12AUG

Raytheon claims 2,000 miles under water

2 min read

14:17UTC

Raytheon and Composite Energy Technologies unveiled HADALUS, an uncrewed submarine they say travels more than 2,000 nautical miles without surfacing at a fifth the cost of rivals.

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Key takeaway

Raytheon claims a new undersea robot crosses 2,000 nautical miles submerged at a fifth the cost.

Raytheon and Composite Energy Technologies unveiled HADALUS, an uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) the two firms say travels more than 2,000 nautical miles submerged at one-fifth the cost of comparable long-endurance boats, in reporting published on 12 August ¹. A UUV runs underwater with no crew aboard, carrying sonar or survey sensors on missions that would otherwise need a crewed submarine.

Both figures come from the manufacturers, and neither has been demonstrated in service ². Taken at face value they describe a different class of mission: an ocean transit rather than a harbour patrol, and enough hulls per budget line to lose a few. Europe's answer to the same demand has been capability rather than price. Kongsberg and Italy's DRASS pitched a joint undersea bid at ILA Berlin in June, pairing a premium survey vehicle with a compact submarine .

Deep Analysis

In plain English

HADALUS is a new uncrewed underwater vehicle, essentially a robot submarine, unveiled by the American defence company Raytheon and a firm called Composite Energy Technologies. It can reportedly travel more than 2,000 nautical miles underwater without surfacing, and the companies say it costs a fifth as much as other long-range underwater robots that can do something similar. If that price claim holds up once real buyers start using it, it could make this kind of long-range underwater surveillance much more affordable for navies and offshore energy companies.

What could happen next?

Opportunity
A genuine fifth-of-cost long-endurance UUV would let buyers field larger fleets of expendable vehicles instead of a small number of premium ones.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

A fifth of the cost of comparable long-endurance UUVs, if it holds up under independent testing, would shift naval and offshore-energy buyers away from a small number of premium platforms toward a wider pool of cheaper, more expendable vehicles, changing procurement calculus from "protect one expensive asset" to "accept attrition across many cheap ones".

That shift only pays off if HADALUS's 2,000 nautical mile range holds in operational conditions rather than test conditions, since a cheaper vehicle that needs more frequent recovery and relaunch loses its cost advantage against a smaller number of longer-endurance platforms.

Consensus view: The Defense Post's report on HADALUS treats the claimed fifth-of-cost figure as the platform's central pitch: Raytheon and Composite Energy Technologies are competing on price per mile of submerged range rather than on absolute endurance, since 2,000 nautical miles is a strong but not unprecedented figure for long-endurance UUVs.

Counter-view: A claimed cost figure at launch, before any operator has logged real hours, is a marketing number until an independent buyer publishes its own figures. Composite Energy Technologies' contribution, likely the vehicle's hull and propulsion structure given its name, is doing much of the cost-reduction work, but neither company has broken out how the saving splits between hull, sensors and propulsion.

Key tension: Whether HADALUS's cost advantage survives contact with a real buyer's total cost of ownership, including maintenance and mission planning, or only holds for the unit price Raytheon and Composite Energy Technologies chose to publicise.

Sources:The Defense Post

Mentions:Raytheon →Berlin →DRASS →Italy →Kongsberg →Composite Energy Technologies →HADALUS →

First Reported In

Update #11 · Chinese cameras in the Navy's robot boats

The Defense Post· 12 Aug 2026

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Different Perspectives

Conservative opposition

The Conservative opposition called on the Government on 9 August to 'urgently audit' equipment for hidden Chinese components, after the Telegraph's K3 SCOUT report. No named MP has been quoted on the record; the call came at party level, alongside the Ministry of Defence's own 10 August statement that no data had been compromised.

Netherlands Ministry of Defence

The Netherlands Ministry of Defence authorised Dutch Naval Design on 4 August to design 12-metre anti-submarine warfare uncrewed vessels for the Dutch-Belgian frigate programme, and to buy an adapted Compact FLASH dipping sonar from Thales Underwater Systems France. The order commits money and a named supplier while Britain's own certification body remains at the market-engagement stage.

Kraken Technology Group

Kraken Technology Group is a UK maritime-defence company based in Portsmouth that builds the K3 SCOUT, and crossed a $1bn valuation in July on a single-sourced $175m raise. The camera components reached the fleet under a third party's written security assurance, which the Platform Authority, which does not yet exist, was never positioned to check.

Navy Commercial

Navy Commercial at Whale Island published two notices on 5 August: 074032-2026, asking industry how to build a Platform Authority to certify uncrewed vessels, and 074351-2026, a GBP10m multi-role USV testbed for the Defence Chief Technology Officer. Responses on the Platform Authority close 19 August, ten days after the cameras were found transmitting to China.

Ministry of Defence

The Ministry of Defence said on 10 August that a routine cyber vulnerability assessment found the camera fault, and a thorough investigation found no evidence that MoD data or systems had been accessed, compromised or transmitted externally. It stripped the cameras of internet connectivity but did not say whether it acted against the supplier.

Thales

Thales converted its 6 July engaging accord with Exail into a definitive combination agreement on 30-31 July, but the tender offer for Exail's remaining shares now closes by early 2028, later than July's timetable implied. Thales integrates its new undersea prime while still bidding against Kongsberg and DRASS's 2027 target for the AUKUS Pillar II contest.