Can’t we just call them torpedos? That’s what they are.
Torpedos have always been huge, hideously expensive, underwater explosive drones. They evolved from just going slowly straight ahead and not detonating half the time, to now being fast with specialized tracking and shit. Now they’ve made long range ones.
It’s a torpedo though. This is not fancy tech.
Perhaps a loitering torpedo would be more accurate.
I’m inclined to agree, otherwise it would be like calling a FPV kamakazi drone a missile.
Naming aside, kinda terrifying that these could theoretically be travelling autonomously far deeper than any sub thanks to the lack of a pressure vessel.
There’d be almost no countermeasures right now. Just waiting for a carrier to float above and then accelerate upwards.
Or “cruise torpedo”
And that probe that India just landed on the Moon should be called a firework, all this fancy-talkin’ just obscures the fact that we’ve had that tech for thousands of years. Nothing new about it.
tbf, there is legitimately nothing new about long range underwater explosive drones or landing probes on extraterrestrial bodies.
There is a first time for these things, and neither of these is a first. Assuming you believe Russia’s claims anyway, which actually probably isn’t a very good idea. But regardless, they did already claim to have one.
Now, that’s not to say that iterating doesn’t steadily improve methodology. I’m sure India’s modern probe is better than anything we’ve put up there so far. But it’s still not a first.
Point being, can’t we just call a torpedo a torpedo, if torpedos already exist?
Drone implies a lot more complex than even the “smartest” current torpedo. I envision a “torpedo” that can be remotely operated like a submersible, that can send live video (periscope?) etc. back to the operator for intelligence gathering, etc.
Just because it’s a torpedo doesn’t mean it can’t be fancy
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