Autonomous submarines that Australia has launched into production are likely to relieve operational pressure on the country’s crewed submarines, undertake the most dangerous undersea missions, and present an enemy with greater risk of detection and attack.
While the government and builder Anduril are saying little about specific technology built into the submarines, called Ghost Sharks, some features are clearly probable or even certain, at least when the design is fully developed. Likely missions include communications and radar intelligence, detecting ships and other submarines, and laying mines.
The AU$1.7 billion (US$1.1 billion), five-year contract announced on September 10 would cover production of a first batch of dozens of Ghost Sharks, with entry into service early in 2026, the government said. The money would also pay for maintaining the submarines in service and for further development of the design.
"This is the leading capability in the world in terms of a long-range autonomous underwater capability," Defence Minister Richard Marles told reporters.
Specifications are undisclosed, but the all-electric Ghost Sharks are evidently less than 12 metres long, in at least one configuration, and displace less than 100 tonnes. The six crewed submarines of Australia’s Collins-class are 78 metres long and displace 3,100 tonnes.
Launch of full-rate production follows a development program in which Anduril, working with the Royal Australian Navy and Defence agencies, built three prototypes ahead of schedule and within budget.
"Ghost Shark will continue to evolve, as it must, with new payloads, new weapons, smarter autonomy and adapting to the emerging threats," said David Goodrich, Chief Executive of Anduril Asia-Pacific.
An obvious role for Ghost Sharks is the traditional submarine function of collecting communications and radar intelligence, in which a boat loiters in a place suitable for receiving signals and sticks an antenna above the water to do so.
Submarines are valuable for this role because they can covertly carry their receivers close to a foreign transmitter to pick up weak signals or those made when the presence of a listener is unsuspected.
To the extent that Ghost Sharks can relieve the Collins boats of that mission, those crewed submarines, 22 to 29 years old, will be under less operational pressure. The Ghost Sharks, being numerous, should be able to simultaneously undertake such intelligence-collection in many more places than the crewed submarines can.
Being so much smaller and not needing to expose a snorkel pipe for running diesel generators (which they don’t have), they should be able to loiter in places where the navy would dare not send a Collins.
Anduril has said the autonomous-submarine design the Ghost Shark is based on has a "multi-thousand mile range", meaning at least 3,200 kilometres.
The voyage doesn’t have to start from a harbour: a Ghost Shark could be carried partway to its destination on a ship. On the other hand, it’s likely to cruise at only around three or four knots to conserve battery energy.
Ghost Sharks will surely carry sonars for detecting sound from other vessels, quite likely including rope-like towed array sonars, which may have to be clipped on by divers as the sub leaves on missions.
Ghost Sharks should be able to identify targets from sound signatures and decide whether they should rise to near the surface to make a radio report of what they’ve found. The information might then cue attacks by other forces, such as Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime aircraft.
Again, in performing these missions, Ghost Sharks can to some extent substitute for crewed submarines, and they can do the work in more and riskier places—especially since high danger of destruction of an uncrewed vessel may be acceptable.
Maritime choke points, such as straits, are likely locations, but it’s conceivable that a line of Ghost Sharks might assemble off, say, the northwest coast of Australia and listen for enemy submarines in the open ocean.
Ghost Sharks must be much too slow to manoeuvre to make their own torpedo attacks. They can surely lay mines, however, which is presumably the strike capability that Marles said the Ghost Shark would bring. Minelaying is another task that Ghost Sharks could do in more and riskier places than a Collins might enter, possibly even in ports.
Whether for minelaying or other tasks, Ghost Sharks could be dispatched before a war broke out, under instructions to lie on the sea bottom and await instructions, which might be sent by various means. Unlike crewed submarines, they couldn’t run out of food.
The dozens of Ghost Sharks in the initial batch, plus those that will follow, should enormously expand Australia’s ability to exploit the advantages of undersea warfare—to observe an enemy and disrupt its actions.
Article reprinted with permission from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's analysis and commentary site The Strategist.
