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I have Read about this Ship long Back, It has amazing Features Design is huge plus points for this Multi Mission Destroyer, Graphical Images and On-board Weapons have released way back “The combat system will be based on the total ship computing environment (TSCE) utilising open architecture, standardised software and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware.“ Source: http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dd21/

Japan is at a crossroads and drones are not the only form of military expansion that is being considered. They are giving a lot of thought to the task of guarding their trade routes along with the protection of disputed islands and areas of sea close to home rich in oil, minerals and fish http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/08/china-japan-drone-race http://defense-update.com/20120917_uas-on-maritime-surveillance-pacific.html and so are seeking to modernise and change the mix of the JMSDF http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/ship.htm assets. This has resulted in the 22DDH a new light aircraft carrier http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/japan/cv-newcon.htm built upon ideas gained from the existing Hyuga-class helicopter carrier http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/hyuga-class/. Some are already beating the drum be it only in model form http://www.informationdissemination.net/2013/06/jmsdf-in-action.html but others in the area may well have other ideas of the future http://blogs.defensenews.com/intercepts/2012/12/what-china-wants-for-christmas/

Carriers generally are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercarrier. The Nimitz class carriers are the largest US carrier to date http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nimitz/. They displace somewhere around 70,000 long tons of water. They carry 82 aircraft, not to mention fuel, missiles, other ordinance. Even with all that they still have room for 6000 personnel. Take out the planes and ordinance you could probably cram 7000+ people in a Nimitz. The average number of employees a company has is roughly 16 http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/279843.html. If we assume that every company on this aircraft carrier employed 100 individuals then there would be room for 700 companies. So yes, he most likely worked for a dozen companies on that one carrier alone.

Microsoft, from all people?

Microsoft and Lockheed Martin been partners on high-profile military projects for at least the last ten years:

The alliance builds on existing relationships between Lockheed Martin and Microsoft on projects including the U.S. Air Force Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2) program, a comprehensive upgrade of the North American Air Defense (NORAD) Cheyenne Mountain Complex; the integrated warfare system for the U.S. Navy's next nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, CVN 77; the Global Command Support System-Air Force; and the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Messaging System. The companies also are members of the Blue Team, which is competing for the Navy's next-generation land attack destroyer, DD 21 Lockheed Martin, Microsoft Form Alliance Focused on U.S. Government Market [May 24, 2001]

The Blue Team lost on what would become the DDG 1000 Zumwalt Class - Multimission Destroyer.

CVN-77 is the tenth and last of the Nimitz class super-carriers, the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77)

Microsoft has announced two more partnering agreements with large training and simulation companies for its recently unveiled Microsoft ESP visual simulation platform.
Lockheed Martin and FlightSafety International both will use ESP as part of their efforts to lower costs in their simulation on aircrew training. Those companies join Northrop Grumman and SAIC as large integrators who have joined with Microsoft on use of ESP, which was announced in November and became available Jan. 1. Lockheed Martin, FlightSafety to use Microsoft ESP platform [February 21, 2008]

His server software is horrible bad!

Lockheed would seem to disagree: Microsoft Case Studies: Lockheed Martin gains Enterprise-class capabilities with SAP on Windows, SQL Server [July 20, 2009]

Just remind them of the Type 212 Submarine.

The funny thing is, aircraft carriers deliberately shine lasers in pilots' faces to indicate they're in the correct approach trajectory. And I'd be willing to bet that these are much more powerful than whatever this couple had.

Just google "DALAS laser landing aid".

This happened a few times even in the seventies during NATO Exercises. So why dont you tell us something new. In the meantime why don't the navy buy one of these

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/type_212/

The nuclear submarines are to noisy

why didn't they just take the phalanx off of the aegis destroyers and mount it on a truck bed?

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/burke/

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the similarity this machine has to the Sikorsky Cypher.

