Um excuse me but they're called USOs when under water and I'll have you know that my Canadian girlfriend was abducted by one which is why you can't meet her
Imagine that military contractors don’t release their most recent developments and that this thing is effectively a technological generation behind. Imagine accidentally running across whatever’s crazier than this…
A few months back some anonymous /b/ user posted something to the UFO subreddit saying they worked for the military or something and that there was a giant, mobile underwater base in our oceans that produces UFOs and USOs and destroys anything that gets near it. Just some of the fun worldbuilding lore they're making over there lol.
Probably safe to say there's no overlap in the Venn diagram of places that are interesting to snorkel and places that are interesting to Northrop grumman
That's the neat thing, this *doesn't* rely on propellers or jet pumps. (I read in an article that it still does have propellers, but I'm fairly certain they're not the primary means of propulsion.)
As far as I can tell, it's an [underwater glider.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_glider) They're cool because they're *incredibly* efficient, and they can travel extremely large distances using only the barest minimum of electrical power.
The key is that they don't derive their forward motion through direct propulsion - rather, they derive it through buoyancy and changes in center of gravity. The vehicle is built to be extreme close to neutral bouyancy, and can change itself to be either positive or negative to float or sink, just as submarines can. But the difference is that when it enters positive bouyancy mode and starts ascending, the center of gravity also shifts back and tilts the vehicle up; the wings then force the vehicle to ascend along a forward trajectory rather than straight up. The reverse happens when it decreases its bouyancy and starts sinking: the center of gravity shifts forward and tilts the vehicle down, and the wings then push it forward as it sinks.
That way, the vehicle is naturally moving forward as it floats and sinks with no forward propulsion necessary. The only power it needs to consume is the miniscule amount of electrical power to open or close ballast tanks and shift a weight to change its center of gravity at the top and bottom of its "swimming" cycle.
The downside is that it's much slower to travel this way than direct propulsion, but the efficiency does mean that a vehicle like this can operate for months on end off of a single *battery* (not a tank of fuel or a nuclear reactor).
I had the chance to build and test miniature versions of these in a high school project in collaboration with our local Navy research lab. It's an awesome technology, and I still count myself fortunate to have experienced it.
Lots more moving parts to do that. That is more energy to move, more energy to store, more heat released, and more maintenance. It would be awesome but I am willing to bet it would be too cost prohibitive. Ah what am I on about it's a government defense contract so money is no issue. Fuck school lunches am I right!!!!! If I need an s, you need a hug.
Thank you, it's not that big at all really. Big for a drone, but even in the OP photo there's a tiny little boat in the background for scale. At first I thought that was a larger boat and was way more impressed. Like the thing looks really cool and is big but not really fitting for this sub (no pun intended).
It's not supposed to be, either. The whole point is to make hundreds of these AI-guided drones roam the waters, being a submarine and torpedo all at once. Platform-centrism is a major vulnerability of modern navies and the US navy in particular (a huge multibillion dollar carrier can be sunk by a few missiles at a fraction of the cost), so the intended solution is to create decentralized, uncrewed weapons whose power comes from operating in a swarm, rather than a few large ships.
You sound knowledgeable on this. How does the drone transmit information through the water? Do you think it has to surface in order to effectively communicate with the mothership so to say? I’ve also got to imagine it can’t stray too far as it would need to be refueled periodically right?
Always wondered about this for underwater drones. I'd wager they have to surface for any meaningful bandwidth but can be commanded to surface with some ultra low frequency systems.
Problem with those is the transmitters have to be pretty enormous and consume tons of power. Pretty much a one way, few bits to kilobits (?) per second sort of thing that can barely be mounted on ships if at all
It's most likely autonomous, similar to Boeing's xb-47 loyal wingman uav
This is a uuv, so most likely running a kind of machine learning algorithm that uses conputer vision and the various sensors it has equipped to make decisions autonomously (again, just speculating but probably the same as the aforementioned xb-47, which kinda sounds like the start to ace combat 7, y'know, autonomous drones taking over aerial combat, this could do the same but underwater)
my god can people create some really amazing stuff. I was just watching videos on microprocessors this morning. And seeing several hundred thousand transistors in an area the width of a human hair. People are incredible
Some dimensions: Crew: Unmanned – 4 personnel fly aircraft from ground station ; Length: 47 ft 7 in (14.5 m) ; Wingspan: 130 ft 11 in (39.9 m) ; Height: 15 ft 5 in (4.6 m)
How does it communicate? Signal buoy or does it stay shallow enough that there isn’t a problem? Or has Gruman discovered some new magic radio tech that can get through water without massive attenuation and doesn’t have abysmal bandwidth?
