h a l f b a k e r yKeep out of reach of children.
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The length of a ship is generally known to those attacking it. Precision munitions and timing is now possible in anti-ship missiles. This additional software carried on an anti-ship missile would calculate the length of a ship, use the known speed of sound in steel, and attempt to explode at the proper
time to resonate its shockwave with any other nearby attacking warhead. Two warheads could thereby be much more destructive together.
(?) These are cutless
https://www.nzheral...ZHB4THJ62VT32JWRZQ/
From the strange ideas department comes DentalSlim [wjt, Jul 11 2021]
[link]
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What's wrong with simply swinging across on ropes
to board them with teeth clenched cutlasses? |
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A pirate's orthodontist could offer special retainers, so the
pirate could keep their cutlass in at night. |
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Resonance is also a function of configuration, joint
strength, cross-bracing, etc. |
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In principle, constructively interfering shock waves
would really be something. Like a shaped charge
except the shaping is achieved by synchronization of
many small charges instead of shaping a single
large charge. Sounds expensive though. |
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How about a swarm of heavy barnacle drones? Any ship thus attacked would quickly become overloaded on one side and turn turtle. |
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I always thought anti-ship missiles were scary stuff, but a
recent encounter with the (ex) USS New Jersey suggests that
modern anti-ship missiles are in the business of piercing an
inch or so of armor and exploding. With the New Jersey's
foot or so of armor, they'd only be left with scraping the
remains of the missile off and repainting. So, resonance
wouldn't help much there. Also, battleships are cool. |
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It's my firm belief that about 2 years into the next real war and after numerous hubris-reducing military disasters ships will have real armor again. Stability is a red herring: inherent stability via buoyancy has worked well enough until now but when powerful attacks can come from any angle and sensors need to remain outside the ship it's just silly to designate part of the ship as "topside and light". Modern warships should be shaped like cylinders and should need very little in the way of passively keeping one side up. There should be active roll control and it should be possible to operate the ship at any level of roll up to and including upside down! |
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Now that we've done away with that fragility-inducing topside-bottom-side we can armor the full outside of the ship as thick as we like because we can just make the thing larger without adding nearly as much to the cost. No need for a complete re-design based on the new stability numbers. No need for moving engines and fuel tanks lower and those delicate pink bags of water higher. No need for complex strain calculations around a square corridor with a "this side up" constraint and a connection to an angled hull. Make it as large as fits the budget, and if the water line turns out to be one inch from the top so much the better. |
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Standard steel braces cost much, much less than 5000 different shapes and sizes of aluminum, kevlar, and steel braces. Design the ship around other constraints and only then decide which side is up based on which side happens to be heavier. |
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And no, this doesn't make every ship cost as much as a submarine. There's no need to add all the cost and complexity of planning for long periods underwater, pressure hulls, diving and surfacing, hiding from sonar, and moving silently. Just keep it on the surface. |
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//Modern warships should be shaped like cylinders and should need very little in the way of passively keeping one side up. There should be active roll control and it should be possible to operate the ship at any level of roll up to and including upside down!// |
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Why... if only an Archimedes screw hull could rotate around a stationary ballast! |
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Any blast would be at least partially deflected and the crew itself could remain upright. |
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Oh!, if only the patent for such a thing weren't firmly in the public domain now since First-To-Invent was unconstitutionally stolen from the American people in 2014 rendering it untouchable with a ten foot pole. |
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//It's my firm belief that about 2 years into the next real
war and after numerous hubris-reducing military disasters
ships will have real armor again.// |
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I agree. The current thinking is that missiles can be built
that defeat any armor, so, don't bother with the armor.
The new key to survivability is stealth. But we've heard
that before, and it's the F-15 and not the F-22 production
line that's still chugging along. Stealth is a workable
theory in aircraft because the speed and mobility adds to
the stealth, if you don't know where they are AND they
can be anywhere in a short space of time, it's hard to
work with. With ships, they're constrained completely in
altitude, have no terrain to hide in, are huge and slow
moving. You can hammer away at 100 mile stretch of
ocean secure in the knowledge a destroyer won't zip
across in in the 5 mins you're not looking. |
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One good argument for armor is that everyone else has
down-armored. Missiles have followed. Build a modern
battleship and it will be completely invulnerable to all
current non-nuclear anti-ship missiles. Meaning you
obsolete the arsenal of multiple nations and force a
development cycle of missiles and possibly the ships that
carry them. The re-activation of the Iowa-class
battleships in the 80's sent the Soviets into somewhat of a
tizzy for this reason. Even if by the 80's, the gun crews
couldn't hit a small island reliably. |
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//Modern warships should be shaped like cylinders// |
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eh, not sure about that. Submarines are cylinders and no-
one likes being on the surface in a sub. Ships are a pretty
mature technology. |
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//Standard steel braces cost much, much less than 5000
different shapes and sizes of aluminum, kevlar, and steel
braces.// |
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Ships are steel. Steel is an astonishingly mature
technology. It's also dirt cheap to buy, build, use, repair
and modify. The core ship should be steel, conventional
and if possible modular for maximum adaptability. The F-
15 is a model here, as a core aircraft it's astonishingly
capable, and all the new toys can be bolted right on.
Ships are like that, but moreso. |
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