I have doubts about how large this can be scaled. The primary reason we haven't seen large ducted or ringed rotors on a helicopter is mostly due to the increase in weight, along with some other non-trivial issues of needing to adjust blades indivudally at points in their rotation to maintain control. Ducted fans can work on a smaller scale, but you tend to need more than one of them as seen in the Moller Skycars and a few experimental tilt-duct aircraft. (Check out the nifty VSTOL Wheel for a good overview of other VSTOL concepts.)

It's not a bad idea for a UAV though, seeing as the U.S. military seems interested in developing both conventional and more experimental types of VTOL UAVs.

Yeah, we have "hemvärnet" aswell, althought I have no idea how large any of our military stuff is nowadays. I think we are down to little over 200 airplanes to begin with.
The swedish defence whatever informs me that Hemvärnet got around 40.000 people of which 1.500 is musicans ;)
Well, atleast our subs kicks american ass ;/

from their reactors. 'The motors' push a really really big ship through the water, which actually requires quite a bit of power.

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nimitz/

This thing: 2 60MW reactors Nimitz Class Aircraft carrier: 194MW I'd say it's about the same scale. http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nimitz/

My vision of what will be required in the future will be the stealth equivalent (although they are already stealthed to some extent) version of a super Arleigh Burke destroyer with a serious bone in its teeth.

I agree, the Swedes of all people have been doing some really interesting work with their Visby class corvette. I'm not is a position to assess how tactically viable this project is but it certainly looks REALLY interesting.

The dd(x) destroyers are going to be some wicked hardware, but there are already ships of that type out. The swedish visby corvettes, for example, are the warships of tomorrow:

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/

See, Brits can build complicated things too. Amazing, I know.

In other news, the Swedish Navy came up with this. Its probably a very bad idea to try to cut enemy vessels nowadays, but you get the idea....

Yes, it is nearly impossible to get large things onto a floating platform.

Lasers are not vary energy efferent, are easy to defend (up to a point) and are not well suited for combat situations.

Quite a bit of my argument is that they are *not* as easy to defend against as it may seem. If you pump that much energy into a target, something is going to give. And as I pointed out in a previous post, the very mirrors that make these lasers work are just beyond the brink of destruction. There's no defense for an aircraft skin other than a cooling system capable of boiling off megajoules of energy. In all other cases, inperfections, dust, and grime will lead to a complete vaporization of the reflective surface. :-)

Needle gun / High velocity rail guns are well suited for short-range use as long as they have a good power supply to work from.

This is true.

Now when the navy wanted to build a catapult system to launch aircraft used a seam system, as it's extremely reliable and efferent.

You mean "steam" catapult? The next generation of aircraft carriers are slated to use electromagnetic catapults. Linky

The point I am trying to make is Needle guns are more efferent and reliable than lasers. Yes the rails only last so long but they're easily replaced. Where a large laser with a minor problem is going to be hell to fix.

Sadly, this is subjective for the moment. The military is working on laser weapons, but we don't know the details of their reliability. The situation is similar with rail guns where it's predicted that reliable devices can be designed with sufficient R&D. So far, no needlegun has had a proven track record of reliability. The rails almost always melt at very bad times. We'll call this point a toss up. :-)

Yea they don't sound as sci-fi but they seem to be a much better solution for ships.

Both solutions are currently sci-fi-ish. The only one we *know* is happening is the Navy's extended range munition rail guns. :-)

PS: It was my understanding that we even have working rail gun systems that are waiting for the next generation of aircraft carriers which will have more spare energy for these types of systems.

That's more or less true. Raytheon is currently firing the Navy's rail guns in tests to ensure the weapon system is ready. After the DD(X) class Destroyer (really, a cruiser) is deployed, it will be retrofitted with these weapons. (Stupid cost saving measure.) The CVN(X) class carrier is being designed with the same concept of supporting energy hardpoints, but will have the advantage of using nuclear power instead of gas turbines.

Old Linky to Rail Gun tests

They are not supposed to be huge deck guns but rather closer to the size of a large washer drier unit / small car with a connection to an ammo supply.

