In Addition to a Vote, the Enemy has Eyes and Ears

I think no better picture captures the blinkered mindset of many designing cutting edge weapon systems than the DDG-1000 advertising poster of the last decade.

There she is, alone and unafraid - attacking an unpopulated, supine, and defensiveless coast in the tropical regions of Shangri-La.

In the real world, it is crowded and messy. Our world is teeming with people and those people go about their business as best they can to feed their families. In most of the world, the coastal regions are full of small boats either plying some trade or attempting to catch what few fish the Chinese left behind.

In those waters, we plan to send out unmanned systems. Have we in any way designed them to hide themselves, defend themselves, or at least evade? Once again, it appears not.

As reported by Ben over at USNINews;

Houthi forces have captured a U.S. Navy research unmanned underwater vehicle off the coast of Yemen, according to a video released on Monday.

In the video posted online by local media on Monday, four men described as members of the “Houthi Navy” in dive gear are surrounding what appears to be a REMUS 600 UUV with the name “Smokey” printed on the body. According to the AMN News web posting, the Houthis discovered the UUV within the past week somewhere off the coast of Yemen.

Good googly moogly - as the below video shows, we even have it painted in "capture me yellow."



We need to up our game a bit.