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SEAL Ship: Silent But Deadly

Every shipbuilder in the Navy these days talks about how his hulking destroyer or Cold War sub is now going to sneak SEALs onto shore. A couple of weeks back, Military.com overlord Chris Michel was down in San Diego, and saw a pretty cool new prototype ship that's been designed from scratch to handle the mission.

The 89-foot, 60-ton Stiletto will be one of the quickest ships in the fleet, using four Caterpillar C32 engines to cruise at 50 knots or more. It'll also be one of the sneakiest, according to New Scientist.

Stiletto's hull has a double-M shape that channels the wake under the craft. There it mixes with oncoming air to produce froth that lifts the ship part-way out of the water, reducing drag and increasing stability, says Greg Glaros, the programme's leader at the defence department's Office of Force Transformation.

While a crew of three runs the Stiletto, a dozen SEALs can slip off the back of the ship, in an 11-meter rigid inflatable boat -- or they can send a set of flying drones out on spy missions from the upper deck. The ship can stay on station for eight hours while the robots or the special forces are out on their operations. And the Stiletto can keep an even keel while it waits; it's cleared to operate in Sea State 5 -- waves twelve feet high and 157 feet long.

If the Stiletto works out as planned, it'll be good news for special forces. Because while every ship-maker says they've come up with the ideal commando-delivery system, several of the options haven't worked out as planned.

Take the Advanced SEAL Delivery System. "The subs were originally expected to cost $80 million each; the first one alone has cost $446 million," notes the Times-Dispatch. "The vessel was noisier than planned -- bad news for a submarine. Designs were changed to muffle the sound, and now the mini-sub vibrates too much." Which is defnitely not how commandos like to travel.

UPDATE 1:28 PM: Of course, Inside Defense had details on the ship months ago. A few:

* One reason for the unique shape is the ship was designed like an aircraft... OFT’s first director, Arthur Cebrowski, who died last month, was “very firm that we’re going to build an aircraft on the sea"... The hull has four distinct arches, which look like wings, that utilize air pressure to funnel water and glide along the surface.

 

* Through its “maritime data bus,” or on-board computer, the vessel will have the ability to “plug and play” with different sensors, linking with unmanned vehicles and other crafts of varying sizes, he said. With only one panel of windows for looking ahead, Stiletto will use deck cameras to give the crew a sense of what is happening around the ship.

* Production of the Stiletto prototype began in October 2004, costing $6 million in funds from OFT. Nearly the same amount has been earmarked by OFT and SOCOM combined for experimentation and testing.

 

 

 

 

UPDATE 2:37 pm: As C-Low notes in the comments, the latest issue of Defense Technology International has the Stiletto on the cover.

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A source who has seen some of the final sequences of the 007 movie describes the mysterious ship Bond must slip aboard to complete his mission.

The stealth ship that 007 NEWS first reported looks like the one Lockheed Martin developed for the the US Navy. The ship's angular design allows for it to have a low radar signature making it almost undetectable by enemy radar.

Bond somehow manages to enter the boat from underneath - between its side 'fins,' according to a source.

There is a full scale model of the underneath of the ship at Pinewood Studios where the production is currently filming.

Exterior full size shots of the stealth ship were filmed earlier this summer at the tanks in Rosarito, Mexico which were also used in the filming of Titanic. Apparently the 6ft model used in those sequences has heavier armor and is more weathered looking, but is basically the same as the Sea Shadow, states the source.

The 007 stage at Pinewood Studios houses the set for the interior of the stealth ship as well as the place where Bond manages to break into the boat, writes the source.

The source says that the set and the entire stealth ship sequences look very cool. The rest of us will just have to wait until the movie comes out -- December 19th in the US and December 12th in the UK.

Please Note: The Solar Navigator designs are not Stealth Ships.  The solar swing wing concept has undergone continuous design, development and testing since 1995.   Each new season our team incorporate improvements into an updated test bed model for evaluation purposes.  Every effort is made to accurately reflect the latest amendments on this site.   However, the specification of the final vessel is subject to change without notice.

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