Not sure where to put this ill ask the moderators to decide.
Its just a news story that may interest some folks. I cant copy and paste at the moment so Google is your friend. Just Google “ghost subs Australia” and the stories will come up.
Reclassified to Ships:: Modern
if another moderator has another opinion …
feel free to reclassify
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Very interesting!
Text from one of the links from the query:
"The Ghost Shark is an autonomous underwater stealth drone capable of gathering intelligence as well as carrying out strikes.
It is designed to operate far from Australia’s shores and can be piloted from both land and sea.
Weaponsmaker Anduril Australia and the Australian Defence Force have spent the last three years jointly developing the subs, which Defence Minister Richard Marles hailed as world-leading when announcing the investment on Wednesday.
“Today, we are announcing a $1.7bn commitment over the next five years to manufacture Ghost Shark in Australia,” Mr Marles told reporters in Sydney.
“This is the highest tech capability in the world.
“It exemplifies the fact that Australia is leading the world in terms of autonomous underwater military capabilities.”"
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They’re definitely not pretty or sleek looking things but hopefully this will help cover some likely gaps in our getting the new nuclear submarine capability which is unfortunately dependent on a lot of different elements going our way.
For those interested Australia also has the Ghost bats.
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Hmm. I can’t find its specs, such as how is it powered i.e. does it need to surface anytime? And what teeth does it have - torpedoes? Surface-launched drones? It wouldn’t surprise me if China got hold of the blueprints years ago and already has shoals of them. We’d probably be better off training actual sharks – of which we have thousands – to attack aggressors with explosives strapped to their bellies.
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And of course we have our passive defences such as the Ghost Gum….
….which are strategically located around the country just waiting for invaders to unwittingly get within range, at which time they get a bloody big branch dropped on them!
Maybe not as sexy as a Ghost Shark but effective!
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Maybe train some Drop Bears to only target invaders …
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dont they have Drop Bears as ammunition?
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Yeah that’s one of its weapons but alas unguided and unreliable given they’re not exactly smart bombs, asleep 90% of the time. Their poo is quite a deterrent, but again unguided. However the gums do burn with a nice warm flame, so appropriately rigged they could spontaneously combust when the enemy approaches. Mmm, fried koala.
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Good name for a sandwich shop! HA HA Wayne
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I wanted these to look a lot more interesting.
Agreed. It sort of looks like a big black fridge that’s been tipped on its side.
Hey! I’ve cracked it! It’s actually a beer fridge to resupply thirsty submariners to enable full sized submarines to stay submerged for longer. Submariners can’t go more than 30 minutes without booze so this would be a game changer!
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Theres a lot of speculation about the Ghost subs. What their details are. But why would those details be made public? What are all the details of an old Virginia class sub? Im happy that its not made public because that will slow down counter measures.
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As to capability, this is all I could find;
“Ghost Shark is capable of carrying and deploying “dozens” of Copperhead-100 class Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) or Copperhead-100M loitering munitions and “multiple” Copperhead-500 class UUVs or Copperhead-500M loitering munitions.”
“ Copperhead UUV are a family of autonomous underwater vehicles with both utility and “kamikaze”-style capabilities, designed to be launched from the Dive-LD and Ghost Shark platforms, as well as other unmanned undersea and aerial platforms. Copperhead-100 is roughly comparable in size and capability to the Mark 54 lightweight torpedo, while Copperhead-500 is roughly comparable in size and capability to the Mark 48 heavy torpedo. Both systems are intended to be reusable and recoverable.”
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My worry is that the Australian government has a record of buying white elephants. All of them costing a lot of money only to be consigned to the accountants shredder!
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Sounds like a mobile minefield?
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Subs and Suds! Wayne
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