The images have them looking something like a gun barrel jutting out at an 80 degree angle. If you follow some of the links I posted previously, you should find a few pictures. They may also replace one of the deck guns.
Article w/Pictures of current DD(X) :-)

If they are:

towed into a drydock
secured in a drydock

Not to be persnickety or overly didactic, but I realize that a ship's hull is moored far more often than it is docked, but I served aboard two ships which were drydocked for several months at a time.

But... see:

http://www.shipanalytics.com/MS/SHS.asp

---
http://www.naval-technology.com/contractors/fender s/dun/

See the (curly quotes) "LASER DOCKING SYSTEMS" section by scrolling down about 2/3rds of the page down...

For reference, here is the Google search I issued:

http://www.google.com/search?q=docking+mooring+shi p+naval&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

http://www.google.com/search?q=docking+mooring+shi p+naval&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

But at the minummum I can say something about causaution, and can see that an atmosphere with 10% CO2 might be a wee bit low on Oxygen.

Let's see, shall we? According to wikipedia, normal concentration of oxygen is 20.946%. A 10% dilution would drop that to an incredible 19.042%. I mean, choke! choke! A dilution of oxygen like would be barely even noticable - it's like an altitude of around 1km.

*Being a memeber of the Big Money Global Warming Religion, you operate on Dogma, not reason. As do members of any religion.

But as the toxicity of carbon dioxide is nothing to do with global warming (on which I'm agnostic anyway) this point is moot. Let me remind you of what you wrote: "CO2 Is NOT toxic in any way shape or form.".

** It' a well known fact that anal-retentve people who go around correcting poples grammer and spelling have no sense of humor.

One last thing, I suppose the reason that submarines have scrubbers is just part of a big money conspiracy too? Which one this time? The military-industrial complex? Shapeshifting lizards?

"During the submerged periods of missions, the LiOH cartridges are changed whenever the CO2 level in the confinement approaches the allowed limit." Surely, if you were right, they wouldn't be concerned about an upper limit for CO2, they'd only be concerned about a minimum for O2.

How stupid of the so-called engineers! Didn't they realise that there's no problem with carbon dioxide, and all they had to do was top up the oxygen from bottles or something! And silly silly NASA. I mean, it's not rocket science, is it?

There are other carrier types around which can support large fighter aircraft. Whilst the US has the most, they are not the only ones.

So each country could easily hit well over a hundred targets with nukes using their present force. At a full load of missiles according to best specs, the UK subs could theoretically hit 768 targets, while the French subs could hit 288 targets. Just do the math.

The French are also introducing the better M51 missile, with 12 MIRVs instead of 6. That could double their number of warheads to 576 standard.

So each country could easily hit well over a hundred targets with nukes using their present force. At a full load of missiles according to best specs, the UK subs could theoretically hit 768 targets, while the French subs could hit 288 targets. Just do the math.

The French are also introducing the better M51 missile, with 12 MIRVs instead of 6. That could double their number of warheads to 576 standard.

And the australian Collins-type submarines were built by Kockums Marine Systems in Sweden; those Stirling AIP engines are quiet as well as being able to allow the submarine to stay submerged several weeks. Interesting that Sweden possess such a prominent position in the submarine market (scroll down towards the end).

Also, having been on an earlier Australian sub (Oberon class), late model Australian submarine (Colins class), British submarine and several US subs, I might be tempted to say no other nation in the world can compete with the technology in the US subs.

THat's all well and good in a "contained" environment, i.e. brown water operations next to the diesel sub bases and/or chokepoints. In blue water ops, when a carrier group averages 20+ knots for extended periods, if not continously, it is a different ball game.

Even with the new classes of submarines, you would end up using diesel subs as intelligent mines; almost stationary in relation to the target, which must practically run over them to do itself harm.

More info

On the other hand, somebody at the Ministry of Defence obviously agrees that they lack offensive punch, because the three current 20000 tonne carriers are to be replaced by two 50000 tonne carriers, with an air wing of 40 or 50 (including Joint Strike Fighters). See here. Still not exactly the Nimitz, but a big improvement over current capabilities.

Certainly, the Rafale is much newer tech. But then, old doesn't necessarily mean bad, just that the old design was good enough to survive. Germany was flying the F-4s until quite late; F104s hung around in some airforces forever.