I'm not sure about this particular one but a lot of these ocean drones can move really long distances.
They reduce their buoyancy to sink then increase it to slowly float back up. But since they have wings they "glide" when they are sinking or ascending. They move across the oceans in a sawtooth pattern.This allows them to cover horizontal distance with very very little energy.
Usually it's just inflating and deflating a little external pouch with hydraulic fluid. They can even surface and solar charge if equipped. To be able to glide around forever in theory.
That's really not very big, as far as boats go. The regular boat in the photo looks to be about the same size as the one Dexter used to dump his bodies - compare that with cargo ships or ships used to move offshore platforms and it's absolutely tiny.
As a calibration tech vendor of theirs, I always thought they spend a metric fuck ton on calibration. I guess that’s a drop in the bucket compared to this monstrosity.
I mean yes it is big but it's not massive. The dinghy isn't that big and it's about the same length. I wonder what it's sonar signal looks like, how loud it's propulsion is
Yeah. I don’t think China has quite caught on that a war with the US means unrestricted submarine warfare. Best of luck with that when you’re a country dependent on food imports via the sea.
Looks like another view form the Tic-Tac video. I could see this thing appearing to be that shape given the horrible resolution on the footage, assuming it was not faked *(Yes, military people can lie and fake things too).*
Any videos of it performing? Does it fly as well?
Imagine diving in the middle of the ocean and being unaware of the existence of this thing and seeing it emerge from out of the murk and gloom.
I’d be waiting for freakin Blank Manta to pop out wrestling Aquaman for breeding rights to an Atlantis queen lol
Like that scene in Invincible with the Immortal but instead it's 'WHERE'S AQUAMAN?!'
Where’s Mark, William
That's quite the sentence to read in the morning. Or anytime.
It's named the Manta Ray so very appropriate
Forgot about Blank Manta, Black Manta’s expressionless sidekick
I'm familiar with the popular hero Blankman, is Blank Manta a long lost cousin of his?
I love Damon Wayans! And yeah just caught the typo
> breeding rights You had my curiosity but now you have my attention
You would be the new crazy person talking about aliens 100%
Especially since UFOs flying in and out of water has been their new thing the past year or so.
Um excuse me but they're called USOs when under water and I'll have you know that my Canadian girlfriend was abducted by one which is why you can't meet her
It looks like a [really big sunfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_sunfish#/media/File:GFNMS_--_Mola_Mola_(35221024103).jpg).
Dead, I would die!
Heartattack. Die. Done and dusted within 2 mins.
Imagine that military contractors don’t release their most recent developments and that this thing is effectively a technological generation behind. Imagine accidentally running across whatever’s crazier than this…
As someone that’s worked in that field for a long long time….we got some really wild shit. Lol
I'd teenwolf that mf
Straight up Jane Bond villain shit.
Might explain some of the strange ocean sightings and sounds in the recent past. Clearly it's been in testing prior to being announced.
That would be way cool.
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Can't wait for the start of exploring these supposed anomalies in our oceans.. like the alleged underwater base that moves and builds UAS/UAPs. 🧐
Huh?
A few months back some anonymous /b/ user posted something to the UFO subreddit saying they worked for the military or something and that there was a giant, mobile underwater base in our oceans that produces UFOs and USOs and destroys anything that gets near it. Just some of the fun worldbuilding lore they're making over there lol.
Someone finally saw The Abyss.
Thanks for the info!
It’s a wild read. Here it is for anyone interested: https://4chan-ufo-pdf.pages.dev/4chan-ufo.pdf
Probably safe to say there's no overlap in the Venn diagram of places that are interesting to snorkel and places that are interesting to Northrop grumman
I snorked.
My mind went straight to Interstellar
> Me, opening reddit. This little maneuver is going to cost us 51 years.
