The New Predator Drone for Sea Assualt "The Piranha"

I'm sure by now you all are very aware of the Predator Drones that are all through skies over the world. These Drones offer wonderful and up close surveillance and sometimes advanced weaponry which then makes them called "Reapers"

I just learned about this new unmanned armed sea vehicle in this months MAXIM issue, and instantly started looking up everything about it. I did a search and found nothing on this yet on ATS so this should be exciting news to many of you here! I know it certainly was for me.

So heres some details about the "PIRANHA" Unmanned Sea Assualt Drone


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Looks pretty beast right??


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Thiers lots of information about it online but from what I can tell so far, these are some key specs:

Zyvex Marine aims to achieve and it offers some impressive advantages over conventional boats. In the context of the military, the first advantage is that this vessel is unmanned. Dubbed a USV (unmanned surface vehicle), the Piranha can be operated from just about anywhere, keeping our soldiers at a safe distance. The second advantage is that the Piranha is made of Avorex, a proprietary “nano-enhanced” carbon fiber from Zyvex. It’s lighter weight and, along with getting rid of any need to hold actual people, this makes it far more efficient. According to Zyvex, it can cruise at 24 knots (44km/h) for an hour on just 12 US gallons. Compare that to the 50 gallons that a “traditional” boat would consume over the same period at the same speed. This allows for a greater range (the 8,000 pound boat can carry a payload of 15,000 pounds for 2500 miles). Zyvex plans on continuing this range with the LRV-11 and LRV-17 platforms, both of which will be offered in unmanned or manned versions. I imagine the future of warfare would lean toward the former.Text

Now that is impressive! I'm thinking Pirates in a few areas of the world best find a tech school and learn auto mechanics or basket weaving. They might look over their rail to see a whole bunch of these things coming to say Hi. That's the first 'operational' use I can see for it. Their biggest bugaboo about Pirate hunting off Somalia is sheer square miles of water. Heck... Drop a few dozen of these and send them off in different directions to search by computer.

So much for safety on the high seas! Now..I just don't want to hear about 18,000 of these next year like we've just heard about drones over the US. These wouldn't be nice at all to be lurking off shore all the time.) Yikes! What would you call it on the water? Not big brother...Hmm.. Neptune's Demons? lol... Lets see how far out of hand they get...and when can I buy one for the lakes around here? Muhahahaha.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


LOL, apparently they cost about 2 Million each. Whats interesting is thats 400,000 less than the new Bugatti!!

Why do you suppose they camouflage a drone on the water?

I mean, I can see it no problem..

reply to post by GARN40ish


Okay, I'll have to wait a few generations for the bargain model. lol...

If they don't turn these into something scary to everyone, I'm rather intrigued by what this could be used for. If they can mate Solar to some for loiter time.. Oh.. Wow.. can I think of uses.

How about litter detail out in the Pacific doldrums? Heck you could slave one of these to Whale transmitters and shadow the whales from a few miles back and.. Well.. This would be an ugly surprise to the Harpooner with bad intent. All kinds of uses as I consider it....

reply to post by GARN40ish


Yeah, but then you’ve got to buy missiles with it... That’s how they get ya.

reply to post by baddmove


The shape of the USV seems to be similar to the principles used in stealth fighters, bombers and helicopters. Those have that sharp design to reflect radar waves in a manner that they are hardly detected. The radar signature becomes much smaller than the what is expected for a boat, and is dismissed as being real, or relevant.

As for the painting, it actually works better than you might think. It's not the first time it is used, you can also see this pattern in WW2 and WW1 battleships, cruisers and destroyers. The effect made by those patterns at a sighting distance (further away), makes the boat very hard to spot. At close range, you can obviously see the boat, but if you imagine it several miles away, even at perfect weather conditions, the water reflections from the sun light, the more darker areas of the ocean, and the effect of the curvature of the Earth, turn that camouflage into a very effective optical illusion.

This technology is quite overdue. Imagine calling in an air drop like it was a video game.
But the practical use it to have fleets of these boats delivering goods across the ocean like trains.

One day the computers will grow tired of man using them to do their blood works and will eventually turn on man. Man will eventually try to cut the machine worlds power resulting in darkening the skies. Machine will harvest men for power.

Would make a great movie.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Well, at first hand it might seem like an obvious thing to do, considering how successful UAV's have been since their first appearence, but it's actually a move of genius.

It's more easy to acomplish, because sailing is much easier than flying, which not only helps the remote pilot, but also elevates the possibilites of it being fully automatic. The most obvious and useful application I can see for this is as an anti-submarine measure, both for surveillance and defense/attack.

Even if they are just floating, and not submersible.

A powerful submarine, or even a destroyer need to have a crew in order to make a proper surveillance of the an ocean area. The destroyer is easily detected and avoided, and the submarine can be all the stealthy and quiet they can, but an unmanned machine with it's engines off is a lot more quiet.

With a nasty sonar and hydrophones, maybe a torpedo or two, and this thing can become a nightmare to any military navy in the world. There will be no more hidding spots in the oceans, and even if you do find one, you are incapacitated, because if you move, it will hear and detect you before you can detect it.

Even the fact that it's above and not below the surface helps the concept.

They can do something that UAV's can't still do: a constant, fixed perimeter of surveillance and/or defense.

Imagine you want to make a task force pass through a certain path accross the ocean. If you have enough of these, or their surveillance radius is big enough, you can make an invisible safe route towards your destination. Any submarine or vessel that tries to approach you will be detected and possibly dealt with.

Just drop a cable with some hydrophones/sonars at certain depths and you can even avoid the thermal layers of ocean water that could block your sonar pulses.

And if we want to make a military tech nerd have a wetdream, just make him imagine a huge carrier full of both UAV's and USV's. Or a huge submarine with a lot of submersible USV's... Provably it will be the most powerfull weapon platform ever made.

reply to post by GarrusVasNormandy
Now that is getting downright spooky. We've all heard they are working on full autonomous systems they can half way trust. In building up to such organized and formal uses, that would be a natural fit. I suppose that's a good thing if nothing goes wrong. I'd feel so much better if some of this moved a little slower so all the important aspects can be developed equally well. "Losing" a Sentinel over Iran still really smarts in my mind....and I sure don't feel comfortable that they've insured it can't happen again.

You know, on the other hand...IF the security and call me a sci-fi fan from Short Circuit to Terminator, but absolute kill and destruct ability from anywhere in the world if we lose control (again), these would change the whole face of some aspects of war and industry. (I like your cargo train/ship ideas...and seen articles like that in Pop-Sci on other technology). I think it's very promising if they just take the time needed to do it right.

reply to post by GarrusVasNormandy


Star for you. I totally agree with Wrabbit and star for you as well.

It's amazing what the possibility of this could be with the right minds behind it. Too bad we'll probably never know.

Originally posted by baddmove
Why do you suppose they camouflage a drone on the water?

I mean, I can see it no problem..

edit on 10-8-2012 by baddmove because: (no reason given)

I imagine its so you cannot see it from a distance. So you can't see it until its too late... If it were a tank or humvee at the same distance, camo'ed, you would still see it "no problem"...