Isn't the de Gaulle carrying the Super Etendard as its current strike aircraft? According to this article, in "Enduring Freedom" in 2001 the Rafales didn't even fly, though the Etendards did.

I picked that list based on what navies seemed to currently be flying.

Not only is the predated (by a long shot) by the US Navy Sea Shadow program in the mid-80s (as pointed out by another poster), but also by the French 'La Fayette' stealth frigates (circa 1988). Modified versions of that ship are also in use by both Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.

1986, designstart of "Smyge", publically showned in 1991. it was a testbed/prototype and a smaller littorial craft.
U.S Secretary of Defense William Cohen was demonstrated to it in 1997.
pic

1996, designstart of the Visby class... as of 2004 two of these ships have been delivered, the HMS Visby (2001) and HMS Helsingborg (2003). after 2 years of sea trials they are ready to enter full service.
pic! pic

Lots of cool pictures and info on the Visby at the following sites:

http://www.kockums.se/News/photostock/photosurface .html
http://www.kockums.se/surfacevessels/visby.html
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/
http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/jan01/feature s/stealth/stealth.html

3D! Da corn is popping in your face inna... [throws popcorn in his own face] 3-D! -The Swedish Chef

Is it just me, or has Admiral Janeway come back from the future to outfit the boat with ablative hull armour?

>There was a proposal to fill the gap in our naval force structure with "arsenal ships" that would hold large numbers of cruise missiles, but they were also made of carbon fiber, and I think the plan hasn't ever taken form.

Actually, it has, but rather than ships, it's submarines.
info
more info
The Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia are all being converted to SSGN from SSBN, and will carry about 150 tomahawks each.

Talk about projection of power ashore...

Yeah I was expecting something bigger ("biggest fibreglass boat!"), but I guess they don't need anything too huge.

Anybody who wants to see a another good article about the ship, with lots of pictures, try, here.

can be found here.

Heh, the Collins fire Gould torpedos :)

You missed my point. My point was that a radar return off the F-117 (or B-2) is more likely then not going to be bounced off the internal structure of the aircraft -- since the external structure either absorbs radar signals or reflects them back away from the intended receiver. My other point being that an RWS system could work in theory without external sensors by picking up the transmissions that weren't absorbed by the external structure -- since transmissions that were absorbed (or reflected elsewhere) are no threat. Try reading my statement before you jump all over it. Neither does ascribing fantastic capability to RWS (or is it ESM? How about BVR - Beyond Vague Ranging system?).

In that single comment you reveal your ignorance and arrogance about modern military technology. This has nothing to do with fancy Star Trek style technology. Most of this stuff has been around for decades. The concepts are nothing new -- they go all the way back to WW2.

To quote from this military site:

ESM is the area of Electronic Warfare (EW) that evaluates passive electronic devices used for signal intelligence (SIGINT) collection. These types of systems are RF based. ESM system evaluations include but are not limited to: SIGINT library validation, direction finding array calibration and validation, target fixing algorithm validation, intercept capability, and evaluation of special signals.

Here are some other interesting websites that you should consider reading. Google is your friend.

None of this is "fantastic capability" or 24th century technology. None of this implies mystical powers on the part of the F-117 (or any other modern aircraft or ship).

Now, unlike you, I don't pretend to be a know all expert on modern military technology. But I also don't pretend that just because I don't understand something or haven't heard about it that it must be magical Star Trek technology clearly beyond our current means.

I have no idea how playing Harpoon (whatever that is), Exocets and F-14's got into the mix.

Harpoon is an all encompassing sea-air battle simulation coined by Larry Bond that is played on paper rules or with PC software. If your interested (it's really quite good) I suggest you check it out. Exocets and F-14s got into the mix because you made the asinine comment about how realistic Top Gun was -- I was blowing this argument out of the water. Talk to any real Naval aviator (or Air Force for that matter) -- they think it's one of the funniest movies ever made. Though they would probably agree with you about the flight instructor sleeping with Tom Cruise part ;)

Modern weapons systems are limited by existing technology and the laws of physics, not magic not mysticism

No disagreement. You just don't seem to have an understanding of what modern technology is capable of. Read up on ESM/RWS technology sometime -- I think you'll be surprised at what it's capable of -- and it's hardly new -- it's been around (albeit in more primitive form) since WW2.

