Banick frowned. “An aerial… what?”
“The Vengeance has a single squadron of a new prototype concept that’s been worked on by the NSC for some time. Rafale IIs are basically jump jets that can be launched from a shallow, submerged depth. Their engines can breathe water for extremely limited periods of time, or so I’m told, so it should be possible to deploy air forces without raising any unnecessary alarm bells.”
“Neat… when do we get those?”
“Don’t count on it. They canned the project last month.”
-Atlantis DSV Episode III: Rising Thunder
Far be it for me to claim this was an entirely original idea. Indeed, the first time I heard of this concept was many years ago in the form of seaFire ASV's "Peacemaker" class subfighter. Their version of this idea was far more 'extreme' than mine ended up being, but it has to be said - I never saw this coming.
More bizzare fact than strange fiction...
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there is also the Lockheed Cormorant UAV, designed ot be launched from SSBN's
http://www.popsci.com/node/3747
currently all i've heard about was recon use, but their promo video seems to imply ground attack models are being considered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQtPAaY5d1c&feature=related
there is also the VOLANS system the germans are working on, which is basically a mast mounted launch system for small recon drones, using their tiny Aladin drone.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/10/german_submarine_uav/
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A22aabd45-aa6d-486e-b897-89123c6a4f56
of course, then there is the seemingly silly youtube video where an F-15 was composited over a polaris missile launch...i'd link to it, but the comments there were very insulting, more so than usual for youtube.
more resources:
http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=17729
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2006/09/12/208937/northrop-proposes-uav-submarine-launch.html
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