The German Navy takes over the unmanned underwater vehicle BlueWhale. The development of a hybrid fleet is starting right now.

Today, the Inspector of the Navy, Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack, took delivery of the first BlueWhale from the Executive Vice President of TKMS ATLAS ELEKTRONIK, Michael Ozegowski and the CEO IAI, Boaz Levy. State Secretary Jens Plötner was also present at this unusual event.

This was preceded by a test phase as part of the OPEX BlueWhale experimental campaign, which was carried out intensively by the Navy and WTD 71 from the end of 2024. The results of these sea trials were so convincing that the procurement of the system was accelerated. The BlueWhale autonomous underwater vehicle will be used for reconnaissance at sea and submarine hunting.

State Secretary Plötner emphasised that „with today's handover of the first BlueWhale, we are clearly demonstrating that we take the statement "time is the decisive factor" seriously in the area of procurement.“

The inspector of the navy, who feared just months ago that the initial successes of the BlueWhale could possibly get stuck in the „valley of death“ of procurement, was delighted: "With the acquisition of the first BlueWhale, we are consistently implementing the navy's course in terms of the introduction of unmanned underwater systems. We have relied on tried and tested products on the market, radically shortened decision-making processes and involved the troops in the requirements from the outset. And we did this in just a few months instead of years - the speed of light in procurement, so to speak. The development of a hybrid fleet is starting right now.

In the Marine course, the Inspector of the Navy outlines the vision for the transformation towards a hybrid armed force in which unmanned systems are a natural part of maritime operations. In addition to manned submarines, unmanned underwater vehicles will take on underwater reconnaissance tasks in the future. The autonomous underwater vehicle combines reconnaissance, sensor technology and data fusion in a single system. The vehicle recognises targets above and below the sea surface, collects acoustic information and detects sea mines.

As TKMS explained in a press release, BlueWhale is the first fully autonomous large underwater vehicle of its kind to combine reconnaissance, sensor technology and data fusion in a single system. It was developed by IAI, a leading global provider of aerospace and defence systems from Israel. TKMS and its ATLAS ELEKTRONIK segment integrated the advanced anti-submarine warfare towed sonar. BlueWhale is therefore a major joint project between TKMS and IAI.

Text: TKMS / German Navy / marineforum

Photo: German Navy Kroencke