When I talked to Guldin in December, after the first stage of the pilot, he sketched with a coarse vision of what this work could look like in a not very distant future. Robotic robots equipped with cameras, powerful lights, sonar and improved Grabber systems can be used to collect ammunition more effectively than used cranes on the platform and could work around the clock. In the case of distant vehicles, you can also solve from many sides at the same time, something impossible to do from a fixed platform on the surface. And specialists in Ordnance – qualified employees in tiny supply – can supervise most work remotely from offices in Hamburg, instead of spending days at sea.
This reality can be a bit far away, but despite several problems – such as penniless underwater visibility and sometimes inappropriate lighting, which hinder the action remotely through live images – most technologies in the initial tests operated more or less as planned. “Certainly there is a place for improvements, but the concept works basically, and the idea that you can identify underwater and store it immediately in Transport Crates,” says Wolfgang Sichermann, a navy architect, whose company, Seascape, supervises The The the Seascape, He supervises the project on behalf of the German Ministry of the Environment. We hope that design and then building a floating removal object in the coming months and starting the combustion of the first explosives in 2026, says Sichermann.
Hands off?
When I visited Barge Seaterra in a cold but cheerful day in October last year, I talked to an ammunition veterans expert, Michael Scheffler, who spent a month on board the platform in nearby Haffkrug on the German coast, thoroughly cracking, massive wooden wooden locks Loats and packed with 20 mm cannons that struck Nazi Germany. This morning they have already examined about 5.8 tons of 20 mm rounds, caught mud through mechanical grippers and underwater robots, and then pulled the platform on board.
Scheffler spent decades working as an ammunition expert, which he started during service in the German army. But he never fully understood the problem of the dropped ammunition – or previously imagined an attempt to directly solve the problem in a systematic way.
“I have been at work for 42 years and I have never had the opportunity to work on such a project,” he told me. “What is actually developed and studied here in the pilot project is worth the importance of gold for the future.”
Guldin, although similarly sanguine as to the results of the pilot, warns that there are still restrictions as to how much you can do remotely using technology. Challenging, risky and sensitive work will continue to require practical human knowledge, at least in the foreseeable future. “There are restrictions on the performance of complete distant work at the sea bottom. Definitely divers and EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] Specialists at the sea bottom and specialists on the spot will never go away, there is no way. “
If the initial cleansing efforts prove to be effective, there is hope that technology will find ready-made buyers elsewhere-and not only around the Baltic. In the seventiesThe troops around the world turned to the oceans as dropping areas for venerable ammunitions.
But because there is no money to combine venerable air bombs, every boom in the utilization of underwater ammunition would depend on stern investments in the environment, which is sporadic. “We could speed up this process and be more efficient,” says Guldin. “The only thing is that if you bring more resources in the field, it also means that someone has to pay for it. Do we have a government in the future that wants to pay for it? To be honest, I have doubts. “
“Two weeks ago I talked to the Bahams ambassador,” says Sichermann. “He said:” You behave more than cleaning everything that the British sank in the 70s, shortly before the Bahams became independent. ” But they expect you to bring money, not just technology. For this reason, you always have to see who is prepared to finance it. “Find the right financial supporters, and there will be a lot of potential work around the world around the world. “There is certainly no shortage of dropped ammunition.”