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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?"
But what if the US went to war with China or India? All your sub no longer belong to US, all you sub belong to China or India.
The Chinese won't blind US satellites as we'd likely interpret that as preperations for a first strike. Which means they are 45 seconds from Cerenkov radiation themselves. Not even the North Koreans are squirrle enough to pull that rabbit outta the hat.
That said inertial guidence. And the first target of anti-satellite weapons would be the spy satellites and not the GPS constellation(s).
If you've got a country out there that is crazy enough to pull a stunt like that on the US, the charts paperless or not are of precious little consequence once that shit hits the fan. At least until they close the technology gap with our cruise missle payloads.
I'm sure they have old-school backup plans and navigational equipment. The option not to would be total stupidity in an age of electronic warfare.
Also, I hope these servers are protected against EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) bombs.
Life is not for the lazy.
But see, the idea is that (hopefully) other countries will follow suit and build automated, unmanned, killing machines too. Then if war ever breaks out, it'll be our machines against their machines with a bunch of 14- to 35-year-old guys controlling the action from an RTS-style interface. We'll televise the results and both countries will make a fortune in advertising revenue. Boom-pow, everybody's happy!
The advantages of a dual hull in a ship of this size outweigh the disadvantages. A multihull rocks less in rough seas, giving it a more stable platform for operating helicopters, maintaining satellite links, launching weapons, etc.
It's also more maneuverable due to having its twin screws so widely separated. Forward on one screw and reverse on the other and the ship comes about in its own length (pretty much).
The ship also doesn't need to be ballasted in the same manner as a monohull, because of the inherent stability of its broad beam.
The disadvantages include the inability to right itself if capsized and a more complex compartment layout.
Also, I hope these servers are protected against EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) bomb
With everything being "off the shelf" hardware, how much emp it can take is a good question. There are test facilities.
I can understand mil-rad hardened transistors surviving, but all that stuff clearly has to use low voltage CMOS that can be blown if there is a nearby lightning strike.
I think most worrisome is a computer glitch (not to mention a bullet) hitting the right server at the right place to cause the ship to be dead in the water because engine/navigation controls don't work.
If it could bring down an Osprey helicopter, one has to wonder about ships also.
Being the military, they probably (or should) have taken such things into account when deploying the systems.
You also have to wonder how much time they spend patching all the software.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I was on it for some experiments in 02 and it was a real impressive boat. The vessel is a proof of concept for what a future command and control ship would be like. Basically the budget is large and they throw everything they can on it to see what good solutions come out.
Not to be outdone the Army also has it's on vessel aptly called the TSV (Theater Support Vessel).
On the HSV the exercise servers/work stations run Windows, if there were "UNIX-ish" systems there they must have been hiding.
The boat itself is sweet, actually very similar to the "Cat" in Maine. That's the ferry from Nova Scotia to Bar Harbor with a top speed of 55(?) knots or so.
Hmmm...but in a world where everyone hates you, and some countries hate each other, what stops (for example) China from making it look like North Korea did it? Or is it just that if someone does it, the bombs that will be dropped will end the world anyway? Is it a good idea to end the world, even if there may be some nuclear missles coming for you?
Finally!!!!! A military carreer for the overweight masses of X-box, Nintendo and PlayStation owning couch-potatos.
Not so far out as you might think. This may be Urban Legend (tell me if so), but there is a tale of exactly this.
About 20 years ago, in the days of Pac-Man and similar, when computer games were only available in bars and arcades, the people building the North Sea oil rigs were having trouble: the Remote Operated Vehicles they used for deep-water inspection and minor repairs were too difficult for the operators to control. So they sent out recruiters to hire the top players in the arcades of Aberdeen. And, allegedly, it worked: the arcade warriors were much better ROV operators than the serious engineers.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Computer navigation and steering is not new.
