel has always strived to maintain a naval force to protect its maritime border and sea lines of communications. Since the 1970s, following repeated terror attacks from the sea, the Israeli Navy assumed the responsibility to combat terror at...

North Korea recently conducted a test of an ejection launcher that U.S. intelligence agencies assess is part of Pyongyang’s recently discovered submarine-launched ballistic missile program. Despite those alleged facts, analysts question the maturity of the North Korean missile submarine program.

 

As work on the seventh, and last Astute Class attack submarines begins, design work is already underway on the Dreadnought - the future class of submarine that will become Britains' strategic nuclear-powered missile submarine in the 2030s.

Researchers at Israel’s Technion Institute of Technology are developing a ‘virtual periscope’ that could enable submariners to look at objects floating of flying above the sea without using a periscope. Employing such submerged camera could deliver higher survivability and better stealth capabilities for submarines, avoiding exposure as their periscope pops above water. The new system employs an innovative image processing method...

Singapore is likely to expand the missions and operational capabilities of its submarine force in the next decade, fielding large ocean going submarines with mission endurance of weeks, even months in the next decade. Sofar the island state operated much smaller subs, designed for operations in shallow waters and littorals closer to home. The Defense ministry of Singapore announced...