The Navy can make a ship that generates 40 megawatts (50,000 HP).

The Navy can make a ship that is completely self contained.

The Navy can make a ship that generates oxygen and scrubs the CO2 (and doesn't fail either).

The Navy can make a ship that can stay on self-sustained 6 month missions with a crew of hundreds.

NASA can't do more then seven crew for two weeks.

The Navy says "Can do!" and builds the Seawolf class submarine.

NASA says, "huh?"
(picture Conan O'Brien doing his Bush impression)

And if one is at all curious one should ask one's self this question: "When has a military power ever allowed a civilian agency to have more advanced technology than they do?"

Hmm?

I thought so.

Happiness is asking the right questions.

The US military is working on VTOL UAVs such as Northrop Grumman's Fire Scout (e.g., for use by the Coast Guard) and Raytheon is building a Tactical Control System that allows one human operator to control multiple UAVs. Many other people also make VTOL UAVs, increasingly focusing on autonomous operations. (Nowadays it takes more than one operator to control a single UAV -- it would be nice to reverse that ratio in the future.) So I wonder what makes this Israeli drone so unique?

"The Fire Scout system, a vertical takeoff and landing tactical UAV, is in low-rate initial production for the U.S. Navy by [Northrop Grumman's] Integrated Systems sector. Fire Scout will fly at an altitude of up to 20,000 feet, and use an advanced payload with an electro-optical/ infrared sensor and a laser designator to survey littoral regions with pinpoint accuracy, giving military decision-makers the most current information about enemy resources and personnel on the ground. Fire Scout is a fully autonomous targeting and surveillance system that can fly almost silently above deployed Marines to watch for hidden enemies within 100 nautical miles."

"[Raytheon's] TCS, which allows the simultaneous control of multiple UAVs and their payloads from the same control station, was conceived as a joint-service program but never was adopted by the Air Force or the Army. The program is likely to survive, however, as a Navy-only system that eventually could be modified to accommodate UAVs from additional services, experts said."

ISTR a rumour that the former USSR was selling off its FBMs (less ICBMs and missile compartment). Wouldn't a Typhoon make the ultimate floating (sinking?) gin palace? According to this there are two going begging ATM.

I doubt heat generation would be a problem - I can't really see such a train ever being built.

Consider the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France. It descends to a depth of less than 200m below sea level ( see this page or this picture from the same page).
Now consider the atlantic ocean. A cross section is shown on this page.

Firstly, the depth at the maximum is around 5000m below sea level (a cool 25 times deeper than the channel tunnel). A brief search on google for submarine maximum depth tends to suggest that maximum submarine depths (other than for specialised submarines) are typically less than 1000m. See 1, 2 and 3. I can therefore hardly see a commercial train operating at 5000m.

Also, the incline at the continental shelves is a significant factor - trains aren't noted for coping well with steep gradients so a long rise would be needed at either side. I can't comment on whether this is a problem because there is no X axis scale on the referenced atlantic ocean picture.

These are just my opinions and observations of course.

Cheers,

Roger

Building a spacecraft from parts from Radio Shack is like fighting a modern navel battle with bass boats. Though a bass boat and a destroyer both float, have GPS, radios, radar, and sonar, there is a lot of differents in construction. I'd but my money on the destroyer.

Yes, but you're comparing a WW2 destroyer to a modern fishing boat with a Harpoon missile launcher fitted.

No, AEGIS is something else. This is Goalkeeper, the US have built something similar, called Phalanx. Both are designed for very close range defense esp. against cruise missiles. The Exocet missile scared quite a few people in the Falklands war.

