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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?"
"Nearly every function of the ship, from navigation and steering to engine and damage control, is conducted and monitored using commercial, off-the-shelf hardware and software."
hmm I guess I've been shopping on the wrong shelves
Does it know how to play tic tac toe?
Here's a close-up look at the ship's cutting-edge IT ...followed by a picture of a strange-looking bald man. At first I thought he was the IT.
Some impressive IT, that, if that's the state of the AI / cyborgs on board.
I bet SCO aren't going to turn up and demand money.
Mod parent up!
The Fire Scout will be flown by a computer operator using a joystick controller in the Combat Information Center
Finally!!!!! A military carreer for the overweight masses of X-box, Nintendo and PlayStation owning couch-potatos.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
["Currently, the USS La Salle has a 3Mbit connection. We think we can get a 6Mbit connection and up to 24Mbit using accelerators," said Dick Pearson, a systems engineering consultant at Dataline Inc.] :p
Yea, i think netzero tried to sell me on that crap about six months ago
You can see the ship from the outside here and here
Hope they have lots of armor around the servers, and a backup bridge.
"uses paperless charts"
It worries me that China is working on an anti-satellite warfare, and the military keeps marching down the GPS for everything road. WWIII could see a lot of pretty hardware sitting at the docks while the navigator runs down to supply to see if they have any "old fashioned" compasses and charts.
Oh well. The military knows what they are doing, right?
Where?
this looks liks windows to me. This even has the windows default titlebar fade action going on.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
So your argument is what? -- That defenselessness will always lead to peace and never function (as it has historically) as a magnet for risk-free aggression? "Those that will not bear swords can still die on them" (Tolkien)
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 can tell you from personal experience that they are pretty damned unpleasant in even 3m swells... At least half of the passengers (including myself) quite sick.
This boat is an Incat fast ferry, built in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Incat have made about 40% of the large fast catermaran ferries around the world.
They used to run an Incat ferry across Bass Strait from Tasmania to mainland Australia. It would get from Devonport (Tasmania) to Melbourne in about 6 hours - the traditional ferries took 14 hours. Quite a difference, and it's really neat being on a boat that size when it starts moving. However, Bass Strait has some pretty impressively bad weather (try looking for Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race to get an idea)... The Incat ferries were just not suited to it (for the general public, anyway).
They can still move quickly if you don't mind lots of extremely sick people on board (soldiers are supposed to be tough, right?). Incat have won (and currently hold) the trans-Atlantic Blue Riband (Hales Trophy) (and have actually won it three times - usually while delivering their ferries!) - with an average speed of 38.8 knots (about 72km/h)
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.
The primary role of the US Navy in peacetime is to keep the sealanes open. The only reason you can get those Reeboks for $30 is because the US ensures safe shipping throught the world. Even so, piracy is on the rise since most European nations have killed their navies and the availability of small watercraft in third word countries is greater.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
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.
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.
Oh well. The military knows what they are doing, right?
Actually, in many cases they do.
Speaking as an ex-tanker, tank gunnery qualification involves numerous "degraded mode" exercises. Some engagements you have everything- computer, thermal sight, rangefinder, healthy gunner, etc. For others you only have parts of that, or perhaps just the backup optical telescope with an aiming reticule (M105D for my tank).
Very very smart. Then again, I knew a fair number of gunners who *only* used the M105D in every daylight exercise, no matter what they were allowed to use. (It's obviously useless at night) They generally got good scores- you can guesstimate the target distance pretty well and with a bit of windage correction you can get shots off a lot faster than with all the bells and whistles.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"