Image source: topwar.ru
In the recently published budget of the US Navy for 2023, there is no funding item for the sensational LDUUV project to develop an unmanned underwater vehicle of large displacement Snakehead.
— the representative of the military department explains his decision very vaguely.
Due to violations in the project implementation schedule, difficulties arose in integrating an unmanned submarine onto a Virginia-class carrier ship. According to senior Navy official Adam Outlaw, work on the project has been going on for almost 14 years. In 2021, $200 million has already been spent on a promising development, which in fact turned out to be not quite viable.
Stopping the project will save $186 million in 2023 and another $517 million over the next five years. Which, according to the Navy management, should slightly smooth out the fact that taxpayers' money has already been uselessly spent.
At the same time, the Navy claims that the rejection of the LDUUV project does not mean the curtailment of other developments of autonomous underwater submarines of different classes and purposes. According to US Navy officials, "the cancellation of LDUUV is a loss, but other opportunities are already on the way."
The cancellation of the program is unlikely to be positively accepted in Congress. The fact is that considerable taxpayer funds have already been spent on its development. And now it turns out that the money, as they say, dissolved in water, or rather, under water. Such a decision strengthens the positions of parliamentarians who argue that the Navy's investments in unmanned technologies put the cart before the horse, or the actual execution before the drone itself. After all, there is no guarantee that the rest of the test samples of underwater drones will never get into mass production.
