US Navy Looking To Retire Futuristic Prototype Ships

[rangerrebew]

US Navy Looking To Retire Futuristic Prototype Ships

    by: Tom Nardi

March 5, 2020

From the Age of Sail through to the Second World War, naval combat was done primarily in close quarters and with cannons. Naturally the technology improved quite a bit in those intervening centuries, but the idea was more or less the same: the ship with the most guns and most armor was usually the one that emerged victorious. Over the years warships became larger and heavier, a trend that culminated in the 1940s with the massive Bismarck, Iowa, and Yamato class battleships.

But by the close of WWII, the nature of naval combat had begun to change. Airplanes and submarines, vastly improved over their WWI counterparts, presented threats from above and below. A few years later, the advent of practical long-range guided missiles meant that adversaries no longer had to be within visual range to launch their attack. Going into the Cold War it became clear that to remain relevant, warships of the future would need to be smaller, faster, and smarter.

https://hackaday.com/2020/03/05/us-navy-looking-to-retire-futuristic-prototype-ships/

[Smokin Joe]

For starters, 92 hours to a week to swap modules? Why?

We move oil drilling rigs in far less time. unplug, unbolt, move, reconnect, hook up, test and drill, usually in 60-72 hours, in all weather. That's for a rig move, not just walking/skidding to a new wellhead on a pad, usually accomplished in 12-18 hours, at most.

I understand that the connections (controls may be more complex, but those same oil rigs i mentioned above are now computer or electronically controlled, have video feeds, sensors, power, plumbing, etc. as well. These are out in the weather, and have to be weathertight on oil rigs as well.

Perhaps if the Navy talked with the people who design modules for onshore or offshore oil exploration, they could comu up with better, simpler systems, even with redundancies which might be better in a combat environment.

[MeganC]

For starters, 92 hours to a week to swap modules? Why?

We move oil drilling rigs in far less time. unplug, unbolt, move, reconnect, hook up, test and drill, usually in 60-72 hours, in all weather. That's for a rig move, not just walking/skidding to a new wellhead on a pad, usually accomplished in 12-18 hours, at most.

I understand that the connections (controls may be more complex, but those same oil rigs i mentioned above are now computer or electronically controlled, have video feeds, sensors, power, plumbing, etc. as well. These are out in the weather, and have to be weathertight on oil rigs as well.

Perhaps if the Navy talked with the people who design modules for onshore or offshore oil exploration, they could comu up with better, simpler systems, even with redundancies which might be better in a combat environment.

Since when do bureaucrats ever do something simple and efficient?

[rangerrebew]

Since when do bureaucrats ever do something simple and efficient?

When hell freezes over.