Russia Declassifies "Stealth" Warship 327
krez writes "Today's RFE/RL Newsline states The Russian Navy has declassified Project 20380, a warship designed with stealth technology. The ship has a range of 4000km, clips along at 30 knots (55 km/h). The ship has both offensive and defensive roles, and comes armed with the supersonic Yakhont first strike missiles, and the Medvedka 400mm anti-submarine missiles. This is a big step in Russia's attempt to re-establish itself as a world naval super-power, after a decade of budget cuts." Technical details are very very scant on here - if you know more, please post below.
I can't tell you more ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Illegal Technology (Score:2)
This is mearly to assist the *blind* crewmen. (whether legitametely blind, OR blinded by vodka and glasnost)
Re:America asks for more terrorism (Score:2)
Secondly, if your reasoning were to be applied to, for instance, the United States then all Anglos, Africans, Asians and their decendants should be exiled from North America because it belongs to the Native Americans who were here "several THOUSAND years ago" and who built great nations that were destroyed by European immigrants and settlers only a few hundred years ago. Does this illustrate the wrong-headedness of your and many other Jewish/Israeli defenses against their eviction of the Palestinians over that past several decades.
In the past all over the world there were very few checks on the powerful who wished to sieze more power or more land and influence. The peoples of the world were connected by fewer and weaker economic and social bonds. Cultural, geographic and technologoical diferences betwwen peoples allowed dominance of some nations or empires over others and the net destabilization of the invasion was low.
Today the world's cultures, nations and economies are much more interconnected and dependant upon eachother. Destabilization in one sphere has greater a destabilizing effect on the rest of the world than in times past. Additionally, liberal ideas and values have spread across the world. Subversion and subjugation of one people by another is no longer socially acceptable.
The Jewish reentrance to Palestine has come at a time when there is no longer popular acceptance of the kinds of suppression that the Jewish/Israeli people exert over the less powerful Palestinians. Popular sentiment against Israeli policy and condemning Israel's actions against the Palestinians was expressed clearly by the majority in the recent world conference against racism in Durban, South Africa.
The horrible and toughtless violence perpetrated by both sides in the Israeli conflict is damnable. It is true that the U.S. policy strongly supports Israel. However, this policy is clearly for net political and military/economic advantage. In an interconnected world, net advantages and disadvantages are more important than specific political issues. The U.S. must hold good standing in Israeli and Saudi relations in order to maintain military safeguards for the American economic assets in the Middle East region. Also, The historical U.S. support for Israel carries significance in that policy changes must not be made too quickly in order to maintain the credibility of the U.S. leaders, the policy that they execute and the regional stablity. To a lesser extent the democratic system in Israel must be supported as the expansion of democratic rule is a long term U.S. policy goal. The cultural differences between Israel and the U.S. are smaller than those between the U.S. leaders and the Arab and Musolem people. These factors are primary in the relationship with Israel and they weigh heavier than the plight of the Palestinian people. The Jewish Israeli's have taken advantage of this skillfully and caused great harm.
Personally, I find it highly embarrasing to live in a nation that supports the extermination of the Palestinian people. The onus for negotiating peace and combined prosperity in Israel lies with the Israel which has far greater wealth, power and political influence than the people they seem to blindly subjugate.
At this point the Israelis are fighting against a starving, and desperate enemy. Suicide bombing that is the mainstay of the Palestinian offensive is the extreme of desperation and implies a lack of rational thought. The Palestinian people have demonstrated that they are disorganized and without effective leadership. Therefore it must be Isreal's task to find a peaceful and equitable resolution. Assuredly, there will be no outcome but further terror and the eventual annihilation of the Palestinians without thoughtful peacemaking leadership on the part of the Isrealis.
No the Caanites built it (Score:2)
Anyway that's all ancient history
Cheney's black list (Score:3, Funny)
Don't tell anyone... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
From the story: "Microsoft Cruiser" (Score:2)
From the story:
"Using Windows NT, which is known to have some failure modes, on a warship is similar to hoping that luck will be in our favor," DiGiorgio said.
This is stupid... (Score:2, Insightful)
Colin Winters
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because the combined intelligence resources of the West could be brought to bear to track one of these things doesn't mean it's useless. Our carriers are pretty easy to spot, and look how handy they've been lately.
