Navy To Auction Stealth Ship

First time accepted submitter Sparticus789 writes "Looks like the Navy is doing some housecleaning and selling off failed experiments, 'Yup, the Lockheed Martin-built Sea Shadow is being auctioned off from its home in the Suisun Bay ghost fleet in California.' Bidding is right now at $100,000 and it even comes with the dock. Don't get your hopes up of an evil hideout, the fine print says 'The ex-sea shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the U.S.A."

Comments

Failed experiment?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a failed experiment if nothing's learned. More often than not, experiments don't produce the expected result. It's how we learn.

Re:Failed experiment?

[zippthorne]

And if it's a "failed experiment" why the requirement to dismantle? If all it is is a curious looking ship, who cares what happens to it after it leaves the Navy's hands?

This sounds more like something you'd do with a successful prototype that nevertheless was not militarily useful due to factors relating to the fact that it is a prototype and not a full blown warship....

Unless crippling bureaucracy prevents taking the sensible option, of course....

Re:Failed experiment?

[boaworm]

It was developed in competition with other stealth ships. This one didn't win.

Nevertheless, it has a lot of cutting-edge technology that the US government has very little interest in giving to someone else. So the sensible option in this case is to keep producing the winning concept ships, and dismantle the losing prototype, making sure noone else can piggyback on all the money spent on it.

Re:Failed experiment?

[braeldiil]

It wasn't developed in competition with anything. It wasn't a warship, or really a working ship at all. It was a test platform for a bunch of different technologies. And, since the technologies being tested have since been incorporated into actual navy ships, I'd say it was a successful test ship. Calling it a failure is nearly as stupid as calling the Norton Sound a failure. After all, they didn't build any more of her, either.

Re:Failed experiment?

[Chris Mattern]

And if it's a "failed experiment" why the requirement to dismantle?

Because we've learned all there is to be learned from it.

If all it is is a curious looking ship, who cares what happens to it after it leaves the Navy's hands?

Because we don't want anybody learning what there is to be learned from it.

Re:Failed experiment?

[DerekLyons]

And if it's a "failed experiment" why the requirement to dismantle? If all it is is a curious looking ship, who cares what happens to it after it leaves the Navy's hands?

Because the government doesn't sell military equipment unless it's either a) been demilitarized (essentially, rendered useless), or b) going to be scrapped. Otherwise, as it does for museum ships, it retains custody.
 

This sounds more like something you'd do with a successful prototype that nevertheless was not militarily useful due to factors relating to the fact that it is a prototype and not a full blown warship....

She was an abysmal failure. For a reasonable amount of armament, she ended up much larger more expensive than a ship with a conventional displacement hull.... and she wasn't actually all that stealthy. (In particular, her wake could be trivially detected using the same radar used to detect submarine periscopes.) On top of that, because of displacement limitations, she was highly vulnerable in combat, had low survivability, limited endurance, maintenance issues, and had habitability issues as compared to an equivalent conventional design.
 
tl;dr version: The Navy already had a stealth ship (the fast attack submarine) that filled the various mission needs that the Navy needed stealth for. Sea Shadow had no particular advantages over the submarine and several key disadvantages. Other than her one party trick (stealth), she was inferior to conventional surface ships but had a considerably higher price tag.

Re:Failed experiment?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> It wasn't developed in competition with anything.

That's a testament to just how good the winning ship was.

Re:Failed experiment?

[bruce_the_loon]

Go and read Ben Rich's Skunk Works for the history of the Sea Shadow. Lockheed-Martin developed this one on their own and the Navy rejected the design because it didn't look like a ship an admiral would be seen dead in. Like the Royal Navy still insisting on sails and sail drill in the mid to latter days of steam.

As far as their stealth was concerned, Skunk Works had to increase the radar reflectivity profile because the effect was so good, it appeared as a flat line against the shifting waves on radar and was visible as a result.

Re:Failed experiment?

[braeldiil]

Actually, she was quite the success. While we're not building ships exactly like her, radar stealth has been a significant concern of the Navy, and current ships are designed to minimize their radar cross section. Reduced crew manning has also been a really big push, as had improved roll stability. About the only major design feature not in use is the catamaran hull. and really, figuring out something is a bad idea is still a successful experiment.

Re:Failed experiment?

[hairyfeet]

Exactly, the Navy scraps boats all the time, not a big deal. What DOES piss me off about the military is how many old choppers and warbirds we have wrapped in plastic out at the boneyard. Now if it is useful for parts then yes, i can see it, but frankly all those early to late 60s choppers and warbirds are so hopelessly out of date the military is never gonna want to fly those again and they would fetch a damned good price on the civilian market. the huey is still used quite a bit today by civilian pilots and of course old warbirds are seriously prized by collectors. Oh and before anyone says some third world country would buy them...so what? Frankly you can buy better birds from Russia that aren't nearly as out of date and as we saw in desert storm without top notch pilots you get another turkey shoot anyway, not to mention we know exactly how these old birds handle and what their weaknesses were.

When we are drowning in red ink its just retarded to let billions of dollars worth of aircraft just sit and rot out in the desert when they could fetch good money on the civilian market. We should sell a few to test the waters and then if they fetch good prices then see about selling more. i know this won't take away the debt but every little bit helps and they certainly aren't doing us any good wrapped in plastic out in the desert. Hell you could even give a discount to small hospitals on the choppers for those that don't have lifeflight and might even save some lives, better than just letting them rot.

Re:Failed experiment?

