Posted on 09/06/2009 8:54:19 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
The XSR military interceptor is the fastest boat ever built and is set to take to the water in the battle against pirates and drug smugglers.
The British-designed vessel travels at almost 100mph, carries a retractable heavy machine gun and would not look out of place in a 007 film.
With a maximum speed of 85 knots (97mph) and carrying a .50 calibre machine gun hidden under the deck, the boat will be able to overhaul “go-fast” drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean and pirate ships off the coast of Somalia.
The vessel is part of a raft of new equipment being shown for the first time at the Defence and Security Exhibition in London.
Hailed as the world’s “most advanced performance and pursuit” vessel the XSR will allow navies to deploy special forces on enemy shores, anti-piracy and smuggling patrols, protecting oil platforms and to intercept unidentified vessels in potential terror attacks.
When the XSR comes within range of an enemy ship the machine gun emerges from the forward hull and is trained on the target using a remote controlled system from the cockpit.
In an era where potential adversaries such as Iran use the “swarm” tactic of multiple fast boats attacking a single big target, the XSR can operate as a counter to the threat.
During the Cornwall incident in 2007 the 14 Royal Navy personnel were taken prisoner by the Iranians partly because their small boats were outgunned and slower than their Iranian captors.
The Royal Navy and other international fleets will be able to examine the boat, co- designed by the part-Government owned company QinetiQ, at the Excel centre in London Docklands.
The XSR, which has done 30,000 nautical miles of testing, can be launched and recovered from a warship and the basic
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Q” strikes again!
Oh man! This XSR military interceptor is so going on my Christmas list...
A Naval surface fighter craft. Pretty cool.
How many skiers can it pull?
Anyone have a doubt what will happen when this boat going 87 knots meets a log floating just beneath the surface?
I can see some large vessels carrying those for protection in brown water
disintegrate?
XSR Interceptor 19 and 14
Top speed: 65 knots or 85 knots
Crew: Seven/four
Passengers -14 seated
Carries: 6,000l fuel, 300l fresh water, 1095kg weapons and ammunition, 500kg stores
Range: 1000 nautical miles
Endurance: 48 hours
Very impressive.
Knowing the way Brits do things, they’ll get one of these things stolen while at tea or toughing it out as idiots; handing over the tech and spec’s to the enemies of the world. Oh, James could you recover our toy. Or may be we will see a Fountain with optional 20mm cannon mounts…as a standard accessory.
Building many of these is more important than one bomb or missile that we will not ever use.
It ain’t worth nuthin’ lessin’ it has a trolling motor and cup holders...
Worthless, no casting platform, baitbox or livewell.
Needs hydrofoils to be a Bond boat.
And a frickin’ laser beam.
Eighty-five knots in an ocean-going vessel?!!
This is clearly an idea whose time has come. Are you kidding me? I could go from slips in either Boston or Newport to Carolina's outer banks in a day. Sweet. If it's under $250K, its a steal. I don't even need the machine gun... :-)
Minus the ordinance, in civilian trim, it could probably be re-tuned for improved weight/ballast/draught-to-power/buoyancy/hydrodynamics ratios, and squeek out another 10-15 knots. You could pull the kids on a tire tube...
;-/
Nee more detail on the specs - what size trailer hitch do I need?
100 mph is not the fastest boat out there.
They must mean Royal Navy boat. There are plenty of boats, that are not even racing craft, on the Chesapeake that can do 100+.
A single 50 cal?
PPpppfffftttt
The U.S. Navy operated combat hydrofoils, such as the Pegasus class, from 1977 through 1993. These hydrofoils were fast and well armed, and were capable of sinking all but the largest surface vessels. In their narcotics interdiction role, they were a nightmare for drug runners, being very fast, and having missiles and guns to stop anything they could not catch, as well as the ability to call in air support
In 1978, Ken Warby set the world record on water at 317mph in the Spirit of Australia.
Not sure that qualifies so much as a boat, as it is a seaplane. I gotta believe that thing is more of a ground-effect float plane than a boat. It even has aircraft identification on it.
If it’s a boat, then wow.
How much?
Hello!!!!! how about the half naked chick!
Yea Baby, that is the ticket!
These puppies will do 110 knots off the shelf.
yitbos
Back in the ‘70’s, a company called Rohr Industries in California came up with several designs for ocean-going surface effect craft capable of 100 knots. The designs were purely for transports; but I can see how they could be used in an interdiction role. The craft were never built, to my knowledge. Interesting concept, though.
This particular boat combines high speed, long range and heavy armament. You can get more speed, but you hve to give up the long range and the heavy armament. Trade-offs like this are very familiar to any engineer.
A single 50 cal?
Another trade-off. Heavier weapons mean slower speed. It also makes the design more top-heavy, making it more likely to roll over in a turn, or during bad weather. Of course it could have a bigger hull to stabilize the heavy weapons, but now you're making it even slower ...
This is more than adequate for anti-pirate operations. The pirates are armed with infantry small arms: the AK-47 and the RPG. Even with top-quality weapons and experienced, well-trained gunners, such weapons have a range of no more than 1000 meters. With their worn-out, Soviet-era weapons and their poorly trained gunners, it's more like 100 meters. A .50-cal. machine gun can engage very effectively at 1500 meters.
These can be the bird dogs, Birdman.
The USS Denison developed by Grumman/General Electric was a hydrofoil powered by a jet turbine engine and it was both very stable/seaworthy and fast as all get out.
I beg to differ... you need it to win the Somali Pirates Turkey Shoot contest! :)
You are too dangerous... :)
I hate to ask but why is that gunner on the starboard side firing into the water?
I’d rather have a drone hanging Hellfires.
It is a diesel-amazing.
Dumb Drednok.
"Now, pay attention !"
Two points off the top of my head, based on some personal experience.
First, the humans inside the boat are the weak point. You can go 100mph on flat water all day and night, but in big ocean waves it’s not so simple, unless you are willing to really punish the crew. As in permanent injury to spines and necks etc. So the top speed is mainly a theoretical number, unless the boats will be manned by robots.
Second, the fifty caliber is a great weapon when it’s fired from a stable platform. Fired from a boat that’s pounding up and down ocean waves, airborne half the time and slamming down the other half, it’s usefulness and accuracy go way, way down.
Sure, once in a while you’ll get into a flat water chase, such as on the Bahama banks, but that’s not a common scenario anymore. The DEA and Bahamas DEU with their helicopters and their own go-fasts have pretty much closed off that line of smuggling that was so common in the 80s.
Also, these boats, if they are going to operate off of Somalia, will need “mother ships” capable of hoisting them aboard and launching them. That pretty much limits the upper size of pursuit boats that will be used on distant blue-water AOs.
Exactly. The Brits (or at least this reporter) are trying to take credit for inventing the wheel.
I agree about the 50 cal being the wrong gun, but not for your reasons, this thing needs a radar slaved 20mm with dampers.
He’s being attacked by sharks with laser beams.
Without the will to blow drug runners out of the water, they are only expensive toys. Be assured that the current administration would happily prosecute the sailors who took the bad guys out!
Kinda catches your eye doesn’t she.
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