10月19日，澳大利亚国防工业部长帕特·康罗伊（Pat Conroy）站在悉尼一家工厂的一艘超大型无人水下潜航器（XLUUV）前，解密了其携带的武器装备。这艘由安杜里尔公司（Anduril）为澳大利亚皇家海军建造的“幽灵鲨”（Ghost Shark）可以布设十几枚水雷，在海底为特种部队投送补给箱，并释放蜂群式攻击无人机：根据美国海军学会（USNI）的数据，每艘潜航器可发射至少24架管射“阿尔蒂乌斯”（Altius）飞行器，这些飞行器从潜航器浮出水面时升出船体的发射架中发射。
On 19 October Australia’s defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, stood in front of an extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle (XLUUV) in a Sydney factory and declassified what it carries. The Ghost Shark, built by Anduril for the Royal Australian Navy, can lay a dozen sea mines, drop supply caches on the seabed for special forces, and release swarms of strike drones: at least 24 per boat (according to USNI) tube-launched Altius aircraft can be launched from a rack that rises out of the hull when the boat surfaces.
“‘幽灵鲨’现在长牙了，”康罗伊说。两天后，视频便传来了佐证。那又怎样？有几点原因。
“The Ghost Shark now has teeth,” said Conroy. Two days later the video arrived to prove it. So what? Several things.
首先是成本。在过去的四分之一个世纪里，英国一直是少数几个能够从水下对陆地实施打击的国家之一。在此期间，这意味着从我们小型核动力攻击潜艇舰队中发射一枚“战斧”巡航导弹。美国海军以及现在的其他国家也可以从水面军舰的垂直发射单元发射“战斧”导弹。无论是哪种方式，导弹的造价约为每枚200万美元。
First is cost. For just over a quarter of a century, Britain has been one of the few nations capable of striking the land from beneath the sea. For that time, this has meant a Tomahawk cruise missile fired from one of our small fleet of nuclear-powered attack submarines. The US Navy and now others can also shoot Tomahawks from the vertical-launch cells of a surface warship. Either way, the missile is about two million dollars a shot.
一艘“幽灵鲨”XLUUV潜航器可以装进一个集装箱里，并且正从不到一年前开业的生产线上走下：根据一份17亿澳元（略低于9亿英镑）的合同，将供应“几十甚至上百艘”，第一艘已于1月交付。一架“阿尔蒂乌斯”无人机携带约4公斤炸药，而非“战斧”的450公斤，而且发射后相对较慢。但在一个分散且偶尔具有可消耗杀伤力的方向日益成为主流的时代，一个你舍得损失的弹药库，配上一个你（大致）舍得损失的船体，则是一个完全不同的命题。而且，将你的炸药分成24块意味着敌人必须击落更多的目标才能进行防御。
A Ghost Shark XLUUV submarine fits in a shipping container and is coming off a production line that opened less than a year ago: “dozens and dozens” are to be supplied under a A$1.7bn (just under £900m) contract, the first delivered in January. An Altius drone carries about four kilograms of explosive, not a Tomahawk’s 450kg, and it is comparatively slow once fired. But a magazine you can afford to lose, in a hull you can afford to lose (ish), is a different proposition in an era where dispersed and occasionally disposable lethality is increasingly the direction of travel. And having your explosive split up into 24 chunks means the enemy has to shoot down a lot more things to defend himself.
其次，这种装置可以在保持隐蔽的情况下进入内陆。Ghost Shark体积小、噪音低、吃水浅。一艘数千吨的核潜艇不会靠近河口；而机器人潜艇可以走得更远。理论上，这种潜艇可以穿过泰晤士河闸，携带二十余架打击无人机潜入伦敦市中心的水域，前提是它能够应对潮汐和污水。抵达目标附近（或直接在目标内部）将大幅缓解弹药的慢速投放问题。
Second, this can go inshore while remaining covert. Ghost Shark is small, quiet and shallow-draft. A tall, multi-thousand-ton nuclear submarine will not go near a river estuary; a robot one can get a long way up it. One of these could in theory get through the Thames Barrier and arrive underwater in the middle of London with two dozen strike drones aboard, assuming it could cope with both the tides and the sewage. Arriving adjacent to the target (or in the middle of it) would go a long way towards mitigating the slowness of the munition.
这也是备受批评的AUKUS协议发挥预期作用的案例。AUKUS第二支柱，即大家常常忘记的技术共享部分，正是围绕此类技术展开。澳大利亚向英国和美国提供水雷和无人机载荷，并已通过其先进雷达技术向我们展示了路径。Ghost Shark本月在加州海域参加了AUKUS海上大型演习，而皇家海军的实验性机器人等价平台——由普利茅斯MSubs公司制造的Excalibur——在九月于苏格兰发射了一枚美国重型鱼雷：一种老式武器，却采用了新式投送方式。“我们接下来会怎么做？”
This is also a case of the much-criticised AUKUS pact working as intended. AUKUS Pillar 2, the technology-sharing part of the deal that everyone forgets about, is all about this sort of thing. Australia is offering the mines and the drone payload to Britain and America, and it has already shown us the way with some of their advanced radar technology. Ghost Sharks took part in the AUKUS Maritime Big Play exercise off California this month, and the Royal Navy’s experimental robot equivalent – Excalibur made by MSubs of Plymouth – fired an American heavyweight torpedo in Scotland in September: an old school weapon, with a new delivery method. ‘What will we do next?’
与此同时，皇家海军的93型XLUUV项目两周前向工业界敞开大门，并要求企业在本周四前表达兴趣。我们将为交流带来什么？我们是否现在就要采用澳大利亚的系统？
Meanwhile the RN’s Type 93 XLUUV programme opened its doors to industry a fortnight ago and has asked firms to interest by Thursday. What will we bring to the exchange, and do we now buy into the Australian system?
无论结果如何，我们都必须加快步伐，远快于英国国防部的惯常速度。因为在水下战争的永恒猫捉老鼠游戏中，如果澳大利亚已经在实施此类技术，那么俄罗斯的秘密水下破坏力量GUGI也不会远在后头。答案是投资我们自己的反潜作战系统（不列颠的三叉戟）和反无人机能力（她的盾牌）。我多次写到我们在这两方面都显得薄弱。这是另一个必须加以解决的理由。
Whatever happens we need to move fast, much faster than Defence in the UK is used to. Because in the eternal game of underwater warfare cat-and-mouse, if Australia is already doing this, then GUGI, Russia’s secret underwater sabotage force, will not be far behind. The answer is investment in our own anti-submarine warfare systems (Britannia’s trident) and counter-drone capability (her shield). I have written many times that we are thin on both. Here is yet another reason to fix that.