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:2)
Moreover, presumably all the ships in the US fleet are in constant communication therefore satelite imagery should be availible to all our ships...and in general to most of the first world nations. Those nations without satelite imagery availible probably don't have a navy large enough to really justify this sort of construction. Iraq had one of the larger armies in the world, border on ocean, and yet we didn't even hear a peep about their naval capabilities during gulf war.
Finally I doubt it is really impervious to radar guided weaponry. Stealth only works so well, once they get close enough they should be able to pick it up...satelite images should accomplish this.
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:2)
Your right thats possible. Maybe they will sell it to drug smugllers...they are the ppl with the most to gain from a stealth ship
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:2, Informative)
Radar bounced off the sea from space can detect a ship's wake, which happens to point right at the ship. The process used is similar to decryption, where the natural ocean waves are the random noise and the wake is the message. Navigation radar and radio transmissions can be detected and triangulated. Infrared detectors in space can not only see plume from the smokestack, they can also see the wake from a large ship from space when cooler water is churned up to the surface.
Below the water, the US has very sensitive listening stations scattered about to detect submarines. US submarines can track a ship from quite a distance due to noise alone. Even when not underway, waves slapping up against the side of a ship make a distinctive noise (a problem submarines don't have). I suspect those "secret" ships have been followed by US submarines wherever they went for quite some time.
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:2)
This is a weapon which threatens enemy battlegroups, or at least it would if the idea of a stealth ship was viable.
Ships can be tracked from space, and the US has researched this. A stealth ship isn't going to be able to conceal it's position from the USA, maybe it'll help confuse a few French missiles right before the US alters it's radar profile permanently.
Re:This is stupid... but you said it anyway. (Score:2)
And this is only going to be a proof-of-concept, remember. You reckon every last thing that Lckheed's Skunk Works comes up with is going into production? They'll try out lots of different stuff to see what works and learn lessons from that b4 they build one for real.
Also, please note that world politics have changed since 1950. The Russians are no longer automatically the enemies of the US. It's not necessary to have the strongest army in the world, you only need a stronger army than the person you think is most likely to attack you.
Grab.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:1)
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2)
No...not anymore.
There are now boats/subs capable of launching intelligent missles with absolute navigation the same way sailors used to do it (using the sky), and with sophisticated vision systems that use cameras to identify targets. The technology is also applied to bombs and ICBMs. I guess they figured that stealth exists but invisible doesn't.
We don't need to bring all of our defenses to bear on a pesky ship. An approximate location and one of our latest navigating missles is enough to destroy most classes of targets (it might not be able to differentiate between two different boats though)...
If we know we need to use our expensive missles, we can.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:5, Funny)
Kirk What is it, Mr. Chekhov?
Chekhov Captain, three Russian wwessels have just decloaked and are on the main viewscreen. We are surrounded.
Kirk Arm photon torpedoes.
Checkhov I don't think I can do that, sir. Now, don't make a move or I'll vaporise this bridge. Prepare for boarding party.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing is invisible, but getting in the first punch is just as important. It's called the Alabama Kicking Contest.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:4, Interesting)
A visual search of even a thousand square miles (That's approx the possible area after 5 hours at 30 knots) would take a horrendous amount of time, and even then you'd have found one ship and would need the satellite to be fairly dedicated to tracking it.
Radar and sonar are still the only reliable ways to find ocean going vessels, and the technology to severely reduce the effectiveness of sonar has been around for quite a while. Adding radar mitigating tech to a ship is the last step to making it effectively dissapear, espacially with a few dozen of them around to track...
Re:This is stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
You neglect to mention the size of the wake of a ship going at 30 knots. It's easy to find something small when you have two long lines pointing right to it.
Also, you ignored the infrared. Unless these things are nuclear, it's going to have a tail pipe and the corresponding exhaust plume.
"Radar and sonar are still the only reliable ways to find ocean going vessels, and the technology to severely reduce the effectiveness of sonar has been around for quite a while."
For underwater vessels. For an awful lot of money you can make a submarine somewhat harder to find with passive sonar, but a submarine doesn't have to slice through the surface of the water. Which brings us back to the wake...
"Adding radar mitigating tech to a ship is the last step to making it effectively dissapear, espacially with a few dozen of them around to track..."
Stealth doesn't make it impossible to find, only difficult (making it impossible would violate a thermodynamic law or two), and it becomes quite easy once you know the signature of what you're looking for. Besides, hiding from the radar on your average destroyer is one thing, hiding from an Aegis cruiser is something else.
