Stealth ships steam ahead

mysterious

New Member
Stealth ships steam ahead

The Swedish Navy is testing out a new ship which is believed to be the most "invisible" yet. The Royal Navy and the US Navy both have plans of their own for similarly futuristic "stealth" ships. BBC News Online investigates the shape of the future of naval warfare.

Ever since radar was invented by the British during World War II, military boffins have been trying to think of ways to beat it.

The US Air Force invented the first "stealth" aircraft, the U-2 spy plane, in 1954, and 10 years later they unveiled the Lockheed Blackbird.

Both planes were designed in such a way as to keep their radar "signatures" to an absolute minimum.

Now naval architects have come up with a similar way of beating the radar.

The first Visby corvette, designed by the Swedish shipbuilders Kockums and built at their Karlskrona yard, has just completed sea trials with the Royal Swedish Navy. It will come into service in January and will be followed by four more.

American designers are working on the US Navy's own fleet of stealth ships, the DD(X) destroyer, which is due to enter service in 2011.

Northrop Grumman Ship Systems is leading a consortium which has been given the $2.8bn contract to build the futuristic ships.

Northrop Grumman spokesman Brian Cullin told BBC News Online: "The DD(X) will be as revolutionary as the Dreadnought was when the British introduced it at the turn of the last century."

He said the DD(X) would save the US Navy a fortune in running costs because it would have 200 fewer sailors to operate it than the existing Arleigh Burke class.

Mr Cullin said it would also be more efficient for the US Treasury.

"In the Iraq war last year the Navy was firing Tomahawks at $1m a piece. Projectiles for the DD(X) will cost significantly less and it will be able to fire large volumes of surface fire at close range, which will bring huge economies."

Fooling radar

As for the Royal Navy, it too will have a new breed of stealth ships in action soon. HMS Daring, the first of the Type 45 destroyers, is being constructed at BAE Systems' Govan and Scotstoun yards in Glasgow. It is to due to enter service in 2007.

But the Swedes are in the lead, with the Visby.

It is constructed almost entirely of carbon fibre, the same material used to make the chassis of Formula One cars and the hulls of racing yachts.

Its angular design gives it a minimal radar signature, known as a cross-section, and its 57mm cannon can also be retracted to reduce it still further.

John Nilsson, one of the designers, told BBC News Online: "We are able to reduce the radar cross section by 99%. That doesn't mean it's 99% invisible, it means that we have reduced its detection range."

In a nutshell, if the Visby was 100km from an enemy vessel it could see the enemy on its radar but not vice versa. It could get within 30km of the enemy before being spotted.

Carbon fibre is also a lot lighter than steel and the Visby, at 600 tonnes, is half the weight of a conventional corvette.

Mr Nilsson said: "Naval officers fall in love with [this] ship. It's not classically beautiful. In fact it looks like a lunchbox. But it has better manoeuvrability and can achieve that level of stealth."

Avoiding angles

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said naval designers have known for a long time that radar signatures depend on the angles involved.

He said: "The trick is to avoid right angles, which reflect radar right back.

"We use a secret angle on our Type 23 frigates which enables our ships to reduce their radar signature to an absolute minimum."

John Fyall, of the Defence Procurement Agency, said: "Our new Type 45 destroyers will use much of this technology to reduce their radar signatures.

"The whole idea is to make it look like it's not a big ship."

A BAE Systems spokesman said the design of the Type 45 and the materials used would reduce its radar visibility but he said the hull would be steel, not carbon fibre.

He said: "It will provide the future backbone of the Royal Navy as it faces multiple threats."


State of the art

The MoD spokesman questioned the "survivability" of ships made of carbon fibre, and also doubted whether they could be able cope with ocean conditions.

Mr Nilsson said the Visby - which is 73m long - was only designed for littoral, or coastal warfare, but he said they had designed a 120m ship which had worked well technically.

As for the question of survivability, he said: "It is not so much a question of material but physical size. Any ship below 100 metres, regardless of material, will be gone if it's hit with a modern surface-to-surface missile."