I wonder if this is for the Virginia Class of mini-subs. These things are just so freaking cool. I'd give my right leg to have one of these things to ride around the Jersey shore in :)

The article compares this to a predator UAV, and implies that if scaled up, it could replace the predator. But, basically, the $500k pricetag is a number pulled out of nowhere. The Navy is already working on an unmanned helicopter, the firescout, and it would provide a much better idea of how much an unmanned helicopter would be costed. Just for fun, though, let's look at how far the xcell has to go to be more useful to the military... XCell .60 Pro Graphite 2K (top of line) vs predator UAV:

Predator: range 400 miles/40 hours, altitude 25,000 feet, cruise speed 70 knots.
XL: Total weight 11 pounds. Total run time 5 minutes.

Predator: Payload > 450 pounds. Accessories: helfire missles, high resolution optical and infrared zoom (19-560mm) cameras (I actually used the a Wescam in development, it was sweet!), synthetic aperture radar (resolution 1 foot) for all-weather surveillance, a laser designator and rangefinder, electronic support and countermeasures and a moving target indicator (MTI). Automated gunfire detection.
XL: Total weight, ~11 pounds. Payload: A small video camera.

Predator: UHF and VHF radio relay links, a C-band line-of-sight data link (range 150 NM) and UHF and Ku-band satellite data links.
XL: A 49 MHz hobby RC link

Predator: fixed-wing design, which is generally lower maintainence.
XL: rotary wing, which generally has higher maintainence.

-----
I think that this could probably be turned into a tool for war, and that the automated flying (like what is built into the Predator) being developed for helicopters by this project would be useful to that end, but it's just one aspect of the total system... to accurately cost a production system, you'd have to have a much better idea of the entire system's design requirements.

It seems only a matter of time before other countries developed their own surrogate weaponry, and the idea of the high-tech Drone War -- machines warring with one another -- moves to the next level.

Beyond what else was state in your article, you statement here makes it sound "so simple".

Fact of that matter is that in 1930, America had the 18th largest military if you could even call it that. With the Great Depression and the fact that WWI was that war to end all wars (ya right), the US quickly demobilized much of the military. It was not till the rising threat of Germany and Japan in the mid 30's that the US acted to start "building" there military up.

Fact of the matter is, the US have not stopped. I remember statements from many other countries in 1990 that "oh .. the USA is going into another Vietnam" You will never win against them. And honestly, many countries had there "we told you so" speech prepared.

Well after complete destruction of Iraq and the loss of 300-400 military personal, many countries folled up with "omfg". Though no link can be found, the Sec of Defense for the former Soviet Union was stated we need to "start" developing these weapons.

Scarey fact is that these weapons were being developed as early as the 60's in America where as most other countries are just today starting to to plan these weapons.

Point being, America has a very large techno jump over any other country in the world in weapons.

Another issue is deployment. China has 2.5 million troops, almost doubling the US's active duty. Ya great .. big whoop. How do you get them from point A to point B. China does not even have an aircraft carrier. The Soviets are in the same boat (or lack thereoff). They have "had" an aircraft carrier, was in service for three years and is now being sold to India.

The concept of large scale "drone wars" is far, far away. And honestly, I do not even consider the Afganastan conflict your so called drone war. It was a large army (Northern Alliance) with a few special forces with radios and laser markers telling the bombers where to drop there payload. Beyond that it was Soviet tanks, AK-47's,Nissan Pickup trucks, blood, sweet, and tears. About as conventional as it comes.

Eh, don't forget we in Sweden also are working on a stealth ship..

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/

/Gathers

The swedish navy also has a steralth ship. This link shows some data for the ship. the ship actually began trials earlier than stated in the linked page. Here are some drawing of the ship as well cruising, using airdefence missiles
So this kind of technology will probably be seen in many navies in the future. I can tell you that watching a ship this size come at you at 35 knots while your radar shows nothing is rather unnerving.

The swedish navy also has a steralth ship. This link shows some data for the ship. the ship actually began trials earlier than stated in the linked page. Here are some drawing of the ship as well cruising, using airdefence missiles
So this kind of technology will probably be seen in many navies in the future. I can tell you that watching a ship this size come at you at 35 knots while your radar shows nothing is rather unnerving.