Nanaimo shipyard enters USV market

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Nanaimo+s...1589/story.html

Sounds like an economic boon to the British Columbia shipbuilding industry. You can bet that the US might be interested in something like that, even if Isreal already has a pretty good design for this sort of thing.

Bitch please.

Theriault and Sons Shipyard in Meteghan, NS, has been buidling these things for years.

That's right. Little backwater Nova Scotia fishing-boat building yards, single handedly cornering the USV market for years.

For reference, I know three other yards currently exporting USVs, all in that same area.

Sweden is going the same way Kockums has already done the unmanned Piranhas, and based on their competence with maritime stealth I strongly suspect the real goal is a stealth one.

ffs canada

Can I see some links?

Meggitt Training Systems Canada, the world’s leading naval target company, has conducted the world’s first large-scale ‘swarmex’ demonstration.
The simulation of a real-world threat of swarming fast in-shore attack craft (FIACs) was designed to create a maritime self-protection training scenario for one or more naval ships.
Conducted at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt in British Columbia, the swarmex involved the simultaneous operation over seven hours of 16 Meggitt Hammerhead boat targets controlled on a single radio frequency using Meggitt’s universal target control station.
A FIAC threat arises when a hostile force fields a significant number of small lightly-armed vessels to overwhelm the defences of larger vessels or deny them access to coastal waters. Since the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, many navies have invested heavily in sensors and weapon systems to defend their vessels from such attacks. Until this swarmex demonstration, the tools did not exist to conduct live fire exercises to counter target swarms.
Live exercise planned
The swarmex demonstration, in which the Hammerhead flotilla was controlled in a safe, effective and efficient manner, is a significant technical achievement, enabling Meggitt to offer sophisticated FIAC threat replication training services worldwide. The Canadian Navy has now asked Meggitt to support a major multi-national live-fire naval exercise using Hammerhead in 2011.
Hammerhead, an advanced unmanned surface vehicle target (USV-T) with an award-winning surface-effect hull that enables it to operate at over 35 knots in high sea states, is a derivative of Meggitt’s “Barracuda” naval target. Barracuda, which has enjoyed extensive worldwide sales replicating the larger Fast Attack Craft (FAC) threat, is in service with the armed forces of Canada, Japan, Sweden, Korea and others. Like Hammerhead, Barracuda can be controlled by Meggitt’s universal target control station.
ENDS
For further information contact:
Fiona Greig, Corporate Communications
Tel: 01202 597587
fiona.greig@meggitt.com
Spencer Fraser,
President and General Manager
Meggitt Training Systems Canada
Tel: 001 403 528 8782
Editors’ notes:
Meggitt Training Systems Canada, a Meggitt company, is an international exporter of highly specialised targetry—naval threat craft and a family of unmanned ground vehicles contributing distinctive products to Meggitt’s live fire training systems portfolio. Founded by Boeing Canada in 1982, Meggitt Training Systems Canada passed through the hands of Rolls-Royce and Dutch aerospace group Schreiner before Meggitt bought it in 2004 to complete its air, land and sea training capability. 70 engineers and technologists are spread between Medicine Hat and Montreal, with representatives in British Columbia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia servicing the 40-plus Canadian sites using Meggitt’s live and simulated firearms training equipment. Meggitt Training Systems Canada has achieved a top ten Canadian defence company ranking four years running.
Meggitt Training Systems Canada is part of Meggitt PLC’s international engineering group. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, it employs some 7,500 people worldwide across North America, Europe and Asia. Meggitt specialises in high performance components and sub-systems for aerospace and defence markets primarily but applies its core sensing and controls technologies to land and marine-based gas turbines and the medical, mainstream industrial, test engineering and transportation sectors.

All I can think about is stuffing them with explosive and using them for sea-denial in the Juan de Fuca.