Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/21/footage-of-massive-new-underwater-drone-that-looks-like-a-manta-ray-video.html
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Well, that’s not at all menacing looking…
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the Manta Ray is definitely not small, nor does it appear to be cheap.
It’s almost as if the only purpose of the US military is to write big checks.\s
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How do they do against orcas?
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i wanted to say “isn’t that cool?”, but no. no it is not. weapons of war are inherently not cool!
what would be cool is if this were kitted to explore scientifically and make important discoveries that tell us more about the ocean deep.
or have it document the plastic gyre and its extent, with an eye to eventually diminish/remove the waste.
but they say i am a dreamer…
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Does it fly too?
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Came for the VttBotS Flying Crashing Sub, satisfied 
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See also the submersible Manta Jets from The Incredibles:
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Fortunately, quite a bit of military tech gets reconfigured for commercial use, so hopefully we see similar “creatures” out doing monitoring and research sooner or later.
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Already, they’re changing the game in Easter Europe,
Śmigus-dyngus gets out of hand.
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There is a 100% chance the Admirals won’t get the foresight and back away from big ships (which are now huge expensive targets).
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The United States Navy hasn’t lost a ship in combat since WWII, so unless that changes they’re probably going to stick with what they know.
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Does captured not count?
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Has the USN been in combat against a competitive enemy since WW2?
Apart from Korea and Vietnam, it’s been mostly gunboat diplomacy style missions like firing missiles at Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Libya, or bombing them from the air.
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The yellow color was bothering me. “Wasn’t it cream-grey?”, and I finally remembered that we didn’t get a color TV until ~1970.
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Having a giant fleet of ships for deploying troops, weapons, aircraft etc. has been a pretty critical part of all the conflicts the U.S. has been involved in since WWII so I really don’t see our military taking a “never mind, we’ll just use drones now” approach any time soon.
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I don’t think they will abandon ships for drones but when you look at the success Ukraine has had with naval drone warfare, you have to wonder if carrier battle groups aren’t in danger of becoming a “death star”.
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