Deep Strike: Seabed Warfare Will Target More Than Cables and Pipelines

In March 2024, scientists with China’s Northwestern Polytechnical University published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Ships and Offshore Structures with the relatively benign title, “Numerical investigation for the blockade capability of the multi-BWBUG cooperative system.” In addition to analyzing self-organizing underwater mesh networks of blended wing body underwater gliders (BWBUGs), the article explores the potential for pods of BWBUGS to fulfill a combat role by striking targets lying on the seabed. The article features an illustration that, at first glance, appears to depict a strike package of stealth bombers flying low over rugged terrain. Except the craft aren’t stealth bombers—they’re BWBUGs. And the terrain isn’t rolling countryside—it’s the ocean floor.

Discussions of seabed warfare are usually centered around attacks on critical underwater infrastructure (CUI)—power and telecommunications cables, oil and gas pipelines. But while these nodes in the global information and energy grids are indeed critical, they represent just one target set within a rapidly evolving undersea domain. Seabed warfare will increasingly be defined by the need to contest a dense battlespace teeming with sensor networks, communications nodes, autonomous vehicle hubs, and energy systems, with a range of commercial, scientific, and military assets, potentially finding themselves on a subsea strike target