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US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

interestingengineering.com

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Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#91

Post by m463 »

EA-3167 wrote: post #68
JR1427 wrote: post #8

This is like the old Soviet Ekranoplans [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan

It will have many of the same issues too, common to all ground-effect sea planes, namely that wave height, rogue waves, weather conditions, and the ability of pilots to remain highly focused will be major limiting factors.

I just wonder about the corrosion problems of an aircraft that spends all its time next to the water.

But maybe this kind of thing is made out of materials more like a surfboard than an sr-71.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#92

Post by m463 »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #12
Rygian wrote: post #11

I wonder why the title clarifies "for rescue ops". Is there anything inherent to this technology that prevents it from being used for anything else? The article body insists on "demonstrations relevant to specific defense operations" which sounds quite broad and not limited to rescue ops in any way.

It sounds less aggressive.

wonder what people thought when "the war department" became "the department of defense"

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#93

Post by ein0p »

hnav wrote: post #88
ein0p wrote: post #87

Are they drone evading though? Because if not, then this is a waste of time and taxpayer money. Literally any idiot can 3D print a drone capable of defeating tens of millions of dollars in military hardware from 15-20 miles away. We're not in Kansas anymore.

3D print a drone that will intercept a 180mph vessel from 20 miles away? You should consider putting together a prototype, I can only imagine you'd receive funding.

You're assuming pursuit. For intercept you don't need a 180mph drone, you just need a somewhat predictable trajectory. You're also assuming constant motion away from shore or other ships, at top speed. Drones with speeds of up to 225kph (140mph) are already in use in Ukraine, although their payload is designed to take down heavy drones and helicopters (only a couple of pounds), and their range is only 12 miles. Nothing a month or two of rather straightforward scale-up couldn't fix. That's before we consider the practical scenario where a larger drone just drops these over the target. And if we assume the adversary is China, there could be hundreds of these larger drones in the air, with dozens of smaller drones each.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#94

Post by tonyarkles »

m4rtink wrote: post #66
fidotron wrote: post #20

Ground effect vehicles could be the thing that's needed to make drone based delivery a reasonable thing to do, especially around lakes. It's one of life's perennial disappointments that such things only get done in military terms and under the ludicrous notion they are rescue vessels.

I think drone based delivery is a solved problem by now, thanks to the very rapid developments in the last 2 years ? Some of the drones are now even fiber optic guided and thus resistant to jamming by the competition!

Lol depending on what you’re delivering and whether you want the aircraft back to fly a second mission or not.

For civilian drone delivery there are some use cases where you can squeeze out a small profit doing drone-based delivery as opposed to conventional truck-based delivery, but it’s not a sure thing yet in general. A Transit van can cover a huge number of miles for a relatively small capital investment. Covering the same number of miles with a drone (even factoring in that you aren’t constrained by the road network and can do straight line flights) for lower cost is… hard.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#95

Post by djfivyvusn »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #14

Ha, I love the "rescue ops". This will not primarily be for rescue ops. This will be for supporting Marine standin operations on and within the first island chain. The marines have been trying to figure out how they can handle sustainment and logistics in that environment. You can read some wonkish article about this (back in 2022) https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/sustainment-of-the-stand-i... . You'll note that the…

Ww3 is gonna be wild.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#97

Post by CapricornNoble »

So they are just at Phase 2 of developing prototypes with the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory? Ok, that explains why I've not heard/seen any deployment plans for these things within the next 5 years out here....which probably means if we do get them, we'll get them too late to influence the war with China over Taiwan.

Other comments are correct that the Corps isn't even close to solving the contested sustainment/logistics problems here in the First Island Chain, or in the South China Sea.

These seagliders are a nifty solution to the signature management issues, but their payload is tiny. We need the ability to move pallets of munitions or other cargo.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#98

Post by CapricornNoble »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #37
mlyle wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This will not primarily be for rescue ops It seems like combat SAR in the maritime environment is what these are best at. > The "Viceroy" craft that Regent has mocked up on their website claims 180 mile range, 3500lb of cargo / 2 crew + 12 passengers. This is like 1/4th the size needed for minimum scale sustainment and support. Not to say that it won't be used for that in a pinch or for special operations, but it's…

The company press release states "The second phase of work will examine seaglider capabilities across missions including contested logistics and medevac/casevac". I agree that this would be useful for medevac/casevac, but I'm less sure about the search part of SAR. 180 miles is not a lot of range for searching. I still believe this is primarily about contested logistics, because the USMC still hasn't solved that issu…

> I have a hard time finding concrete examples, but I always envisioned an example detachment being roughly platoon sized. Basically, imagine being able to man a NMESIS launcher or two, ISR, and a squad or two of infantry for security.

Most of the scenarios I've participated in have involved reinforced companies.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#99

Post by hnav »

ein0p wrote: post #93
hnav wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3D print a drone that will intercept a 180mph vessel from 20 miles away? You should consider putting together a prototype, I can only imagine you'd receive funding.

You're assuming pursuit. For intercept you don't need a 180mph drone, you just need a somewhat predictable trajectory. You're also assuming constant motion away from shore or other ships, at top speed. Drones with speeds of up to 225kph (140mph) are already in use in Ukraine, although their payload is designed to take down heavy drones and helicopters (only a couple of pounds), and their range is only 12 miles. Nothi…

I don't doubt that you can physically carry big enough of a payload on an intercept trajectory, I just doubt that a clandestinely manufactured quadcopter will be able to either autonomously track its target (not big enough to carry a radar) or be controllable from 20 miles away (even in Ukraine EW is pervasive).

More realistically they'd try to modify the targeting of their existing AtoA and send fighters. Which is kinda like a bunch of big drones carrying small ones.

Re: US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

#100

Post by GolfPopper »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #10
bluesounddirect wrote: post #3

is this a ground effect machine?

"seaglider" is apparently a new word for ekranoplan. The difference is, the new ones tend not to be so enormous [1]. See e.g. https://www.regentcraft.com/seagliders/viceroy and https://www.hawaiiseaglider.org/what-is-a-seaglider It's the same craft with a different paint job Yes, they are Wing-in-Ground craft 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster

Thank you for bringing this up. All the marketing (and the "journalism" regurgitating it) are writing as though 'seaglider' is a word I ought to be familiar with, but have never encountered before. I had a lot of "these things seem a lot like an ekranoplane variant, but they're not calling them that" puzzlement.
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