By Logan Williams, Warrior Editorial Fellow
On December 20th, 2023, it was widely reported that the United States Navy had taken delivery of its first Orca extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV). The submarine, designed and manufactured by Boeing, is the product of many years of research and tedious project delays.
The resulting submarine is an 80-ton, 85-foot behemoth, and is the largest UUV planned, as of yet, for addition to the U.S. Navy’s fleet. The Orca is so large, that it cannot be launched or received by the crewed submarines in the United States’ fleet, such as the Razorback medium-UUV was designed to be; rather, the Orca will need to be launched from a pier, as if it were a full-sized, crewed submarine, itself.
The Pentagon seemingly revived the modular construction concept with the Boeing Orca, which was used as the foundation for the ill-fated littoral combat ship experiment. This modular design is exemplified by the 34-foot payload compartment with an eight-ton payload capacity; a modular design simply means that the U.S. Navy is supposed to be able to add and remove components as needed to fit different missions, it is a build-to-task capability that, in theory, is supposed to eliminate the need to spend exorbitant amounts of money on specialized UUVs. At present, the U.S. Navy intends to utilize the Orca for the difficult task of laying sea mines, particularly in contested waters, but this submarine is expected to pick up many new capabilities, soon.
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Perhaps the most interesting component of the Orca submarine, however, is its hybrid power system. The Orca contains a diesel-electric engine, combined with lithium ion batteries, making this UUV the first diesel-electric submarine in the United States’ fleet since the retirement of the Barbel-class submarines in 1990. The lithium ion batteries and the shrouded propulser (rather than the traditional propeller) should allow the Orca to evade detection by passive sonar. Additionally, the diesel-electric engine should allow the Orca to conceal itself from active sonar detection, by diving towards the ocean floor, a capability that was lost with nuclear-powered submarines.
In the impending war with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), submarines won’t just be a key deciding factor, they will reign supreme. At present, sub-surface maritime warfare is a realm in which the United States could thoroughly dominate China, but that capability is steadily dwindling. The United States’ failure to secure early dominance through a swift, decisive, overwhelming, and brutal submarine campaign would not just cause the eventual loss of the sub-surface battle, but it would cede the entire maritime realm to China — and with it, the war. A Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) war-game estimates that a robust U.S. submarine fleet could destroy up to 90% of the Chinese naval fleet, dragooning the PRC’s troops on Taiwanese beaches with no food or air support, just waiting to be decimated by the United States’ F-35 fighter aircraft. Without such a robust submarine fleet, one can only imagine how quickly the roles could be reversed.
The Orca has the potential to become a significant component of that submarine fleet, either by ensuring that the battle-space heavily favors the United States, by laying sea mines to vex enemy ships, or through being armed with torpedoes and other weapons to prepare the UUV for full-scale submarine warfare. Either way, the Orca represents an important step in the right direction.
Williams is a Warrior Editorial Fellow and is a writer and researcher currently studying at the University of Connecticut. Williams’ work has been published in newspapers, magazines, and journals, such as:, Geopolitics Magazine, Modern Diplomacy, The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Democracy Paradox, Diario Las Américas, International Affairs Forum, Fair Observer, History Is Now Magazine, American Diplomacy, etc.
