China Unveils Underwater Drone Mothership: What It Means for India’s Bay of Bengal Defence Posture

China’s ongoing effort towards naval modernization has seen another important development with the unveiling of what experts believe might become the world’s first purpose-built mothership for gigantic uncrewed submarines. According to a satellite image analyzed by Naval News, a large ship is currently under construction at Hudong-Zhonghua shipyards of Shanghai which looks like a mothership meant for launching and recovering large unmanned underwater drones. While the development can have implications in China’s own backyard, the emergence of large autonomous underwater drones for Beijing might lead to rethinking maritime surveillance, seabed operations and even anti-submarine warfare tactics in the broader Indo-Pacific [...]