Originally Posted by
Leon Jabachjabicz
Ability to fly over 240KTAS - CHECK
Endurance over 30hrs - CHECK
External Payload of 1361kgs (100 odd sonobuoys or 4x Stingray Torpedo) - CHECK
Multimode Maritime RADAR vice Lynx SAR/GMTI - CHECK
Comms Relay - CHECK
Over 3 mega bits per second Beyond Line Of Sight Datalink - CHECK
22" EO/IR turret (vice 15" MX15 on MR2) - CHECK
Range over 3,000nm - CHECK
100 sonobuoys - 30 hours endurance
Tracking a submarine with expendable air dropped sonobouys, as opposed to a dipping sonor, requires a number of bouys to be dropped around the submarine. As the submarine moves so more sonobouys must dropped around the submarine. Now I am well out of date on detection ability (just as well) but in the past we would need a minimum of 6 buoys per hour but against a quiet submarine in poor conditions this was at least 10 per hour. If the submarine was sneakier than many some of these 10 would be malplaced so more would need to be dropped raising the consumption to 15 per hour.
On the Mk 1 with 63 buoys we frequently dropped a full load in 5-6 hours.
With a 30 hours endurance, say 20 hours on task, a load of 200-300 buoys would be needed. Put another way, if you can't increase the load to match the endurance then you would need many more UAV.
Then there is the balance between Art and Science. The equipment used in ASW and SSW is incredibility advanced but it is employed by humans. Humans can do unpredictable things (as far as the machine is concerned) but can be predicted by experienced opponents. To double guess one's opponent is the art.