The Drive: the baptism of the unmanned spy submarine Snakehead took place in the USA
A secret unmanned underwater vehicle (UAV) of large displacement Snakehead ("Snakehead") can be launched from a Virginia-type nuclear submarine for reconnaissance tasks or control of certain areas of the sea, says the American edition of The Drive.
The baptism of an unmanned spy submarine powered by lithium-ion fail-safe batteries, which drew attention in the publication, took place in February at the Narragansett proving ground in Rhode Island. "Details about Snakehead and the contractors developing it remain scarce," notes The Drive.
The publication reports that the BPA is integrated with a dry deck shelter and a submarine payload control system. Among the tasks of Snakehead is the exploration of the operational environment and the deployment of various payloads, in particular, elements of anti-submarine defense and electronic warfare (in the latter case, the drone must operate near the sea surface).
It is noted that Snakehead is likely to be part of the Netted Emulation of Multi-Element Signature against Integrated Sensors ecosystem (NEMESIS), which allows you to create "phantom fleets" that deceive and distract the enemy.
Possible carriers of Snakehead are, in particular, submarines of the Ohio, Virginia or Seawolf types.
In October 2020, Popular Mechanics magazine noted that the new Hammerhead mine of the US Navy would become a "killer" of enemy submarines, in particular the Poseidon nuclear underwater drone being created in Russia. As a carrier deploying Hammerhead, it is planned to use unmanned underwater swimming vehicles Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV), including an unmanned mini-submarine Orca ("Killer Whale").