This little drone is going to make tax-payers cry 51 years
I sure am glad we’re doing shit like this instead of giving everybody healthcare
House Atreides ship rising from the waters of Caladan.
My mind saw a sunfish
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Thanks ,I was just getting ready to watch [Armageddon](https://youtu.be/8-8eEniEfgU?si=sCn69LPxzVfqLktm) just now
Danger Boat from The Tick
Pretty cool design.
Bet its named “manta” and some numbers lol
It literally is lol
I'm just wondering when they're gonna make a manta drone that "swims" instead of using propellers or jet pumps.
That's the neat thing, this *doesn't* rely on propellers or jet pumps. (I read in an article that it still does have propellers, but I'm fairly certain they're not the primary means of propulsion.) As far as I can tell, it's an [underwater glider.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_glider) They're cool because they're *incredibly* efficient, and they can travel extremely large distances using only the barest minimum of electrical power. The key is that they don't derive their forward motion through direct propulsion - rather, they derive it through buoyancy and changes in center of gravity. The vehicle is built to be extreme close to neutral bouyancy, and can change itself to be either positive or negative to float or sink, just as submarines can. But the difference is that when it enters positive bouyancy mode and starts ascending, the center of gravity also shifts back and tilts the vehicle up; the wings then force the vehicle to ascend along a forward trajectory rather than straight up. The reverse happens when it decreases its bouyancy and starts sinking: the center of gravity shifts forward and tilts the vehicle down, and the wings then push it forward as it sinks. That way, the vehicle is naturally moving forward as it floats and sinks with no forward propulsion necessary. The only power it needs to consume is the miniscule amount of electrical power to open or close ballast tanks and shift a weight to change its center of gravity at the top and bottom of its "swimming" cycle. The downside is that it's much slower to travel this way than direct propulsion, but the efficiency does mean that a vehicle like this can operate for months on end off of a single *battery* (not a tank of fuel or a nuclear reactor). I had the chance to build and test miniature versions of these in a high school project in collaboration with our local Navy research lab. It's an awesome technology, and I still count myself fortunate to have experienced it.
Thanks for the explanation!!
The same principle is used by the kids’ pool toy ‘stingray glider’!
Lots more moving parts to do that. That is more energy to move, more energy to store, more heat released, and more maintenance. It would be awesome but I am willing to bet it would be too cost prohibitive. Ah what am I on about it's a government defense contract so money is no issue. Fuck school lunches am I right!!!!! If I need an s, you need a hug.
Raytheon gon' build 20k of these fuckers
That would be cool
Close, it's called 'Manta Ray'
Octonauts legal team bout to chime in
Manta, by Raytheon
Arsenal gear...
Someone in Northrop has been playing the master collection lately
Came here to say that, but you beat me to it.
I need scissors!
61!
How long until someone mistakes this for the worlds largest sunfish? 😆
it's a baby fuckin whale jay
HES FUCKIN DYIN’ JAY!!!
There's good meat on that, kid!
Damn you’re right [even same colour shade](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/hQp7rrtBgCWtABdMqA2iLP.jpg)
It’s not *that* massive, you can see a pic of some guys standing on it [here](https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2024-05-01)
Thank you, it's not that big at all really. Big for a drone, but even in the OP photo there's a tiny little boat in the background for scale. At first I thought that was a larger boat and was way more impressed. Like the thing looks really cool and is big but not really fitting for this sub (no pun intended).
Compare that to container ships, or those ships they use to move offshore platforms, and this is absolutely tiny.
Crushingly tiny. 😉
It's not supposed to be, either. The whole point is to make hundreds of these AI-guided drones roam the waters, being a submarine and torpedo all at once. Platform-centrism is a major vulnerability of modern navies and the US navy in particular (a huge multibillion dollar carrier can be sunk by a few missiles at a fraction of the cost), so the intended solution is to create decentralized, uncrewed weapons whose power comes from operating in a swarm, rather than a few large ships.
can we also build something like this that just explores the oceans and helps us fill in our gaps of knowledge of them.