The Aegis issue (Score:2)
I think perhaps that comment was more on target than you meant it to be (no pun intended). If RADAR wasn't still the dominant means of seaborne tracking, people wouldn't have been spending the vast sums they have on Aegis technology, and rolling it out onto the fleet as fast as they can. They also wouldn't be nearly so concerned at suggestions that foreign intelligence groups have nicked the stuff, and might get it onto their ships, too.
On a side note, didn't the US recently decline to give Taiwan Aegis-equipped vessels as part of the military support they're providing, and give the "it's too powerful" argument as justification? (This is a genuine question; I have a vague memory but can't recall the details.)
Visual Scanning made Easy (Score:2)
Think about it: you're looking for something that's a fixed shape and a fixed size (well, relatively fixed -- you can calculate by what angle the satelite is looking from) against a background that's usually pretty free from noise images.
'course, then there's always infrared. These nuke-yoo-lar suckers tend to run pretty hot.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2)
After all, we know where all their ports and navy bases are. A ship of a given maximum speed can only move so much in a given non-satellite-covered time window. We see the thing as soon as it goes to sea, and if we dont have an eye pointed at it for 5 hours, when we look again we know its somewhere within a 5 hour radius, as you allude to.
I mean really. How hard is it to say "oh yeah, i think thats a ship, its the only thing leaving a 3 mile wake anywhere in this picture"
Disclaimer - I'm not in the navy, and I think Tom Clancy is cool. Flame away
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2)
Magnetic anomoly detectors.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, just to clarify, just because the ship is stealthy doens't mean that the reaction in the west should be to produce their own stealth ships. You don't need to react by mimic.
Instead, find out what the ship is designed for, its purpose. Stealth is not a purpose. In this case, the purpose is coastal defence. It is designed to be a defence against invasion. The west may not need a ship with the same purpose.
It helps to put it in perspective. My understanding of this subject is that after being brutally invaded in the last world war, the former USSR put a lot of money into defense against invasion, including patrol boats (such as this steath boat), coastal SSM and gun batteries, a huge anti-shipping marine air force (i.e. very long range bombers with ASM) and the military build up of a ground based defence in depth (i.e. the former Warsaw Pact). Perhaps they went over-board, but then i'm basised because my home country wasn't invaded in the last war.
As for what happens when all ships are stealthy? Well, i'm guessing that there is as much money going into detecting steathly vehicles (subs, ships, tanks, planes and missles) as there is going into building them. It's a battle between offense and defence that is as old as human civilization. As steath techniques make it difficult to detect using current radars, defence establishments will build new steath detecting radars (different frequencies, more power), or perhaps lasers. A good example that this stealth ship is not the beginning of the next dreadnaught-race, submarines have been near invisable for decades, but navies just learn to deal with the threat and continue operating.
In conclusion, i just don't see a need for an immediate reaction to a small (less than 2000 tons) patrol craft. Perhaps countries more fearing of sea-based invasion (ok, the UK would be on my list here, but also Germany and Japan come to mind). And that's not guessing at who the invader would be, but just a list of countries that would venerable.
The West ALREADY have such ships! (Score:2)
Actually, Western navies have been developing low-observable ships since the late 1980's.
For example, the current destroyers and the new DD-21 class destroyers for the US Navy sport a lot of features that were pioneered by Lockheed's Sea Shadow project, which was designed to drastically reduce the radar signature of surface ships. And the British are introducing new destroyers based on this research, too.
Note that these new ships' superstructures look like a bunch of pyramids. This drastically reduces the radar cross-section of the ship, and the addition of IR shielding on the engine exhaust stack reduces the observability of these new ships even further.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2, Interesting)
So of course they muffled the propulsion somehow.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:5, Interesting)
How the Air Force is disarming itself (Score:2, Interesting)
The overall effect of these expensive programs is to reduce the overall force structure of the Air Force. Even with the best technology in the world, a small number of planes can still be overrun by a larger number of planes. It has been suggested that the Air Force use something like the "high/low mix" that the Navy currently uses - the "high" being the multi-billion dollar carrier, with its power projection (read: ability to launch aircraft from anywhere), and the low being the much less costly guided missile frigate, with its land attack (Tomahawk), anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. In the end, however, Congress will most likely end up giving more money to the Air Force.
