Page 8: of Marine Technology Magazine (May/Jun 2026)

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U.S. Naval Oceanographic Of? ce conducts a hydrographic survey by launching an unmanned surface vessel, supported by a Bahrain Coast

Guard escort, in the U.S. Central

Command area of responsibility.

Of? cial U.S. Navy photo

A DOUBLE-SIDED TRIDENT:

Dual-Use Environmental Data

Underpins Subsea Defense

By David Strachan, Strikepod Systems n December 15, 2016, the USNS Bowditch, a sovereign immune U.S. vessel. China eventually returned the

Path? nder-class oceanographic survey vessel, was glider, some ? ve days later.

operating approximately 50 nautical miles off the This was not the ? rst time the Bowditch had been harassed coast of Subic Bay, Philippines when she was ap- by China’s maritime forces. Fifteen years before, while con-

O proached by a Chinese Dalang III-class rescue and salvage ducting hydrographic survey operations in the Yellow Sea, the vessel, the ASR-510. Bobbing in the water nearby was a U.S. vessel was confronted by a People’s Liberation Army-Navy littoral battle space glider (LBS), a Teledyne Webb Slocum (PLAN) frigate and ordered to halt its survey and immediately glider designed to measure a wide range of environmen- depart the area. (She would later return under the watchful tal data, including temperature, depth, and salinity. As the eye of a U.S. Navy destroyer.) While both of these incidents

Bowditch was preparing to recover the glider, the ASR-510 raise legal and diplomatic questions surrounding both crewed launched a small boat, approached the AUV, and seized it as and uncrewed vessels operating on the high seas, they also the stunned Bowditch crew looked on. Bridge-to-bridge calls underscore how hydrographic survey and oceanographic data demanding its return were ignored, and the incident quickly collection sit squarely on the front line of national security— escalated into a diplomatic confrontation, with the Pentagon both literally, in the conduct of everyday operations at sea, demanding the immediate return of what it described as a and ? guratively, by providing the critical environmental intel- 8 May/June2026

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