The new ship is also controlled by state-of-the-art computers using a Windows NT operating system.

But Kockums and the Swedish Navy deny it could be sabotaged by hackers and say that even if it did they could fall back to traditional steering and navigation.

Mr Nilsson said: "I am not an expert in computer security but we have focused a lot on that and this ship has a lot of firewalls and clever ways of avoiding it (being hacked)."

Commodore Stephen Saunders, editor of Jane's Fighting Ships, said: "Stealth is not an end in itself. The value of a ship is in what it can deliver.

"Undeniably having a stealth ship allows you to operate in places where you might not have been able to operate."

He said one potential flashpoint where they may be useful was around Taiwan, in the event of a clash between the US and Chinese navies.

But Commodore Saunders said: "Ships will never be completely invisible.

"A lot of modern submarines are extremely hard to detect, but that is always going to be difficult for a surface ship to match."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3724219.stm
(Click on the link to see some pictures/artistic impressions of the ships mentioned here).

Woaahh!! The Swedes have beaten everyone else to it!! Way-da-go fellaz! Sounds like, other countries such as the US and UK might be stepping up (if not, they should I think) their R & D efforts and stuff to come up with equally better surface ships or much enhanced onces than what the Swedes have brought on to the world naval warfare stage! :smokingc:
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
Actually Myst, that vessel has just had an Australian Acoustic Warfare mod applied to it. It's the same technology we use on our subs, and the same tech that we have applied to Singapores 471's and is currently being tested on the USN's new Virginia's.

That vessel drummed like windsock before we modified it. ;)
 

Magoo

Defense Professional
Verified Defense Pro
"mate, there are so many Indians and Pakistani's on here that we have to talk it up to get heard!"

You got that right mate! :help
 

srirangan

Banned Member
Too many Indians? I've just seen me and a couple more posting regularly. But I agree this place is filled with too many Pakistani's.. :)
 

Pathfinder-X

Tribal Warlord
Verified Defense Pro
never hurts to have more variety of people here, unless things start to get heat up between them. If indian and pakistani wants to argue then state out logical reasons instead of some personal attacks.
 

tatra

New Member
Verified Defense Pro
By definition, we're all foreigners here. Let me tell you, there's too d*mn many of us! Any volunteers to jump of a cliff? :D:
 

srirangan

Banned Member
Pathfinder,
I always fight a clean debate based on facts, now let's get back to topic and stop spoiling myst's thread.
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
:cop :cop

Non topic related responses will be binned after this. Save your typing skills for responses that will be read by others for a while, not deleted within 3 minutes of seeing daylight.

;)
 

mysterious

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #11
Gf, my friend, you still have that sense of humor left in ya! This one just cracked me at this hour. Well, then if you say the Aussies helped Swedes and stuff, then why are Swedes beating their chests about this new surface ship? :roll
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
mysterious said:
Gf, my friend, you still have that sense of humor left in ya! This one just cracked me at this hour. Well, then if you say the Aussies helped Swedes and stuff, then why are Swedes beating their chests about this new surface ship? :roll
1) It's their ship, of course they're proud of it, let them beat their chest
2) I know the aust technology used as I work with it in my current contract.
3) I only state facts in things like this, otherwise you lose credibility.
4) The same technology is being used by other navies. It's been used on Nuclear subs, conventionals, stealth vessels and mine hunters/sweepers.
 

mysterious

New Member
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #13
Hope you didnt misunderstood my last post. The part where I mentioned your sense of humor was related to your last post about non-topic related reponses being deleted and stuff. I do take your word for the part where you said Aussie tech has been used. Peace out. :smokingc:
 

srirangan

Banned Member
I think stealth has become the norm these days/ Don't be surprised if a new detection technology appears and all this stealth proves to be worthless. SUch has been the nature of warfare, weapon, counter-wapon, counter's counter and so on...
 