Re:This is stupid... (Score:2, Interesting)
How's it compare to Sea Shadow? (Score:2)
Re:How's it compare to Sea Shadow? + links (Score:3, Informative)
the french version (Score:2)
:)
hawk
Re:How's it compare to Sea Shadow? (Score:2)
> Pro patria mori.
But I'd still prefer to make some other son of a bitch die for his country.
Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the fields of those who didn't.
Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
USA
Stealth bombers, w/ laser guided bombs.
Russia
Stealth ships, with supersonic torpedoes
Australia
Collins Class Submarine, with extremely noisy engines.
Something tells me we (AU) wouldnt win a war.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Funny)
If I were you guys, I would go for New Zealand. It's right there, annoying, and their best ships are yachts.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
You'd win a war if somone started picking on you. We'd help you (US), Canada would help you, England would be there - hell, Russia would probably help you.
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
There was a project back in the seventies, about building a very fast boat. The design had the engines mounted in a pair of torpedo-shaped nacelles, which ran under water, some stilts going 10+ feet up (streamlined, and only a few inches wide), and a flat bottomed 'boat' - designed to run above the water. The boat would float at rest, but didn't move very well on the surface. Height was controlled by wings on the stilts. One of the spin-offs virtually abandoned the platform above water, such that the stilts were used solely for getting air down to the engines, and for maintaining position.
The reason I remember that platform was a comment at the time - about it being functionally invisible to both radar and sonar - not enough of the boat above water, and sonar really sucks when something is that close to the surface. Not that this beast was built with quiet engines .
These 'stealth' boats are more along the lines of 'reduced profile'. I'd think a true stealth boat would require a fundamental redesign, perhaps something like the above.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
This is of special benefit in shallow water areas like the Persian Gulf. If a diesel sub really wanted to poke a couple of holes in a carrier, it could. Whether it could escape is another story, but a surface ship is entirely vulnerable to a determined foe.
Intelligence (Score:2, Funny)
If it's anything like MIR... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Frankly, I'm surprised that the Russian government has money to spend on Military R&D when they just recently resorted to renting out the Russian segments of the ISS/Alpha as a tourist trap. Perhaps this practice is paying off?
Whatever is the case, I hope that this signals that the Russians are able to start competing in terms of scientific and technological advances again. Competition is good, and competition between superpowers-- so long as they're not openly hostile about it-- can result in some pretty impressive things.... The Apollo Program for example.
We've had it for a while (Score:5, Informative)
The article says this is the first ship of its kind in the world, but they note the distinguishing factor is that it is a stealth ship armed with supersonic anti-ship missiles.
Re:We've had it for a while (Score:2)
Though I don't doubt that the U.S. Navy indulges itself with this kind of ego-stroking, I find it a little hard to believe that this goes on with full permission of the national security bean-counters.
Though "security through obscurity" is anathema to your average /. reader, the philosophy does make sense for stealth craft and state-of-the-art weaponry*. When you parade your best toys in public, you're almost begging for foreign agents ("script-kiddies", if you will) to show up and start probing your gear for weaknesses and vulnerabilities (e.g. "the Commanche tail rotor causes this odd type of distortion in radar signals. By recalibrating our equipment to look for it, we can achieve missile lock with our SAM units").
The benign form of intimidation mentioned by your friend in the Singapore Navy heads off a lot of aggression before it starts, but there's also something to be said for only letting your enemy begin to develop counter-measures when it's too late for them to possibly come up with something.
* note that this assumes you've already probed the hell out of your gear with equipment equal-to-or-better-than that available to likely opponents.
Re:We've had it for a while (Score:2)
Re:We've had it for a while (Score:2)
Of all secrecy, I was on a tour of the harbor when we passed the covered dock for this thing. Of course they told us exactly what it was on the tour.
Re:We've had it for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
The US had it and CANCELED it! (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, our Navy won't talk about it.
We've had it for a while and talked about it quite a bit. And decided it was silly.
A large stealth vessel was part of the original stealth project, and is well documented. (It was a very fast powered twin-hull, which gave them an opportunity to absorb or redirect the microwaves that got into the space UNDER the main body of the craft.)
The problem was that it DID work.
But the rough surface of the sea also reflects radar. The stealth craft blocked this. The net result was a dark streak on the radar background, with the stealth ship exactly at the end of the streak closest to the radar antenna.
