Unmanned remotely-controlled flying craft have become a fairly common sight on the battlefield while world powers such as Russia and the United States explore the military application of underwater drones.
While the US Navy is currently experimenting with underwater drones launched from submarines, it does not yet have anything comparable to Russia’s strategic unmanned submersible known as Poseidon, said Vasily Dandykin, military analyst and retired Captain 1st Rank of the Russian Navy.
According to Dandykin, Poseidon is a truly “unique” device that helps Russia protect itself and whose unveiling really “agitated” the United States and its allies.
“It is essentially a strategic underwater drone that can travel up to 10,000 km at a kilometer depth at a fairly high speed. It is nuclear-powered, practically invincible and carries a huge nuclear warhead whose yield is measured in megatons,” Dandykin remarked.
He also mentioned that Russia is developing underwater drones that can be used for minesweeping, but was reluctant to talk about Russian “tactical attack drones,” saying simply that such information is classified.
Instead of boasting about Russia’s naval drone capabilities, Dandykin suggested that revelations about what unmanned watercraft Moscow has at its disposal should instead become unpleasant surprises for the country’s enemies.
Regarding the use of military drones in general, Dandykin pointed out that these craft still require human operators to guide them remotely, arguing that this state of affairs will likely continue for years to come regardless of how advanced artificial intelligence becomes.
“This is the future of all this drones’ use, when a man, in a manner of speaking, melds with a machine, which was the stuff of science fiction movies not long ago,” the analyst predicted.