This looks to be a pretty impressive piece of gear. Made by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the Katana, named after a type of Samurai sword is designed to run manned or unmanned and to transition between the two in minutes. According to IAI, the Katana got its name because they wanted to emphasize the system's speed, reliability and lethal force.
Basically, it's designed to be an ultra reliable patrol vessel specially designed for coast patrol and to protect and conduct surveillance missions for offshore installations like oil oil rigs and fuel or gas pipelines.
The 39 footer is f-a-s-t, with two special diesel engines to move it at a top speed 60 knots (over 110 kilometers (68 miles) per hour). They would give it the ability to run down and catch pretty much any surface craft it wants to. And it carries a multitude of SOTA weapons systems, communications and optical systems, command systems and navigation systems.
Given that the U.S. Navy is developing underwater drones, it only makes sense that Israel would come up with something like this. And I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them come up with their own underwater drones soon.
Kol Tov, IAI!
I read your post about the Us developing these things as well. While this might be impressive, I fail to see how this does anything to does anything to address the deficiencies the US relativ4 to adversaries and potential adversaries such as Russia and China. In order to this, the US would need, at a minimum, a new generation of generation of military submarines as well as substantial upgrades to the nuclear arsenal and the delivery systems associated with them.
ReplyDeleteEven if the US did manage to construct underwater drones, since the US does not have the appropriately skilled engineers and other skilled personnel relative to Russia, China, and other potential adversaries, the US product would be inferior to anything the Russians and Chinese already have or will have and it will cost significantly more to develop as well than what it will cost others to develop.
Since Israel does have the appropriately skilled personnel and their product will be better than anything America can hope to build in the near to mid term, it seems the sensible course of action for the US Navy would be to enter into a contract with Israel to purchase these things from them. The product we would get would cost less and it would be a better product.
For a country in the dire financial straits that America is in and has a massive shortage of the kind of skilled personnel needed for such a project, such an act as seeking to procure items such as this from an ally seems like a no brainer. Of course with US leadership in the state that it is currently in, stupid behavior has become the norm.