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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?"
I really doubt it's anything like that, since they wanted it to be able to steer in case windows went down. As for where you could get something like that, I'm sure you could put some sort of tracking pattern on the axle of the wheel, then mount a USB optical mouse in a fixed position to track it. Viola.
stuff
IIRC, Microsoft was bound to stop support on windows NT 4. Are there any kind of provisions for systems such as this, which is going to be in service for quite some time? Or will the Swedish Navy be on its own if some glitch appears ?
I know that using an old an proven operation system is better because all major bugs have been either wiped out or referenced, still I'm not sure that using a closed source unsupported OS is the smartest way. But maybe they know better ?
Was probably to be done by a wheel anyway. That it's made out of wood at the request of the officers is probably a nod to tradition.
I'm not a materials scientist, but I would imagine that carbon fibre can burn. A huge advantage of steel is that it may weaken under heat stress, but it will never contribute to a fire, which is one of the gravest threats to a warship in combat.
The British learned this lesson the hard way in the Falklands. In that case the new building material was aluminum, which can actually burn when it gets hot enough. This contributed to the loss of several ships which suffered massive fires after being hit by Argentinian aircraft. As a result, not only in the UK but in navies around the world, new naval ships are built entirely out of steel.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Amazing that a country would trust their armed forces to a piece of software made in another country.
Of course I don't know the last time Sweden went to war but still.
evil is as evil does
If the Visby really does turn out to be more cost-efficient than a steel ship, some maritime analysts believe that it could be a matter of time before merchant vessels begin to be made from tough plastics.
I've had a little yellow plastic duck toy that has been chewed into fervently by my pet dog for years and years, and the thing STILL stays afloat no problem. I think the Swedes are on the right track here.
You know, the sensor doesn't need to support the wheel :-)
Skipping the driving controller, you might do better to dismantle a $2.99 optomechanical USB mouse for its optical sensor and USB interface.
More likely the wheel is physically linked the steering gear train. The operation would be kind of like the player pianos with moving keys. If someone chose to revert to manual there would not be a reliance on the computer for steering.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
I don't know anything about this, which is why I ask...
I RTFA and it mentions being less visible to radar, infrared, etc but says nothing about sonar detection. Isn't sonar a big way of tracking warships? Is this still going to be vulnerable to that?
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
And if it is detected, the Visby should be quick enough to escape as it is only half as light as a conventional corvette.
So.... is it twice as heavy as a conventional corvette?
Back in May 1997, the US fitted the USS YORKTOWN (http://www.yorktown.navy.mil/ ) with NT and it had disastrous results (http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2. htm ) . The ship went DIW (dead in the water) for a few hours. This is the worst case scenario for any ship's captain (and their career)...
Funnily enough, both the commanding office and the officer in charge of that project went on the record to state that the problem was not with NT.
How many OS crashes do you know which can be fixed by - and I quote - "replacing the value in one of the fields with something other than zero"?
If the OS had crashed, you would not be able to replace the value in the field.
God you slashdot guys are sheep. Don't you ever check the veracity of the crap that you spread?
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Yes the Swiss are landlocked but:
Swiss - people from Switzerland
Swedish - people from Sweden
American geography education....
Apparently the Swedes did not learn from the US Navy's experience of using NT to run the ship. Not a good thing to be dead in the water because a computer crashed. IIRC, in Microsoft's EULA it specifically says not for use in critical systems.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
They must have divided by 0 in kernel space to bomb the OS.
NT get chosen for stuff like this because it's easier for them to support special hardware by writing and maintaining drivers, not a particular monolithic kernel that slashbots would recommend.
Frankly, who cares. This would be a story about some really cool tech (an enormous, "invisible" boat) but instead its an OS flamewar.
Bah, slashdot isn't a "news for nerds" or a "geek" site anymore, it's just a soapbox for OSS philosophy.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
What makes you so sure it is Windows's fault, and not some crappy printer drivers? Which printer are you using?
NT is known for freezing for periods of up to 10 seconds (maybe more?) at random intervals, quite probably while it defrags the mess it has got its memory into. The same problem happens with Win2000 and I have also seen longish freezes in XP. Controlling a ship, or anything lese for that matter, needs hard real time.
Not only that, in most countries, evidently not Sweden, the software would have to be capable of validation and verification to a suitable standard, that can of course only be accomplished if you have source. The currently fashionable standard assigns criticality levels Sil1 to SIL4, now NT can't even meet SIL1 (SIL4 is the highest, mandatory in life-threatening situations). Previously, lots of people followed the aircraft industry in assigning levels 1,2,3,4 or A,B,C and D (in these cases 1 or A was required in potentially life-threatening cases). An extra level, Z, was introduced, guess why?
I once upon a time thought that the Swedes were generally competent, however with the JAS39 Grippen, and now this, I think that their defence industry has become a complete joke. I could tell you about their SAAB civil aircraft, fortunately they are out of production now.....
NT is one of the only operating systems the FDA approves for class 2 (and higher, I think) medical devices. It's funny to say Windows NT bombs out all the time, but that's mostly because of driver issues. The fact remains that for embedded/turnkey applications, NT is about as stable an OS as you can get. It got that job by replacing OS/2 (in ATM software, etc) not by replacing a UNIX platform.
Mod me down if you want, but you know it'd be abusive, and this is totally on-topic.
"I've always considered self-reliance to be important"
;-)
So you think still staying out of NATO is good, too? Joining the group, kicking and screaming?
The concept of a country is >100years too old and self reliance is a myth, ask the finns when fighting the russians (my grandfather took part there and frooze his butt off, but anyway thanks for trying), the Danish Jews when escaping the nazis and the Norwegians when receving the same guys going through Sweden from Denmark. So it isn't so simple.
Actually, Swedish military hasn't been worth just about anything since Wasa sank.
There is no such thing as selv reliance, and you are probably right that Sweden wouldn't be able to defend yourselves even on your own soil, but then who would want to try? Between Stockholm and Kiruna there isn't much but agriculture and some fishing, except perhaps for a good hockey team in Oernskjoeldsvik/Husum that also has a lot of forrestation (now owned by some Finns
I guess rather than welding it they'd be using epoxy to repair? At least that's what we do with R/C planes that use carbon fiber (well, usually you replace the carbon fiber completely when it breaks -- not an option for a ship made of it.)
Maybe they use individual plates that can be replaced one at a time.
Emergency repairs would be a bitch, though.
May we never see th
Isn't "NT 5.1.x" more commonly known as Windows XP? I know that "ver" under Windows 2000 reports 5.00.2195. When people talk about what "NT" supports, they usually mean "NT 4.0" or in rare occasions, "NT 3.51."