[ATimes] The Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis have captured a US Navy underwater drone. The navy says the drone was part of a “meteorological study,”. So what was really going on?The drone is a Remus Model 600. The Remus Model 600 is used primarily for mine countermeasures and for littoral battle-space sensing.
The Remus 600 operates autonomously, meaning that it is programmed for a mission before it is released. The mission can be changed or modified, if desired, through an acoustic communications link provided the mother vessel (a ship or submarine) is reasonably close by, since acoustic signals are limited in range. Should the Remus 600 get into trouble, for example experience a technical fault or run into some kind of barrier, it will surface and communicate through a wifi signal. The Remus has a link to the Global Positioning System (GPS) and can transmit its coordinates if it surfaces.
The Houthis were prepared to ferret out the Remus or vehicles like it. You don’t have on hand swimmers and wetsuits and other SEAL-type paraphernalia unless they are pre-positioned. This means that the Houthis were expecting some kind of seaborne military operation, and they were on hot standby to interdict an underwater spy device.
It is unlikely that the Houthis’ swimmers were just lucky in grabbing the Remus 600. They clearly captured it in shallow water, probably in a harbor. Either they were watching Remus operations over time or they had help from outside (for example, from Iran or Russia or both), or they had sensors planted in their harbor capable of picking up the Remus (not an easy task if it can actually be done) or they had intelligence.
The best guess: The US vessels dropping the Remus into the water were observed, enabling the Houthis to figure out where the Remus was heading. The alternative possibility, that the Remus had a technical fault and it surfaced, cannot be ruled out either. We just don’t know the answer.
Capturing the Remus will give the Iranians some ability to clone the device, although they still won’t have the software needed to program it. But that should not be much of a barrier for them. And the Russians, if they are interested, also will have a chance to evaluate the Remus for the same purposes.
| In Dec 2016 Rantburg reported on the Chinese blatant theft of a lessor model of the same brand of underwater drone from a US Navy ship attempting to retrieve it from the ocean. Thinking about it a little more this is an Asia Times article so maybe Iran or Russia should be replaced in this story with China to be closer to the truth? link |