More new toys, and one olde one

| November 13, 2024

China has unveiled a largish drone…ten TONs’ worth.  The drone is expected to be a “mothership” for smaller drone swarms.

While initially it can look like a normal attack aircraft, its central payload section is labeled as ‘Isomerism Hive Module’. This reveals that the mothership could have the capability to launch drones mid-air and then manage swarms to carry out operations.

The ability to launch multiple drones mid-air and then use the mothership as a command center is a dream project of China and several other countries.

It should be noted that the ability to launch and retrieve drones mid-air can extend the range of operations for any army. It can give drones a much-needed additional range to carry out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), electronic warfare.  Interesting Engineering.com

Our next stop is, surprisingly to me, in Spain, where they claim a reliable enough Air Independent  Propulsion system to be installing it in submarines.

The AIP system generates hydrogen from sustainably produced alcohol (bioethanol) stored in the submarine. The hydrogen mixes with oxygen, which is also stored inside, to generate electricity through a fuel cell which is capable of charging the vessel’s batteries.

Navantia states that this system is capable of keeping the submarine submerged twice to thrice longer than other conventional vessels.

The S80 class submarines are the only 3,000-ton submarines in the world equipped with the AIP system, according to Navantia’s press release.

We’ve always heard how a sub running on batteries is VERY quiet – no reactor cooling pumps to make noise, but the downside is that most are diesel electric. So once a day or so it has to surface and run its diesel engine to charge the batteries, right? So take that surfacing out of the equation and you have a very quiet sub, which can say down a lot longer.

Elsewhere in China, they have shown a ginormous directed microwave system for downing drones. From the pictures, this thing extends to the size of a semi. Wait 5 years, and you’ll probably get a more powerful one in every serving of ramen noodles.

The first of these is a microwave system consisting of a large planar array mounted on top of an 8×8 light armored vehicle chassis. The system also has small rotating radar, which would make sense for target detection and tracking purposes. The underlying vehicle looks to be the same one used in the Type 625E self-propelled short-range air defense system, or a variant or derivative thereof, another CSGC/Norinco offering also seen in the promotional video.

Pictures of a third high-power microwave directed energy weapon system, which is also mounted on a Shacman SX2400/2500-series truck, have also emerged. This system has its microwave array on a different style of articulating mount at the rear of the vehicle, as well as what looks to be a radar inside a dome on an extendable mast toward the cab end.  TWZ.com

Kinda sounds like the Chinese are pretty serious about drone use on the battlefield.

Now let’s move from looking at the future to the dim past…a Facebook posting says the UK’s first aircraft carrier has been discovered on a riverbank. Whoa…how is even an older carrier going to go unnoticed? This is from WW ONE (and four years before the USS Langley became our first.)

Looking like another just another rusting hull poking out of the water, for years the large dirt covered rusting wreck in the Thames was ignored.
But a maritime journalist spotted the vessel was a 1918 Thorneycroft Seaplane Lighter.
Although at just 58 feet long it looks nothing like the modern HMS Ark Royal – which is more than ten times as long – the damaged vessel was the first of the kind.
The tiny craft, discarded in the river like a shopping trolley or piece of litter, would have seen action during the First World War as aircraft carriers were introduced for the first time.
Originally it would have carried one plane that was launched by being towed into the wind – and then recovered after it was ditched into the sea on landing.
Jon Jefferies, from the museum, said the small vessel was a significant find.
‘It’s only tiny but it’s this ship that led to the development of the massive modern aircraft carriers,’ he said.  Ye Olde School
May need to scroll down a bit to get to the actual post.

Category: China, Science and Technology, UK, WWI

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FuzeVT

Most “drone” attention is paid to things that fly. I’m hoping that we are developing a lot of cat sized ones that can be a camera on the ground. Nothing directly lethal,but something that can move relatively silently, spot, locate and perhaps laser designate targets on the ground. We’ve seen wheeled and tracked remote vehicles but dozens of semi-autonomous cat-drones seems like something we should have – and would be the stuff of nightmares.

Fyrfighter

But if they were truly “cat” drones, they’d tell their operator to fuck off, chase some random piece of string, and take a nap when they felt like it.

5JC

And don’t be late with breakfast either. Your ass is getting out of bed and serving breakfast or there will be consequences.

SFC D

Easily defended against with a laser pointer.

FuzeVT

Ha! fair point!

A Proud Infidel®™

So just who did China steal the technology from to develop that? Well, that or they bribed Biden to where he handed it to them.

Odie

I will take blackmail for 1000, Alex.

Fyrfighter

All good points, but at the same time, we just see pictures, not actual operational effectiveness. Could very well be like a wooden iranian aircraft carrier..

