Some Military and Paramilitary Technology Ideas

Lifeboat Bombs And Similar Swords To Plough Share Ideas

When a ship goes down in the midst of a naval battle or extreme weather conditions (like a hurricane), it may not be feasible to get a rescue boat or helicopter to the scene to rescue survivors quickly. And, in the event of the sinking of a vessel with lots of passengers, life a ferry, with inadequate life rafts or life rafts that were lost in the event that caused it to sink, getting lift rafts to the scene quickly might be critical because the rescuers don't have enough ships or helicopters to rescue everyone in a timely fashion.

We have lots of technologies in place, however, to deliver large payloads of explosives to very specific places.

What if the explosives were switched out for life rafts?

For example, a HIMARs or M270 multiple rocket launcher could trade an explosive missile for a life boat payload to deliver a life boat as much as 80-100 miles to a fishing boat sized destination that survivors of a sunken vessel with life preservers could swim to.

One could similarly substitute a life raft for the explosive ordinance in a VLS missile found in most U.S. warships with a longer range.

One could similarly retrofit a "smart bomb" normally delivered by a jet fighter, or bomber, or maritime patrol aircraft like the P-3 or P-8 so that it would carry a life raft rather than an explosive payload.

Or, one could put a guided "life raft bomb" on a transport plane or a search and rescue helicopter or a drone.

Fire Fighting Variants

One could do something similar by switching explosive ordinance for fire suppressants, allowing otherwise idle jet fighters and military bombers to be pressed into service to fight wild fires when necessary.

Resupply Variants

Or, one could do something similar with emergency supplies, with the "bomb" or "missile" having a parachute that would deploy close to the surface that could resupply people stuck on a small island or atoll until rescue could arrive, or in someplace where the roads and rail lines are washed out or destroyed by some other natural disaster, or to get urgently needed medical supplies to a destination before less urgent supplies can arrive, or to people on a floating ship whose engines have died, or to resupply a ship temporarily when ongoing conflict makes ports unavailable.

In a military setting, this could also be used to get ammunition and more potent infantry carried armed to units of soldiers that were cut off and isolated.

Interceptor Torpedoes

Torpedoes are some of the slowest moving forms of explosive ordinance and have limited range. But if they strike a ship or submarine it can be game over for the target.

The Mk 54 "light weight" torpedo that is the standard tool for U.S. aircraft and naval ships to strike submarines has a 12.75 inch diameter, and weighs about 750 pounds and has about 100 pounds of explosives, and has a maximum speed of about 46 miles per hour. It has a range of 6-7 miles in the water, and can be launched from aircraft and travel up to about 9-10 miles before entering the water. They also aren't cheap costing about $1 million each.

Active defenses in the form of interceptor torpedoes would seem like a new brainer. These would be much smaller than torpedoes designed to take out whole ships or submarines, because they'd only have enough of an explosive payload to destroy an ordinary torpedo which has little or no armor and is full of explosives, perhaps a tenth of the size or less. They would pull out all stops for speed with supercavitation which could allow it to reach speeds of up to 120 miles per hour in the water, and would have sophisticated sensors and guidance systems to allow them to independently maneuver to locate and destroy incoming torpedoes, even if the incoming torpedoes try to evade them. They wouldn't have to have a terribly long range themselves either.

This might weigh 75-100 pounds and would cost $20,000 to $200,000 each.

Interceptor torpedoes could also have a secondary use against jet ski/small craft sized maritime drones like those used in the Black Sea by Ukraine, and manned hostile small craft like those used by pirates or the Iranian navy, that don't require enough explosives to sink a warship or an ocean going ship.

In a close variant, one could have underwater armed supercavitating suicide drones that would escort ships and submarines, and would periodically be refueled from the ship that they were protecting.

Anti-Armored Small Craft Missiles

Most missiles and torpedoes designed to sink warships are expensive overkill for small craft, maritime armed drones, and amphibious craft like tank-boats and amphibious landing craft. It would make sense to have missiles about the size of anti-tank missiles, that would be guided by wouldn't have to be terribly maneuverable or fast (unlike anti-aircraft missiles), which could be cheaper and available in large numbers to address swarm attacks.

These missiles could also be used with an intent to damage or disable, rather than sink, larger ships, in order to allow the use of force without unnecessary escalation, for example, in a situation where Chinese Coast Guard ships are relentlessly harassing Filipino merchant ships, or when interdicting smugglers or shipping traffic.

Missiles are much more accurate than naval artillery guns, add much less weight to a ship equipped with them, and can have a longer range than naval artillery or direct fire small arms, in situations where something more potent than a 0.50 caliber machine gun is needed. These could be added, for example, to Coast Guard cutters as primary weapons, in addition to adding them a secondary weapons to larger warships. They could also be retrofitted onto civilian boats and ships when a rapid increase in force size to deal with low intensity conflicts was needed.

These missiles could also be used to provide ship or boat based fire support to troops on coasts or near major rivers, with more precision and less collateral damage, that traditional naval artillery guns.