Effectively it was a big, black arrowhead on a dim green background, pointing exactly at the stealth vessel. The only thing missing was a label saying "Stealth ship HERE".
To solve this you'd need to deliberately transmit a fake of a surface reflection behind you - which means that you need active ECM for EVERY radar that shines on you. Then you risk showing up as a spotlight on PASSIVE radar.
Re:The US had it and CANCELED it! (Score:2, Interesting)
there may be other reasons not to do it, but if radar echos are how you find something, then a lack of radar echoes will be an advantage, perhaps not perfect, if you don't want to be found.
Sea Shadow (Score:3, Interesting)
"Stealth ships" are a blue-water navy idea. But there hasn't been a major blue-water naval engagement in years. Today, the U.S. Navy is mostly used to project power onshore. Stealth isn't the primary criterion for that role. Armor matters more.
There's a good argument for heavily armored battleships for shore bombardment, but the old ones took thousands of people to run, and the Navy is short on people. The U.S. Navy had an "arsenal ship" concept in the early 1990s, but never built any.
Re:Sea Shadow (Score:2)
There may be some little ones. The special ops people probably have some small low-observable craft. But a big warship needs so many sailors that too many people have to know about it.
Re:We've had it for a while (Score:2)
Re:We've had it for a while (Score:2)
So what if the Navy denies that it's true, I still think it's hilarious... :)
more info (Score:5, Informative)
Coincidence? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Coincidence? (Score:2)
Because it's not really all that significant for two reasons:
- Stealth features are a must for any new ship. The US has one under design as do the British and the French, the Swedes have actually got a small on in serial production.
- About once a month for the past year or so the Russians have been issuing press releases that amount to 'Hey, look at us! we're really a real technological nation! Pay no attention to the starving guy behind the curtain...'.
Stealth is useful, but it's not magic. By this vessels specs, it's not really a fleet combatant, but an escort for something larger, or more of a defensive vessel. It's only 1900 tons, very small for a warship, and does not really pack that large a punch despite how fearsome it's weapons specs sound. To be a real threat, they'd need several dozen, which they are unlikely to be able to get in the near term.Impressive? Only in it's role. (Score:3, Insightful)
Russia's Navy (Score:5, Informative)
Well I wouldn't exactly say that Russia isn't a navy super-power. They countinue to produce the best submarines in the world. Right now their first fourth generation (Borey class) strategic missile sub is being built, and they're making a new attack sub also.
This Corvette is not just Russia's idea. Smaller ships with more powerful weapons are simply a better idea then putting personal and resources into a valuable, highly concentrated target. There are about 200 Corvettes in the world right now, and the production of them is a billion dollar a year industry. Russia uses these things for sub detection, coastal patrol, and escorting. They've got first rate anti-sub and ant-ship missiles, a helicopter, surface to air missiles, and a 55 million dollar price tag.
Re:Russia's Navy (Score:2)
They can't afford to produce weapons in quantity (Score:2)
This is the core reason the United States no longer sees Russia as a key adversary and also why it won't let Russia into NATO - there is a clear realization that Russia continues to teeter on economic oblivion, and the US doesn't want to have to support Russia when the inevitable Sino-Russian war explodes (the Russians took Chinese territory decades back, and China has always contended that the property would once again be part of China).
Russia is an interesting place - it has interesting technology but teeters on the brink of becoming a third world nation.
If you're interested in the Russian Navy (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If you're interested in the Russian Navy (Score:2)
Re:If you're interested in the Russian Navy (Score:2)
Amongst the other interesting stuff are some very large hovercraft (that I have seen in shipyards in St. Petersburg) and some ground-effect ships (mostly in/around the Black Sea).
Janes [janes.com] is very good as a source of information, but they cost big bucks for a subscription.
My Christmas List? (Score:2, Offtopic)
I've always wanted to know where I could pick up a battle tank. That and enough equipment to equip an infantry company or two. I wonder if they take VISA.....
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Links don't work? Try this... (Score:3, Informative)
Some older info (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.janes.com/defence/naval_forces/news/jdw /jdw010417_3_n.shtml [janes.com]
Here's the tidbit of interest: "The admiral also told reporters that the navy was launching the construction of the new Project 20380 corvettes, which will be used for coastal patrol, escort and antisubmarine warfare operations. The first of class is scheduled to be laid down at the Severnaya Verf shipyard in St Petersburg later this year. The design of this 1,900t stealthy corvette was developed by the Almaz Central Marine Design bureau."
