Swedish Carbon-Fiber Stealth Ship Runs NT

tiled_rainbows writes "The Guardian has an article today about the Swedish navy's new stealth warship, which they claim is the largest carbon-fiber vessel ever built. Slashdotters will be interested to learn that the ship runs Windows NT. The article says 'While the point-and-click system is popular with conscripts, the ship was fitted with a wooden ship's wheel at the insistence of senior officers. If Windows goes down, they will still be able to steer.' Which raises the question: where can I get a USB-compatible wooden ship's wheel for my computer?"

Comments

I got your USB ships wheel right here, pal.

[YankeeInExile]

I realize you were being cutesy, but making a USB ships wheel sounds about like a one-weekend take-it-apart-and-put-it-together project, starting with a shaft-encoded driving-game controller.

The hardest part would surely be building the binnacle.

Re:I got your USB ships wheel right here, pal.

[fsck!]

And then there's the issue that NT doesn't even support USB.

Pretty pictures ala Google cache

[Anonymous Coward]

Funky lookin' ship pics

Pictures and Another More Detailed Article...

[Vaystrem]

Taipei Times Picture of the Visby.

Detailed Article including Construction Information and many pictures.

Re:Support ?

[lseltzer]

See Retiring Windows NT Server 4.0: Changes in Product Availability and Support:

• January 1, 2004 - Beginning on this date, non-security hotfixes are no longer available.
• 
  
  January 1, 2005 - Beginning on this date, Pay-per-incident and Premier support will no longer be available. This includes security hotfixes.
  
  January 1, 2005
  (or later) - Online support will no longer be available

Pictures of Visby

[bjornhi]

The boat is named Visby and pics of it can be found here and here /Björn

Re:Doesn't carbon fibre burn?

[madpoet_one]

As someone who worked in a carbon fiber development lab in the eighties, I will agree that carbon fiber can burn.

But as the MSDS for carbon fiber points out:

Flammability classification: Not classified.
Flash Point/Method: Not known, but very high!
Auto-Ignition Temperature: Not determined
Flammable Limits: Lower: Not applicable
Upper: Not applicable

Carbon Fiber MSDS link

Re:Movie idea

[AKAImBatman]

You joke, but the USS Yorktown didn't think it was so funny. :-P

Re:Corvette

[dubious9]

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.

Re:building materials

[drexelmike]

Emergency repair isn't an impossible situation to handle. There are plenty of epoxy resin systems that have short (15min) cure times. While I can't imagine that they'd have time to properly vacuum bag it in an emergency, it's not the end of the world if a patch is a bit resin-rich. A simpler and more likly alternative is the use of a room temprature curing pre-preg patch. While it would require refrigerated storage, it's a simple peel and stick solution. These are commonly used in auto racing marketed under the "RhinoPatch" brand name. they gel in 30 seconds and cure in under a minute.

Re:Doesn't carbon fibre burn?

[phayes]

Building major combattants out of carbon fiber & epoxy may well expose these ships to fire hasards (however this will be more related to the epoxy that binds the fibers than the carbon fibers themselves. Carbon fibers burn relatively cleanly, epoxies, on the other hand put out fumes that will incapacitate & blind crewmembers that are trying to control the damage). Having carbon structural members burn through & fail is of little import if everyone is already dead due to the smoke.

Your example of HMS Sheffield is in any case incorrect and is covered in the sci.military.navy FAQ:

There are many misconceptions and incorrect stories regarding the use of aluminum in warship construction.

One common story is that HMS Sheffield, a destroyer sunk during the 1982 Falkland War, was lost because her alleged aluminum superstructure made her more vulnerable to damage. This story is completely untrue, because Sheffield's superstructure was not aluminum. Like all ships of her class, her hull and superstructure were entirely steel. Aluminum played no role in her loss.

Two Royal Navy warships lost during the Falklands War did have aluminum superstructures, and their loss is incorrectly attributed to this feature. Ardent was hit by seven 500- and 1000-pound bombs, plus at least two more bombs which failed to detonate, and sank some six hours after the attack. Any warship of her size, regardless of aluminum or steel construction, would likely be sunk by this many bombs, so aluminum cannot be blamed here. Antelope, another aluminum-superstructure ship, was struck by two bombs, which lodged in the ship but failed to explode. Later, while one of the bombs was being defused, it exploded, blowing a major hole in the hull and starting a large fire. The fire eventually reached the magazines, causing these to explode. Again, an aluminum superstructure appears to have little connection to the ship's loss, which was caused by the explosion of the bomb and the magazines.

A related story claims the US Navy and Royal Navy abanonded aluminum superstructures, in favor of steel, as a result of the Falklands war. Since aluminum superstructures played little or no role in the Falkands losses, this story is obviously untrue. The Royal Navy's switch to steel appears to be a result of a 1977 fire in the frigate Amazon. In the US Navy, the switch from aluminum to steel superstructures was a result of the 1975 collision between the carrier John F. Kennedy and the cruiser Belknap. The collision caused major fires aboard the cruiser, and her aluminum superstructure essentially melted; she was reduced to a badly burnt hulk. This incident lead to a decision to adopt steel superstructures in the next new warship class, the Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) class destroyers. This decision had been made prior to the Falkands War.