I think we can do that ourselves! I‘ll bring an xbox controller and some sandwiches!
as long as you dont bring a carbon fiber sub were all good.
this is how I know you grew up playing Subnautica and not Ecco
I’ll get some carbon fibre, pretty sure I can find some in Boeings dumpster…
All I have is a Logitech controller I found in my old junk drawer, that’ll be fine right?
let‘s fucking go
Only if after exploring things, we blow them up
You sound knowledgeable on this. How does the drone transmit information through the water? Do you think it has to surface in order to effectively communicate with the mothership so to say? I’ve also got to imagine it can’t stray too far as it would need to be refueled periodically right?
Always wondered about this for underwater drones. I'd wager they have to surface for any meaningful bandwidth but can be commanded to surface with some ultra low frequency systems. Problem with those is the transmitters have to be pretty enormous and consume tons of power. Pretty much a one way, few bits to kilobits (?) per second sort of thing that can barely be mounted on ships if at all
Still pretty huge. That rear fin is ~5'.
Oh, it's regular boat sized. LMAO. I thought that was a big ship in the background behind it.
Thank you for unbamboozling us.
Yeah the guy on the boat in the background provides better scale. Bigger than most maribe life, but not as big as like a 737
Thanks the t
How does it receive signals if it’s a drone? Water eats up every radio signal.
Well, the top clearly sticks out of the water + i dont think its supposed to make long dives, if any at all.
You could give it complex instructions and programming and have it check in at the surface every so often
It's most likely autonomous, similar to Boeing's xb-47 loyal wingman uav This is a uuv, so most likely running a kind of machine learning algorithm that uses conputer vision and the various sensors it has equipped to make decisions autonomously (again, just speculating but probably the same as the aforementioned xb-47, which kinda sounds like the start to ace combat 7, y'know, autonomous drones taking over aerial combat, this could do the same but underwater)
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Fucking hell, what sort of arms / payload can this thing carry. I mean, this will be great for underwater exploration and mapping!
Is that arsenal gear?
Dr. Evil vibes
Does that look like a Dolphin with a laser beam attached to its head?
arsenal gear
"for cleaning the oceans, right?" - "..." - "for CLEANING the OCEANS, RIGHT!?!?!" - "..."
Sorry, best we can do is tactical littering.
The solution to pollution is dilution!
Cleaning the ocean from enemy ships, while a also littering the ocean flor with ship wrecks.
excellent joke from a scholar and a gentleman on their cake day.
Happy cake day!
Octonauts, assemble!
Yes and it is used to deploy smaller drones.
/r/submechanophobia/
For a second ibthought that was a full size ship behind it
Just look at this and think: Imagine what we could achieve if we stopped being dicks for like 5 minutes.
Sponsored by: the friendly stressed, poor taxpayer
This is the coolest craft I’ve seen in a while.
Columbian drug cartel is taking notes.
Nightmare fuel.
That's not okay...
This can’t be good for the whales
my god can people create some really amazing stuff. I was just watching videos on microprocessors this morning. And seeing several hundred thousand transistors in an area the width of a human hair. People are incredible
Remember those videos of the “ufo” that goes between the ocean and the air? $100 says that’s the next gen of this in testing
Reminds me to Dark Reign 2
Why
Cause humans have an unfortunate tendency to want to blow each other up over dinosaur juice
Who are we currently at war with over oil? The US is a net exporter of oil now. Can we retire this tired trope?
No, people will repeat dead memes a decade after they stopped being funny, regardless of whethet they were true in the first place.
Some dimensions: Crew: Unmanned – 4 personnel fly aircraft from ground station ; Length: 47 ft 7 in (14.5 m) ; Wingspan: 130 ft 11 in (39.9 m) ; Height: 15 ft 5 in (4.6 m)
Armored Core did it 🤷
Your free healthcare right there, probably buggy as furk.
Just looks like an ocean sunfish on its side.
That boat in the back of drone looks bigger at first
Imagine the tuna boat that pulls one of these things out onto its deck.
I suspect it can also fly? The wing shape is kinda useless for being only underwater.
When are they going to build the SeaQuest?
How does it communicate? Signal buoy or does it stay shallow enough that there isn’t a problem? Or has Gruman discovered some new magic radio tech that can get through water without massive attenuation and doesn’t have abysmal bandwidth?
What’s it for?
Isn’t an underwater drone a submarine?