Tell me about it... many modern ships employ the use of electrnoic throttle and rudder controls. Works just fine, unless you pop a fuse, then you're stuck with last speed and rudder settings, at least from the ferries i've seen. You would think they would employ some form of dead man's switch, where throttle is cut in the event this happens, but that would make far too much sense.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
You don't have to shoot down a GPS satellite to confuse a GPS receiver. All you need are a couple well-synchronized transmitters with some forged signals. The algorithm used by xntpd/tickadj is sufficient for *introducing* imperceptible drift into the timecode.
Of course, you might have a problem deploying your transmitters near enough to a Navy vessel to be effective, unless you happen to have your own LEO satellites, carrying otherwise legitimate earthbound communication/TV/etc....
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
Looks cool. I always wondered why navies never seemed to use multi-hulled ships, given their speed and handling characteristics. I guess in the days when all that mattered was the size of your gun and the thickness of your armour, it was a bit irrelevent.
If the rules are changing and speed/tactical operations are the New Way, I wonder whether high manoeuvrability "tanks" will be back on the agenda as well, then? They were never much good in the old days, when the accuracy of your opponent's gun was so bad that even if you dodged you might take an unlucky hit anyway (when armour would still protect you, of course) but if we're all about agile units able to get in and out quickly and stealthily now...?
Incidentally, am I the only one who spotted loads of cool things about the ship in the original article... except for any offensive capability (other than via aircraft)? If it's a multi-role vessel, you'd have thought it would carry some sort of firepower, even if only for self-defence!
If you'd have to kill me, don't tell me. :o)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Would read the article if I could, evidentally slashdotted to heck and back...
... is not a US ship! In fact, it's leased from the Australian navy. Go figure. Of course, this could be covered in the article but see above disclaimer.
As a squid who has actually been on board...and whose command was thinking about claiming the ship as our flagship to replace our old one(Gogo Second Fleet!) One interesting fact: The HSV Swift
Between that, and the fact that there's essentially no armor or weapons, I'd personally prefer not to serve on that ship, but then again the final designs that the Navy would have built would presumably be able to take some kind of beating and dish a bit back out.
The U.S. Navy has a new ship in its fleet that officers say may be the most technologically advanced vessel produced to date, with IT capabilities that are revolutionizing naval warfare and may play a vital role in responding to potential terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Officers would say anything to promote their plans. But how such a fine military vessel can play a vital role in responding to potential terrorist attacks, is beyond me. Terrorists most usually attack by carrying explosives with them, into crouded places, or drive ground and air vehicles into their targets. The one exception of sea terrorism that comes to mind is USS Cole, but the vessel described above would be incapable of preventing the USS Cole bombing the way it happened.
When the military talks about terrorism, I run away. They usually talk in order to keep the money coming in. Otherwise, terrorism is something that secret and intelligent services deal with, not the military. The military is unable to defend against terrorism; it can only defend against visible enemies. Terrorism is invisible, especially if t is low tech.
By the way, does the new vessel use Microsoft Windows ? There was an incident, back then, about a US military ship that went dead because of a Windows network bug that propagated itself to all the ship's servers, causing the ship to be dead for over two hours.
Pardon my former post for not being sufficiently clear. I'm drinking, so the logic gates are not properly aligned. To address you:
" I think you will find that you have to comply with a **lot** of regulations **and** be rock solid and proven."
I can make no claims against this. The Coast Gaurd is highly regulatory, making water travel both safe and very technical. It is for this reason that few (if any) all-encompassing (sp?) software navigation systems have been written. To do so would be a Hurculean task.
"AFAIK there is some very serious software available, over the years I have seen various applications published in the IEE computing and control journal......but it is probably very difficult to sell to conservative ship owners."
Again, you are quite on target with your responses. Indeed, many of these large ship owners (I am good friends with a powerful owner in the business, he's ~84 years of age) are of the old world. That said, a pervasive system providing navigation and docking capabilities would still attrack this man I speak of. He's certainly no fool; he does know what is advantageous to himself, and his business.
"BTW, a couple of years an investigation into a Greek shipping accident revealed that the ship was sailing itself and the crew were all watching a football match"
Be warned: many foreign countries do the world's shipping. Very few have the stringent regulations placed upon them as the Coast Guard places on US vessels. Incidentally, Coast Guard regs are so tough, ship manufacturing and manning are becoming more rare here in the states, hence the rapidly increasing pay.