[flyingsquid]

I suspect the main reason this design didn't catch on is that there's no clear military role for a ship like the Sea Shadow that another vessel couldn't already do better. The unconventional design of the hull limits the ship in a lot of ways, the most obvious is that you can't put guns on it. You can't put a radar on it either, or rather, you could, but it would undo all your efforts to make the ship invisible as soon as you turned it on. So the ship can't be used in a defensive role against ships and aircraft like a destroyer.

Basically the only places where a stealth ship makes sense are missions where the need for stealth outweighs other considerations. Stealth is useful in an attack role, or for electronic eavesdropping, or perhaps for infiltrating a small group of special operations forces close to shore. However, the ship still has long way to go in terms of stealth. The main issue is that you can see the thing- a 100 foot long ship is going to be visible to patrol aircraft and other ships from a long way off, and it will also be visible to satellites. At night it would probably be fairly easy to pick up using thermal imaging, unless you found a way to heat or cool the skin of the boat to the same temperature as the surrounding ocean.

But there's a simple way to make you invisible to radar and to avoid visual detection at the same time: put the boat underwater. And I suspect that is the real reason nothing like the Sea Shadow was ever built. We've been able to achieve total invisibility to radar and visual detection for close to a century using subs, it's hard to imagine what advantage the Sea Shadow would have over something like a Seawolf attack sub.

Re:Failed experiment?

[hairyfeet]

Except other than crazy military scenarios that could NEVER EVER happen...why? Nukes. You only really have two kinds of war anymore, those with nukes and those without. Now looking at the state of the world's militaries right this minute there are only two countries that could actually wage a war long enough for your scenario to be plausible, and that is Russia and China, and guess what? they both got nukes. There is no such things as "gentlemen's agreements" in total war and I seriously doubt if we had Russia or China backed against the wall they wouldn't fire off a few, hence why the threat of actual war with either country is virtually nil. They know we would launch, we know they would launch, so the best you are gonna get is proxy wars.

So I'm sorry but that argument simply no longer holds. it did during the cold war simply because other than sat pics we honestly didn't know what the USSR could do as far as production, that is no longer true. And as for China? they can royally fuck us economically by dumping all their US currency on the market so a war with them would be frankly suicidal, so again no real threat there. Oh we'll bitch at them occasionally, and they will bitch at us, but in the end we want to buy and they want to sell so that's that.

Besides do you HONESTLY think if we managed to toast our ENTIRE inventory of front line fighters, which considering we have 11 carriers to the next biggest guys 2 is no small task, that a bunch of mid 50s to mid 60s planes would make a difference? hell the time it would take to get them back into fighting shape and to the front would take too long anyway!

No the boneyard is just another cold war relic that needs to be gotten rid of. like I said where we still have craft in service and thus need the parts? yes, all for it, please keep those. But I can't picture the military suddenly wanting to go back to flying F-5s and Hueys and remember just because they are wrapped does NOT make them some sort of instant 'just unwrap and use" because the rubber is gonna get brittle, parts are gonna lock up, its just not good on an aircraft. better to sell those that we no longer have any use for to the civilian market. hell if we need them back at least then they'll be in running condition and we can always get them back just as we drafted boats and planes for service in WWII.

Re:Such a waste

[lxs]

Hey, it's a stealth ship. Tell the government that you've dismantled it, then sail it away right in front of the coast guard. They won't suspect a thing.

Strange definition of "evil"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't get your hopes up of an evil hideout, the fine print says 'The ex-sea shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the U.S.A.""

Yeah, because as an evil supervillian, I always make certain that I strictly abide by my contracts with the US government.

Also, my lawyers have reminded me that the contract says nothing about not re-assembling it, or not using all the information gleaned by disassembling it to build a new one. Eeeexcellent.

Re:Strange definition of "evil"

[hawguy]

Also, my lawyers have reminded me that the contract says nothing about not re-assembling it, or not using all the information gleaned by disassembling it to build a new one. Eeeexcellent.

The auction listing says this:

(THE EX-SEA SHADOW SHALL BE DISPOSED OF BY COMPLETELY DISMANTLING AND SCRAPPING WITHIN THE U.S.A. DISMANTILING IS DEFINED AS REDUCING THE PROPERTY SUCH AS IT HAS NO VALUE EXCEPT FOR ITS BASIC MATERIAL CONTENT.)

I fail to see how you could disassemble it in a way that allows reassembly and still be able to show that you reduced the ship down to where it has no value except its basic material content. I suppose you could melt it down and reshape each piece into its original shape, but that seems more expensive than just building a brand new ship.

How will you find it?

[gstrickler]

Seriously, it's a stealth ship in a ghost fleet. If it can be found, I think it's safe to call it a failed experiment.

Old (and Fox) News

[arisvega]

This news is at least 2 years old, and it could be as old as 5 years or more.

I know you don't RTFA, at least google the story a bit or follow a wikipedia reference or two. It's not that someone will duplicate your scoop in the few moments it takes to at least try to verify the story.

Re:Old (and Fox) News

[DerekLyons]

I know you don't RTFA, at least google the story a bit or follow a wikipedia reference or two.

Don't take the Slashdot editors to task for what you're too lazy to do yourself.
 
If you actually read and comprehended your linked references, you'd note that the previous attempts have been to sell/donate Sea Shadow as a museum ship - while this offer is for scrapping and disposal.

Re:How will you find it? Failed Experiment

[Nimey]

There were a couple rocket-powered F-104s. Chuck Yeager crashed one of them, IIRC.

The ultimate excuse

[turkeyfish]

This is a military contractor's dream. The ultimate weapon that has to be built so that it must be quickly destroyed. Because of its advanced capabilities it can't be allowed to fall into anyone's hands, not even that of our own military, thus requiring the immediate need for a new no-bid contract to build its technological successor.