I'm not sure about this particular one but a lot of these ocean drones can move really long distances. They reduce their buoyancy to sink then increase it to slowly float back up. But since they have wings they "glide" when they are sinking or ascending. They move across the oceans in a sawtooth pattern.This allows them to cover horizontal distance with very very little energy. Usually it's just inflating and deflating a little external pouch with hydraulic fluid. They can even surface and solar charge if equipped. To be able to glide around forever in theory.
So…. A submarine?
Technology imitates nature
I'd be thinking that's sunfish was caught in the same radiation as Godzilla.
Space drones water drone air drones COMBINE
UFO enemy unknown vibes, or XCOM terror from the deep....
we made one at cet at bristol ri
or the movie set for the remake of the Planet of the Apes
Reminds me of that tv show SeaQuest DSV
Getting some Black Manta vibes!
Forced perspective, but still pretty cool
Swampert used Surf!
Ningen sightings about to skyrocket.
That probably deploys aerial drones, wonder if this wasn’t the thing the guys saw in the tick tac video?
Some giant manta ray is going to try and fuck that thing. I guarantee.
That's really not very big, as far as boats go. The regular boat in the photo looks to be about the same size as the one Dexter used to dump his bodies - compare that with cargo ships or ships used to move offshore platforms and it's absolutely tiny.
My first thought was “I missed that episode. I don’t remember Dexter killing Mandark.”
Sea monster scar time 😁
Is it seamanless?
Some Ace Combat shit
Now that’s the stuff nightmares are made of… 👹
Sunfish …. Pleeeeease tell me it’s called sunfish.
What does it do?
As a calibration tech vendor of theirs, I always thought they spend a metric fuck ton on calibration. I guess that’s a drop in the bucket compared to this monstrosity.
This is the “shark with fricken laser beams” isn’t it.
It’s…uh…a sea bass, sir.
I wonder how this will be used to kill civilians
for what fucking purpose are they getting tax funding for this thing?
Camera distance? “Objects may appear larger”.. blh blah blah
Aliens! /s
r/submechanophobia
Cameraman perspectived the fuck out of that. Davinci would be proud.
Forgeworld made new Tau?
Don't be silly, not even DOD can afford FW prices.
New? 2 decades old new maybe
Sure, but soon everybody’ll have one
r/acecombat
I can't wait till they try to put an AI in it and our waterways are never safe again
this is exactly what cartels need...
I hope they named it The Manta Ray
Why would a drone be so big?
Ok but can it do sick jumps in Cabo like my buddy on a jet ski??
This in ya’ll toilet btw
A kinder, gentler machine gun hand
This isn’t the one they’re trying to make supersonic right?
They’re building a Metal Gear??
I mean yes it is big but it's not massive. The dinghy isn't that big and it's about the same length. I wonder what it's sonar signal looks like, how loud it's propulsion is
I hope it can attach to the belly of an enemy sub lol. Like a little barnacle.
Maybe they could hire a few Ukrainians. Not /s.
Only the leviathans can save us now
"Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" is coming true.
Why does it have a vertical stabilizer and not a rudder? Does it fly or is it stoopid?
Oh that’s not eerie, not in the least😳😳😳😳
Not a “Midjourney?”
Yeah. I don’t think China has quite caught on that a war with the US means unrestricted submarine warfare. Best of luck with that when you’re a country dependent on food imports via the sea.
Looks like another view form the Tic-Tac video. I could see this thing appearing to be that shape given the horrible resolution on the footage, assuming it was not faked *(Yes, military people can lie and fake things too).* Any videos of it performing? Does it fly as well?
It isn’t ‘massive’ at all.
You know we can stop now. We have perfected the art of killing. Seriously! We can not attain much higher levels.
Arsenal Gear
Looks scary. How does it kill you?
r/forcedperspective
It's not that big. The boat is just a tiny trawler. Not a tanker.
You know those UFOs that reportedly dive right into the ocean and disappear. Here you go.
What's next? FS-1 Seaview's flying sub?
Steve Irwin would be terrified of this
To the invisible boat mobile!!
Tell me it's not real
All I can say is why are my tax dollars funding this?
Who else makes these war drones? Other than these big corporations
Black manta about to hop out this mf