RIMPAC test validates AFRL’s Quicksink demonstrator

The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has successfully demonstrated the Lab’s new Quicksink weapon in a trial held during Ex RIMPAC 24 in Hawaii. A US Air Force B-2 bomber sank the 39,000-tone decommissioned amphibious assault ship USS Tarawa with a single guided bomb.

The trial, which was led by the US 3^rd Fleet, demonstrated that the B-2 can sink large, moving surface ships. By extension, any aircraft that can carry a Quicksink weapon can do the same.

Quicksink is an AFRL Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) that rapidly integrates and demonstrates air-delivered, low-cost, surface vessel defeat capability for the warfighter. Key to the demonstration, says AFRL, is the development of a Weapon Open Systems Architecture (WOSA) seeker for precision targeting of maritime surface vessels at low cost.

This JCTD uses an existing guidance kit integrated with the new seeker to rapidly demonstrate the capability at minimal costs. The WOSA seeker also allows the technology to be included on a variety of current and future weapons systems and enables them to engage static and moving maritime targets, says AFRL. The rapid integration of AFRL’s WOSA seeker technology drives down costs by providing modularity and the ability to plug-and-play different manufacturers’ seeker components.

Quicksink is not a mine, points out AFRL, and is intended to have an immediate effect on stationary or moving maritime targets.

Torpedoes, such as the heavyweight Mk48, which arms the Virginia- and Collins-class boats, are still the primary method used to sink enemy ships. New methods explored through Quicksink may be able to achieve the same kind of anti-ship lethality with air-launched weapons, including modified 2,000-pound class precision-guided bombs.

A submarine can destroy a ship with a single torpedo at any time, but by launching that weapon it gives away its location and becomes a target. The Quicksink JCTD aims to develop a low-cost method of achieving torpedo-like seaworthy kills from the air at a much higher pace and over a much larger area than covered by a submarine.

The Quicksink exploitation of WOSA drives down the cost of the most expensive part of the weapons system and provides the modularity and ability to plug-and-play different manufacturers’ seeker components to further reduce costs or enhance performance.

The US Navy 3rd Fleet said in a press release: “This capability is an answer to an urgent need to quickly neutralise maritime threats over massive expanses of ocean around the world at minimal costs.”