Nuclear Submarines are a important weapon in the US military. These under water Nuclear missile launch platforms are the ultimate isurance policy to stop anyone from launching a attack on the US. Every city in the US every person could be killed and these Subs would still be out there and would strike back for us even if we were all wiped out.

Nuclear Submarines are roaming all the oceans of the world. They have to only be refueled with there nuclear fuel about once every 50 years. But these submarines have to return to port about every 6 months for one reason, to pick up food and other supplies for its human crew.

If we take humans out of the equation we could have a weapons platform that would be able to stay out at sea underwater for decades at a time. They could be much smaller and less espensive and do the same job.

I know this might be making people think of a senerio like that in the movie Terminator. Robots turning on the humans that created them and starting a nuclear war to swipe out all the humans.

In reality computers do what we program them to do nothing more. We don't have computers that think for themselves(yet).

A UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) would have many of the same benifits as a UAV or UGV would have. Smaller which would make them less detectable and cheaper at the same time. But when applied to a nuclear powered vehicle these advantages can be multiplied many times.

The UAV the Global Hawk can fly for 40 hours without refueling which is quite amazing. A nuclear powered UUV could cruise the oceans for 50 years without refueling.

You could make UUGs for really any submarine role, Hunting other subs as a missile launching platform etc... They could also be much smaller then any manned sub. Which in the role of hunting enemy subs could be very important as you could have many small UUV subs that could cover a larger area better then a few huge manned subs could. The could be said for missile subs as you could have many with one or two missiles each, instead of alot of missile in a few subs. Eggs all on one basket type thing.

Another good thing about UUV is when you think about a incident like that of the Kursk Sub Disaster. When a UUV goes to the bottom it does not become the tomb for many sailors.

So do you think the benefits of a UUV outway the possibility of what could go wrong? Are UUV in the future in some way shape or form?

Interesting thread. Well, we already have unmanned submersibles. Arming them with nuclear or other weapons would be a natural progression.

However, if one went wrong, the consequences could be horrible...

I highly doubt we will see something like this in near future (50 years) Just the thought giving all the reactor controlsl to the machine is terrible. What happens if some part breaks up?

And also hunting down enemy submarines, analyzing sonar sounds, navigation etc. need much much better AI than flying an UCAV that could be controlled anytime by operator.

I don't say UUVs are impossible, but I don't think they will be huge automated nuclear subs. They will look like a current torpedoes and they will be also launched from the torpedo tubes.

They could extend submarine sensors range, search and clear minefields and also help detecting enemy submarines (especially using active sonar, because it's use is giving away your position but minisub could do it because it is cheap and expendable).

Also I don't think the minisub would use nuclear propulsion, futuristic batteries and quiet electric engines are better option. The only nuclear propulsion they can use could be plutonium batteries or the new quantum reactor.

Originally posted by Trader
Interesting thread. Well, we already have unmanned submersibles. Arming them with nuclear or other weapons would be a natural progression.

However, if one went wrong, the consequences could be horrible...

Boy I have to agree with this one. Nuclear weapons should always have multiple humans in the actual launch loop. A rouge hackers, a programmer back door, or a computer malfunction could be catastrophic to say the least.