Underwater warfare, also known as undersea warfare or subsurface warfare, is naval warfare involving underwater vehicle or combat operations conducted underwater. It is one of the four operational areas of naval warfare, the others being surface warfare, aerial warfare, and information warfare. Underwater warfare includes: Actions by submarines actions, and anti-submarine warfare, i.e. warfare between submarines, other submarines and surface ships; combat airplanes and helicopters may also be engaged when launching special dive-bombs and torpedo-missiles against submarines; Underwater special operations, considering: Military diving sabotage against ships and ports. Anti-frogman techniques. Reconnaissance tasks.
History
In the 20th century underwater warfare was dominated by the submarine. In the 21st century unmanned underwater vehicles are coming to play a significant part in underwater warfare.
Seabed warfare
Seabed warfare is defined as "operations to, from and across the ocean floor." In general the target of seabed warfare is infrastructure in place on the seabed such as power cables, telecom cables, or natural resource extraction systems.