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Insider's Look at High-Tech High-Speed Navy Vessel
Xidus writes "Computerworld is running an article on the technology behind the US Navy's newest HSV (High Speed Vessel), focusing on interfaces designed to reduce the number of personnel needed on the bridge. Lots of pretty pictures. No word on OSes, although Mozilla is mentioned, and UNIX-ish desktops are visible, along with some nifty virtual-reality tactical displays. Would you like to play a game?"
You can see the ship from the outside here and here
I used to work in military research here in the UK, and worked on a project not *too* dissimilar to the COMBATSS/InfoScene bit mentioned in this article (I probably shouldn't divulge exactly how similar or not, for obvious reasons :) ). At least, from the brief mention in the article, it seems to be a similar kind of system, in principle at least.
Our stuff was written as a kind of proof of concept, with a fairly basic GUI (x/motif iirc), and most of the work being done on the data processing to ensure it was an accurate representation of reality.
we once had a meeting with a team from the US who were working on a similar system to our own, the plan being to see if we could benefit from each other's work. they gave us a demonstration of their product, which initially seemed much closer to completion than our own. it had a beautiful 3D interface (much like the screen shot in the article) and they demonstrated how a user could easily pan round in real time and see what was happening with a simple drag-and-click of the mouse.
then we asked them about how they actually processed the data, as this was the most important part of the system (obviously, no matter how good the interface it's a bit pointless if the stuff you're looking at is just plain wrong), which is where things fell apart a little. the actual backend of their system had hardly been started - the stuff we were seeing was all manufactured data created for demos, which kind of negated the entire point of the exercise from our point of view. they had a much larger team working with a much bigger budget than we did, but had effectively just come up with a nice GUI - and it didn't actually do anything that our basic motif GUI didn't, it just had more colours and more 3D stuff. we weren't really interested after that...
the point being that even in the military, even if something looks great on screen is no indication of whether it's actually any use or not. our system was actually deployed and used (on a testing basis) by the UK armed forces - what became of it since then i couldn't say as i got another job soon after, but it was clear that the US system was many months behind our own in terms of usefulness.
and on a slight tangent...
the whole thing reminds me of the well publicised FIST system that was featured on UK TV a few years back - basically trying to bring the infantry soldier into the 21st century using in-helmet HUDs and super smart targeting/comms systems etc... it was developed at the same place I worked but had so many problems i think it was shelved - after huge spending. but then, it did use windows as the underlying OS (don't ask me why), which for a mission-critical system always seemed a bit... stupid.
I often wonder for some of these things whether they were instigated by military ppl out of necessity or genuine improvement, or by politicians who just want things to look good
In a bid to clear to my mind of the cobwebs, I took ~1 year off, and worked as a deck hand aboard a 656 foot shipping vessel (as a merchant marine).
At the time, I was mid-way through completion of a computer science degree, which I am currently finishing. I was completely shocked by the lack of pervasive computing on board the ship - a complex environment, where any and all silicon help could prove to be highly advantageous.
Two newly acquired computers, running NaviSailor were onboard, and provided (what most of my fellow mates/luddites took as) advanced information in a no-hassel manner.
There is a great deal of money to be made in the shipping business. It is a complex and intricate profession, and most of the people onboard shipping vessels exhibit a great degree of perfectionism. Afterall, wrecking a multi-million dollar ship with hundreds of thousands of dollars of onboard cargo would be quite disasterous to one's career.
The long and the short is that these people need attention. Here is a niche market ripe for the taking. Custom software geared towards making watches, navigation, and docking less error prone has yet to be made. All you who complain of a lack of work -- that fattest worms are found only by lifting the heavier stones.
-pararox-
As I understand it, these ships are basically a Faraday Cage to start with. Because of the possibility of NBC warfare, the ships are basically competely sealed. Note that the steering picture only shows computer screens, not windows. There are no portholes, and donly the minimum number of external walkways for mooring etc. All doors are RFI tight. So all you need to do is make all the (many) cable ports EMP proof (not easy, but feasible) asnd the ship is EMP tolerant. You need spares for all the bits outside the shell (CCTV cameras, Antenna amplifiers), but inside the shell, lofe (and war) continues as usual.
EMP is not now a new threat. You can bet the Navy have thought of it.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Absolute and total bollocks.
Take the number of modern-navy ships sunk by battle damage post-Vietnam. Now take the number damaged post-Vietnam. The latter is considerably greater than the former. I'll work backwards a bit here, but I might get a few transposed.
USS Cole: Kamikaze floating bomb. Sealifted home, repaired.
USS Princeton: Mine impact, with sympathetic detonation of a second nearby mine. Severe structural damage, fires, cracked superstructure, flooded magazine. Ship was capable of conducting air action within two hours, stayed on station as local AAW command vessel for an additional 30 hours until relieved.
USS Samuel B. Roberts: Mine impact. Sealifted home and repaired.
USS Stark: Two Exocet strikes, with one missile detonation. Sailed home under her own power, and repaired.
Damage control is the difference between the Stark, which took two Exocets and sailed home, and the HMS Sheffield, which took a single dud Exocet, burned from stem to stern, and sunk under tow. It is taken *exteremely* seriously by the US Navy, and while we don't plate ships with inches of steel armor any more, rest assured that a lot of money is spent on redundant systems, DC training, shock-hardening, and "armor of form" to allow ships to continue fighting after they get hit, and to make it home for repairs. Even if we're not talking about combat, there are all sorts of Bad Things that can happen to ships. Take a look at the Belknap(collided with the Kennedy, fuel spill, fire, basically burned down to the waterline), the Forrestal, or the Enterprise for examples.
It's accidents like those that drove home how unbelieveably important damage control is. Yes, if a Mach 2+ SS-N-19 delivers its 750 kilogram warhead successfully, the ship's a definite mission-kill at the least. But there are a whole host of less-destructive situations that can result in disaster with bad DC, so DC is considered somewhat...important. No, damage control isn't what it was in WW2: It's a helluva lot better.