Note that this article uses the term "stealthy corvette," which I suspect may have a different connotation from the 'stealth' technology we're generally used to.
Chinese are gonna love this thing (Score:2)
Bon Voyage, destination: Taiwan
Using Illegal Technology (Score:3, Funny)
On the bridge are numerous PCs, which (amongst other things) allow the ship's manuals to be read in Adobe e-Book format *and* PDF format.
In other news... (Score:2, Funny)
The plan is designed to protect intelligent Russian Software Engineers like Dimitry Sklyarov.
When asked for comment, Directory of Foreign Technological Relations, Boris Imatrov said "The US is quickly becoming a very oppressive government. In order to protect out technological interest we created Project 20380".
The plan is to man the vessel with the top 200 "hackers" living in Russia. In exchange for near total protection from US persecution (the ship is armed to the teeth and invisible to radar), the geeks will be responsible for making sure she is always patched with the latest Linux kernel and is resistant to all but the most coordinated DDOS attacks.
stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2, Funny)
Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:3, Informative)
I took a little Russian in college (or rather, I took 13 credit hours worth and remember little ;^) ). "Medved" (prounounced a little more lik Myedvyed) is "bear", so "medvedka" is a diminutive form, i.e. a cute nickname* like "cute little bear". Check out this nifty online dictionary [berkeley.edu] for things like this (type in "medved", hit "transliterate input", and away you go (if your machine and browser can handle cyrillic anyway).
*similarly "vod" is water, so "vodka" is "little water that we all know and love" ;^) [not to single out the Russians as heavy drinkers, iirc whiskey (the english mangling of the original gaelic anyway) meant "water of life"]
Re:Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2)
Getting off on an offtopic tangent here, but I once read a Scientific American article on the history of alcohol consumption. Turns out that the Gaelic translation is closer to the mark than you'd think, and not as a play on the joys of inebriation.
See, before we had nifty things like water treatment and chlorination, drinkng plain water was pretty risky. Cholera, for example, was a severe problem in many urban areas in the last few centuries. So how does one get rehydrated without killing themselves? The answer, my friends, is booze. The alcohol kills whatever nasty microorganisms might be there, so going on a bender would have been much healthier then than we would consider it today. ('Course, to be fair, they didn't know microorganisms caused disease, but I can imagine common wisdom saying "Ah, a nip of scotch never killed anyone...")
Re:Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2)
Totally off topic, but it is quite true that wine, whiskey and other well-known fermented or fruit beverages were the only way to avoid drinking the very polluted water in most parts of the world (should we give africa grape-vines instead?).
Only in the last century, to my knowledge, have we even known how to preserve fruit juice without letting it ferment (thanks Welch's [welchs.com]).
Re:Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2)
Pasteurization, the same basic thing with lower temperatures, was "invented" 150 years ago [encyclopedia.com].
--Blair
Re:Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2)
Re:Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2)
--Blair
Re:Medvedka Re:stick it in yakhont yawhore! (Score:2)
Maybe a moderate alcohol consumption with risky water etc, but not alcohol by itself.. might as well be drinking salt water. Go ask a health specialist if you don't believe me..
So... (Score:2, Funny)
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (Score:2)
Whatever you think about the treaty, you have to give the Bush administration credit for their ability to manipulate the media and divert attention away from the important issues.
How to find an invisible ship (Score:2, Interesting)
Also a moving ship will have a thermal signature from the exhausting of heat/smoke through the smoke stack. Again visible on satellites. But could be reduced by cooling the exhaust.
To make the ship invisible visually there's always the old dazzle paint jobs from WWII (look at an old photo of a warship from that era) that works by disrupting the visual signature of the ship.
I believe that also the lastest method is to "fog" the air around the ship by spraying seawater into a fine mist.
Any other ideas?
Norwegian Navy is getting stealthy boats (Score:2, Interesting)
How apropos (Score:3, Informative)
Article is just wrong (Score:2, Troll)
And we are already building a fleet of stealth ships. DD-21 [dd21.org] is our program to build new stealth ships. Our ships seem to have all the capabilities plus more. The difference is that we are very far in the development of the ships. The site has lots of cool PDFs include some cool artist renditions. The program was originally going to just create one class of ships but very recently was changed to create a whole new fleet of ships. The overall design goal is to increase lateral capabilities (ability to assist ground war by approaching shore and traveling down rivers). The program has recently been renamed to DD-X to reflect this goal.