mysterious

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  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #15
If I'm not mistaken, the US has already been working on a radar (for quite some time now) which can detect the stealth aircrafts (such as F-117, B-2). So they will have both, the stealth and its counter; while their enemies keep on worrying what to do about the stealth fighters in the first place. :smokingc:
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
srirangan said:
I think stealth has become the norm these days/ Don't be surprised if a new detection technology appears and all this stealth proves to be worthless. SUch has been the nature of warfare, weapon, counter-wapon, counter's counter and so on...
it is the nature of warfare and it's evolution, but the issue of warfare is that when it happens, one side has a tactical or hardwarea leverage that the other side has not been able to counter at that point in time.

the wheel of fortune spins... and spins ... and spins.
 

tatra

New Member
Verified Defense Pro
mysterious said:
If I'm not mistaken, the US has already been working on a radar (for quite some time now) which can detect the stealth aircrafts (such as F-117, B-2). So they will have both, the stealth and its counter; while their enemies keep on worrying what to do about the stealth fighters in the first place. :smokingc:
Well, AFAIK, they weren't the first on that. Czech republic, Ukraine, China have and are developing further radars with some anti-stealth capability. If not mistaken, in some weird example, I believe some russian designed radars could pick up F117 because they were so old and vintage technology no one had bothered to include them any more in the threat spectrum (has to do with wavelength I think). Also, apparently, it is possible to detect stealth aircraft passively, by using transmissions from several TV stations and computers to sort out the slightest distortions in the transmissions. Rumor has it that this was the reason why the Chinese embassy got bombed 'accidentally' by US during the air-campaign against Yugoslavia/Serbia: it is said is was helping Serbs detect F117's.
 

turin

New Member
If I'm not mistaken, the US has already been working on a radar (for quite some time now) which can detect the stealth aircrafts (such as F-117, B-2). So they will have both, the stealth and its counter; while their enemies keep on worrying what to do about the stealth fighters in the first place.


Well, AFAIK, they weren't the first on that. Czech republic, Ukraine, China have and are developing further radars with some anti-stealth capability.
Its always difficult to say wether someone was the first on something in military development, yet the czech firm ERA has developed a passive radar system called Vera-E. This system claims to have a range of 450 km and be able to trace up to 200 targets.
It is said that the Chinese are heavily interested in Vera-E, but the Czech Republic has not decided yet about the export (undoubtly due to some involvement of the US).
The Russians are working on passive radar as well, for use with their S-300/400 SAM systems. The very basic priniciple of passive systems (as mentioned above) will render most features of stealth currently employed pretty much useless.

Though the US are working on this tech as well, it is obvious that they have the most to lose, when the tech becomes available.
It is way off to believe, that the US is the only power being able to develop all the newest tech while the rest of the world is helpless and not able to keep up. The russians expertise on air defense is at least on par if not superior to western knowledge (saying that being a german, not a russian ;) ). To evaluate US abilities to use stealth based on lets say Bosnia or Kosovo or even Iraq is rather pointless if compared to North Korea, for example.
 

srirangan

Banned Member
The F-117 isn't the epitome of stealth technology. Stealth has improved and will continue to do so. Detections entire approach should change imho. To ensure waves don't reflect back is just too easy in principle. What's easy in principle can and eventually will be mastered by humans.. :D
 

gf0012-aust

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
srirangan said:
The F-117 isn't the epitome of stealth technology. Stealth has improved and will continue to do so. Detections entire approach should change imho. To ensure waves don't reflect back is just too easy in principle. What's easy in principle can and eventually will be mastered by humans.. :D
The F-117 is just one of 3 types of stealth tech in use by the US. It is not the benchmark that should be evaluated - lets remember that the tech for the F-117 is approx 17 years old. There has been generational change since then in a number of areas.

For a 17 year old tech, it still is miles ahead of what anyone else has done to date. The tech isn't redundant at all, the only difference is that in the case of the F-117 it needs to be used judiciously and in a different level of benign environment (which obviously is OPFOR specific)
 
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