BAE Systems Releases Whitepaper: Exploiting the Underwater Battlespace

With the subsea domain quickly emerging as a new arena of strategic conflict and competition, BAE Systems is investigating how we can engineer the underwater battlespace to our advantage.

As the ability to manoeuvre, map and operate at greater depths increases, nations are facing increasing threats – both in terms of frequency and severity – in the underwater battlespace.

The subsea threat is evolving beyond traditional domains to incorporate more grey-zone, sub-threshold tactics and strategies as necessary vehicles for delivering effect and maintaining the competitive edge. Threat levels are increasing, a wider group of sophisticated adversaries are emerging, and the pace of change is only expected to accelerate.

This all poses significant challenges for governments in the context of defence and national security, particularly around three core areas:

• Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR)
• Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)
• Critical Undersea Infrastructure Protection (CUIP)

The report stresses the need for indicators and warnings that can help prevent interference or attacks before they occur. It also calls for ubiquitous, connected sensor networks and platforms capable of securely communicating data to accelerate decision-making and response.

The whitepaper sets out the scale of the subsea threat, the urgent requirement for next-generation underwater networking capabilities, and potential routes to regaining advantage in the underwater battlespace of today and the future and can be read in full here