. . . for ROBO-FRIGATE!
Apparently drug smugglers in Colombia have begun building small diesel submarines (or quasi-submarines) to run cargoes of cocaine into the U.S. and Mexico. Tracking them is hard, especially now that the drug lords have hired "foreign experts" (Russians, apparently) to help make them harder to spot with infrared scopes.
Subs capable of delivering five to ten tons of cocaine covertly could just as easily deliver other cargoes less attractive to hard-partying post-Yuppies, and it's scarcely "paranoid" to desire secure borders on land and sea. But patrolling shallow coastal waters with expensive antisubmarine warfare vessels isn't cost-effective.
Or is it? Remember our post from last month about robot antisubmarine ships? It seems those would be absolutely perfect candidates to intercept and track suspicious minisubs. They can't be bribed, they can follow the target almost indefinitely, and the addition of a missile rack or minigun would end the Colombian sub fleet very quickly. Given that some of the drug subs are said to be remote-controlled, one can imagine entire unmanned battles at sea. Fiberglass ships and virtual men!
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