Drone launch breaks barrier

[DreamGypsy]

31. Yippee!!! Entering the next phase of the Drone Cold War!!

Ah, the fond memories of the 50's and 60's when we and our pals developed SLBMs (submarine launched ballistic missiles). Remember how well that worked out?

From Wikipedia:

The first practical design of a submarine-based launch platform was developed by the Germans near the end of World War II involving a launch tube which contained a ballistic missile and was towed behind a submarine. The war ended before it could be tested, but the engineers who had worked on it went on to work for the USA and USSR on their SLBM programs. These and other early SLBM systems required vessels to be surfaced when they fired missiles, but launch systems eventually were adapted to allow underwater launching in the 1950-1960s. The United States made the first successful underwater launch of a Polaris A1 on 20 July 1960.[1] Forty days later, the Soviet Union made its first successful underwater launch of a submarine ballistic missile in the White Sea on 10 September 1960 from the same converted Project 611 (Zulu Class) submarine that first launched the R-11FM (SS-N-1 Scud-A, naval modification of SS-1 Scud) on 16 September 1955.[2][3] However, the Soviet Union was able to beat the U.S. in launching and testing the first armed SLBM, an R-13 that detonated in the Novaya Zemlya Test Range in the Arctic Ocean, doing so on October 20, 1961,[4] just ten days before the gigantic 50 MT Tsar Bomba's detonation in the same general area.
French M45 SLBM and M51 SLBM

Ballistic missile submarines have been of great strategic importance for the USA and Russia and other nuclear powers since the start of the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. This makes them immune to a first strike directed against nuclear forces, allowing each side to maintain the capability to launch a devastating retaliatory strike, even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed. This relieves each side of the necessity to adopt a launch on warning posture, with its grave attendant risk of accidental nuclear war. Additionally, the deployment of highly accurate missiles on ultra-quiet submarines allows an attacker to sneak up close to the enemy coast and launch a missile on a depressed trajectory (a non-optimal ballistic trajectory which trades off reduced throw-weight for a faster and lower path, effectively reducing the time between launch and impact), thus opening the possibility of a decapitation strike.

Sure, drone takeoff from a carrier didn't require much technological advance, but evidently the U.S. Navy thinks it's historical.

Interesting that the Chinese see a great opportunity as well: Report: Chinese Drone 'Swarms' Designed to Attack American Aircraft Carriers from U.S.News & World Report:

According to Easton, who studied more than 100 Chinese-language military technology journals, official government reports and news reports out of Taiwan, the Chinese see drones as a platform to wage war at the "highest level of conflict." Chinese documents suggest that the country's People's Liberation Army "envision[s] attacking U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups with swarms of multi-mission UAVs."

While the American military has mainly used drones for reconnaissance in the Middle East and Northern Africa and precision strikes against small groups of insurgents or terrorists, Chinese reports suggest that they plan to use the drones in the event of a conventional war. While American drones are rarely lost overseas, China envisions attacks "with initial waves of decoy drones" followed by swarms of strike drones that would often be shot down during their mission.

"When the Chinese look at UAVs, they see tremendous capabilities for high-end conflict. We've been using them for low-intensity situations," Easton says. "The Chinese have done an overwhelming number of studies discussing using UAVs as having the capabilities of hitting U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups. That's what they're planning to do."

Oh, well. Guess I'll start storing my beer in the bomb shelter...uh, sorry, drone shelter...again.



(on edit: replaced "are" with "and&quot