“This six-year effort represents the best in collaboration of a Navy laboratory and industry to produce a technology that meets the needs of the special operations community"

And the endless defense spending continues.

http://nation.time.com/2012/09/25/comparing-defense-budgets-...

If sub launched drones can eventually engage in precision bombstrikes and air-superiority operations, this could presage another shift in naval warfare.

It used parts of the Tomahawk system, the precision bombing was largely covered. Drones are supposed to be cheap. Billion dollar delivery platforms don't really align with that. This is the US Navy trying to keep a weapon system designed for the cold war. An attack submarine that isn't stalking boomers is a hole in the water into which money is poured.

Why are drones supposed to be cheap?

It's one of their main competitive advantages. If a drone launch starts costing millions of dollars, the benefit it has over a traditional aircraft fly-over starts to diminish.

I don't see traditional aircraft taking off from a submerged submarine any time soon. That would seem to be an alternative advantage to offset the cost.

actually, the Japanese already invented that in WWII - http://www.nbcnews.com/science/sunken-japanese-wwii-submarin...

Not true. You forgot the submerged part.

getting a live camera + weapons near a spot where a submarine is already positioned is probably a whole lot cheaper than the alternatives.

alternatives: satellite, long range bomber, surface fleet, seal squad...

That only applies to this iteration. I don't see any reason why submerged drone launches couldn't be made cheaper.

Doubtful. The exact submarine used for this test launched was used in combat as recently as 2 years ago (Libya). Precision bombing from a submarine has been a solved problem since the late 80s, if not longer.

Yeah, that's cool and all, but can it deliver a package in 30 minutes or less?

NRL does amazing work. Their people are highly qualified scientists who get paid peanuts.

How do they get it back?

For the test they landed at a nearby base. They don't address how an operational weapon system would work in the article.

I'd propose to wipe their memories and land them at a reasonably friendly if not secure location. (Order is important.) barring a safe landing spot, crash them as best you can. War is expensive. The last number I saw for a C5 was $5000/hour, and that was a long time ago.

This brings to mind the idea of an amphibious quadcopter. That's not what this is, but that's what I thought of.

I wonder if a waterproof quadcopter would navigate well underwater. It seems like it could be an interesting environment to experiment with advanced acrobatic maneuvers at lower speeds.

why Navy is building submarine launchable drones instead of building submarine drones?

Firstly, how do you know they aren't?

Secondly, a drone sub has vastly different mission capabilities than a drone aircraft.