Thanks for your response, it was well made.
-pararox-
Two silly stories spring to mind. Both are from memory so I can't give precise details and have probably got others wrong. Oh well, they're still funny :-)
First was a warship patrolling in the Arctic during one of the world wars (think first), and saw an enemy ship in the distance - so fired a torpedo. Problem was, the torpedo's rudder mechanism wasn't designed to handle the cold water and jammed. Described a beautiful arc while the ship carried on steaming ahead and hit the ship that had fired it in the engine room, putting it out of commission for the rest of the war.
Second was a training vessel running exercises in Portsmouth harbour in the UK. Fairly old ship with a mechanical signalling device from bridge to engine rooms - which jammed at half speed astern, and when attempting to unjam it was stuck on full astern. So, first mate sent down to engine room to countermand the order - made no headway against most of the ship's company bailing out having realised what was happening in a fairly small space too late to stop it. The ship rammed a concrete jetty at something like 15 knots in reverse. This compressed it by several feet and resulted in the only injury - one unfortunate seaman was halfway through a deck hatch at the point of impact and the pressure difference this caused shot him out like a bullet from a gun and quite a way into the air.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Shaky evidence from all over the world, even the French. We know that they have WMD's because the US helped them make them in the 1980's. We have pictures of them as recently as 2/2001. They exist just as the other things you can't see exist - Like the terrorists in your country... wherever you are. I hope you are not like the stupid Spanish who voted in the communists as a result. I used to think a lot more of them as a people until they did that. Now they are more like the French.
Also, people seem to have missed those articles that showed those Al Quaida dudes being arrested in the shadow of Saddam's palace. Not just underlings, a number of their leaders. Some terrorists wanted for over 20 years. Even the Aquillo Lauro (sp?) hijacker. Iraq was a modern Libya that the US took care of when the US was just a very new nation (Marines - to the shores of Tripoli!)
We were headed to a police state under Clinton - look at Waco and Ruby Ridge (Criminal misconduct on the part of ATF - or so it would seem). Bush brought us back to sanity. You probably think the patriot act is bad... Look at what Senator Feinstein had to say about it. You are probably one of those people she is talking about who don't understand what it is and does.
The bottom line is a lot of our problems today all go back to 1993 when Clinton castrated the CIA by not letting them pay informants. Ironically 1993 keeps coming up with these investigations lately - WTC bombing the first time, other intellegence problems, not following up on US comittments in the middle east after Gulf War - I (Lots of trouble from that). Nobody seems to want to say Clinton had something to do with our problems now. Some people even say he didn't kill anyone - tell it to those in Bosnia (Madaline Albright's war... we should get out of there, where is the outrage that we are still in Bosnia?), Suddan.... and so on. He has my vote as the worst president we have ever had. Next from the bottom is FDR by the way for all the Unconstitutional things he did. FDR remains the only dictator that we had so far (had the power to single handedly repeal a Constitutional ammendment - prohibition. Did it quickly too).
You have no understanding of human pscyhology,
... all i said is, "Americans, use your Technological Prowess to MAKE PEACE, not WAR!" ... but its interesting how so few people actually understand that this is possible in light of the mob rule of 'guns make good' ...
It is precisely this arrogant view, that some people do have an understanding of 'human psychology' and some people do not, which gives us the bigots in command who are writing the purchase orders for more, bigger, massive weapons.
a tremendous ignorance of the world outisde the United States
I actually have lived all over the world, including America, and including places that most Americans would not dare to go. I dare say I'm more aware of the situation than most Americans...
but hey thanks for the free psychological evaluation. i'll be sure to note that you are an expert.
and, for the rcord, i never made that conclusion
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The US Navy was (re)created because in the 1794 the Barbary pirates were abusing US shipping.
Read more about it and my favorite warship. For a 200 year old design, she has some suprisingly modern features, like stealth and excellent fuel economy.