As far as not being able to stop their missiles, that again is just not true. Aegis [aegis-alliance.org] ships - a program I'm proud to be a part of - have been working on TBMD (Theatre Ballistic Missile Defense) for quite some time. This is different from NTW (National Theatre Wide) or what is common referred to as national missile defense. TBMD is not effected at all by the ABM treaty so that has been being developed for quite some time.
There are a lot of posts about Norway having stealth ships or other countries having stealth ships. The greatest part of the Norwegian Navy is their new frigates which runs Aegis. We sell alot of our technologies to other countries. Our Naval program is just so much better than any other countries. That's one of the benefits of having so many warm water ports.
This article is not even Russian government hype but just some newspaper trying to make a story that's just not there.
Re:Article is just wrong [BAD LINK] (Score:2)
That's actually the page of the Blue Team (Lockheed Martin & Bathe Iron Works). The Gold Team has a page too http://www.dd21goldteam.com [dd21goldteam.com] which is composed of Raytheon and Ingels Shipyard.
Two teams are designing ships in order to produce the best one. It's pretty late in the phase though and the contract was actually supposed to be awarded a while ago. Who knows what will happen know since 9/11 though and Bush's plans to restructure everything.
Re:The US stealth ship will run Windows. (Score:2)
It's not uncommon for things to be prototyped on one system and then ported to another system for the tactical environment. There is some pretty harsh requirements for tactical equipment. It's a hardware thing so there's not many choices for tactical platforms.
They obviously aren't going to put a dell laptop on the ship but it's a hell of a lot cheaper to develop on 2k dell laptops than it is to go out and get a bunch of HP workstations.
The US allready got a stealth ship (if they want). (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.knmskjold.org/
And yes, some of the test systems are running Linux (because I, together with others, developed one of them.) We used RealTime Linux and Qt to make a distributed failsafe system for analyzing payload from optical sensors on the hull.
RE: Who needs stealth boats... (Score:2, Insightful)
Naval force is invaluable in modern warfare; there are numerous examples but an obvious one is the current action in Afganistan, a landlocked nation. Without the current cooperation from previously hostile nations, naval air power could have still done the job.
Stealth aircraft are neither undetectable nor invulnerable to intercept by missiles. Serbian forces were able to shoot down 2 stealth fighters in action against the former Yugoslavia. Conventional radar has extreme difficulty detecting them but there are currently 2 different methods to track them; both systems are well known to US and Soviet military and have been tested by both nations (and no doubt others).
Russia needs professional navy, not stealth ships (Score:4, Interesting)
The Kursk sank on a training mission, and according to a revealing and meticulously researched print article in the October, 2001 issue of Men's Journal, the two primary reasons for the tragic death of the entire crew were: 1) faulty cheaper torpedoes, and 2) a Russian fleet chain of command that put covering their asses before the welfare of their sailors.
The Russian Navy is in dire straits [csmonitor.com]. Submarine crews spend much of their time foraging for food. Their morale is terrible, training quality is low, and discipline is not what it should be.
Having the best equipment in the world is no substitute for having well-trained, motivated, sailors. Until the Russians can completely overhaul their Cold War-oriented, top-heavy, political-appointee command structure, and start spending money on training and sailors rather than on huge new weapons programs, they'll continue their rapid descent into military irrelevance.
Further reading about the Russian military from sources around the world:
BBC [bbc.co.uk]
India [ganashakti.com]
Russia [wps.wm.ru]
Don't forget Sweden! (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/visby/ [naval-technology.com]
Interesting Political Climate in Russia (Score:2)
Putin is trying to project the image that Russia is still strong and able to take a lead to a domestic audience.
Re:STEALTH (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:US stealth craft (Score:2, Funny)
Re:US stealth craft (Score:2, Informative)
The details of the Stealth Ship in the movie are here. [ianfleming.org]
Re:Who needs stealth boats.. (Score:5, Funny)
An old Cold War joke (Score:3, Funny)
Sepaking of Aegis Cruiser... (Score:3, Informative)
I know you slashdotters are gonna love this one [info-sec.com]
Re:The US had this planned long ago (Score:2)