5JC

It isn’t complex technology. You send energy into the air and things that are flying tend to react to it. The more energy you send the stronger the reaction.

SFC D

Doesn’t even have to be on the same frequency. Just swamp the front end of the receiver and shit goes south in a hurry.

Fyrfighter

True, but given their lack of concern for human life, I wonder how many of their troops between the array and the target will get fried…

E. Conboy

Bought him an ice cream cone.

26Limabeans

How would you like to be the radar cop that pulls that truck
over for speeding?

RCAF-CHAIRBORNE

That proto-A/C carrier is a cool riverine find.

This one, is…. mind blowing

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-68787845

Who ever thought leaving that quantity of explosives to decay at the bottom of the Thames was a ‘ good idea ‘, needed a stay in Bedlam.

Fyrfighter

Just saw a show on national geographic channel about that one.. yeah, seems it should have been dealt with at least as soon as the war was over.. but he’ll, why not play Russian roulette in your main shipping channel..

5JC

Air Defense radars have been dropping radio controlled UAVs since I was a private. It works well.

SFC D

AN/TRC-170 TROPO microwave systems are effective too. One of my teams “shot down” two USMC UAS’s in Iraq (2004). They told them repeatedly, do not take off through the transmission path (roughly 1200W SHF x2 transmitters). They were ignored. The resulting snap-roll and crash was spectacular. As was the second one. As a wise cowboy once said, “There is nothing to be learned from the mule’s second kick”. And yes, my guys painted “kills” on the shelter.

SpaceChairForceOne

Gotta love the old TRC-170’s!

SFC D

Heavy TROPO gave me deteriorated discs, baldness, and bifocals. Still love that fookin’ monstrosity though!

SpaceChairForceOne

My last couple years in I was a super for a ChairForce combat comm unit & we had TRC-170’s. Got the “up close” tour with them in the shop & out in the field. Was just amazed at all the gear, the work gone into keeping them going by the techs, and running them. Never seen anything quite like them before or since…

Sailorcurt

Hm…does anyone else recall that the story about drones overflying Langley AFB and other facilities in the Hampton Roads area included tales of a “mothership” drone carrier type craft?

I just did a quick search:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13958541/ufo-mother-ship-military-bases-drone-swarms-pentagon.html

I have no idea if that combined with the above story about China’s mothership drones leads to any conclusions, but it certainly seems interesting to me.

MIRanger

The idea of a mothership is as old as dirigibles, and is great to get a swarm to the location. Not so much for bringing them back home.
It looks to me a little like an A-10 for some reason. Wonder what altitude it flies at?

MIRanger

I’m liking the CSGC/Norinco Type 625E short-range air defense system better. A big wide panel with no power will not be able to have much range.

Sailorcurt

Oh…and the one person they arrested for flying drones over Hampton Roads was a Chinese National…a student in Minnesota (which, in case you aren’t aware, is only about 1,000 miles from eastern Virginia, so it’s not like he went out of his way to fly a drone there or anything), who flew to Hampton Roads, flew a drone over Newport News Naval Shipyard photographing the ships being built there, and got his drone stuck in a tree; this led to “neighbors” questioning what he was doing and reporting him to police. He then abandoned his drone, drove to DC, took a one way flight to California and was arrested while awaiting a flight to China.

I mean…not suspicious at all, right?

https://www.wired.com/story/fengyun-shi-espionage-act-drone-photography/

MIRanger

I’m sure he was just flying for fun, and felt it would be more expedient to just travel to China to pick up a new one than to order one and have it sent. China wouldn’t send spies acting as college students to stay in the US would they?! 😉 I mean that is unethical.

5JC

Wait a minute! Are you trying to say the neighbors are in on it? Asking for an FBI Agent with questions.

Sailorcurt

No, I put neighbors in quotes because he doesn’t live here; all his neighbors live in Minnesota…so I’m not quite sure they they called them that in the news story.

Sapper3307

CHINA gen 6 ,,looking good?

7856040486100598603
5JC

I spy with my little eye a problem out the gate.

11B-Mailclerk

Platypus

Forest Bondurant

They stole that design from a movie Clint Eastwood was in – FIREFOX.

They fail at this station.

Jimbojszz

the china guys just don’t get it when it comes to stealth.

Jimbojszz

An air borne laser system could knock these microwaves out from a very long distance. Anything emitting a signal is also a target. I dont think these will last long on the battle field. Especially if its been built with Chinese made hardware.

SFC D

HARM missiles work very well on any microwave transmissions. RADAR, jammers, communications, it just doesn’t care. Flies down the beam and game over, man.

5JC

I know a warrant who had his Q37 blown up twice during the PGW by friendly fire. That is an artillery seeking radar for the curious.