Posted on 07/29/2014 8:17:16 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
ARLINGTON, Va. — A small company is offering to the Navy a small, high-speed craft that it says can take on some of the missions of the littoral combat ship (LCS) in regional operations.
The Ghost, a small waterplane-area twin-hull (SWATH) craft designed by Juliet Marine Systems Inc. of Portsmouth, N.H., has been tested in prototype form at sea and has been demonstrated to potential customers, including the U.S. Navy, said Greg Sancoff, chief executive officer of Juliet Marine. The Ghost is designed to perform anti-surface (ASUW) and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) and mine countermeasures (MCM), the three intended roles of the LCS.
Juliet Marine has developed various mission suites for the different roles. An ASUW version could be equipped with an electro-optical (EO/IR) sensor, a radar, an M197 20mm rotary cannon and 32 launch tubes for small missiles such as Nemesis, Griffin or the Advanced Precision-Kill Weapon System. The missile exhaust would be expelled downward between the struts of the SWATH hulls, concealing and dissipating the thermal signature of the launch.
An ASW version could be equipped with an EO/IR sensor, radar, sonobuoy launch tubes, a dipping sonar, and aft-firing torpedo tubes for torpedoes. An MCM version could be equipped with a towing boom lowering and raising towed mine-hunting sonars such as a Kline 5000 or the Raytheon AQS-20.
Development of the Ghost began in 2008 and the prototype was completed in early 2010.
The craft’s hulls are based on the supercavitation features of the rocket-propelled anti-ship torpedoes developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The hulls are controlled by 22 computer-controlled underwater control surfaces. At rest, the Ghost sits in the water on its centerline module. At eight knots, the buoyant hulls, made of high-grade marine aluminum, lift the craft and achieve full stability. The prototype is powered by T53-703 turboshaft engines. Sancoff said the company is moving toward using the General Electric T700 turboshaft engine.
The Ghost also is scalable. A version designed to insert special operations forces would be three feet longer to accommodate a team of special operations personnel. A larger version could perform the role of a corvette-size vessel.
The Ghost as currently designed can be partially disassembled for transport on board a C-17 aircraft and reassembled at the delivery point.
Sancoff said the prototype is being tested weekly, and has achieved speeds in excess of 30 knots and will be tested to the 50-knot range.
Sancoff said the Ghost could be a good fit for the world patrol boat market, which he said will be worth $49 million over the next 10 years. He sees as potential customers Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Qatar.
Juliet Marine has been in high-level discussions with a foreign nation interested in 25 Ghosts for potential sale $300 million.
So here's what worries me about that. The Russkis are tooling about in their 11,000-mile-range ancient Bear turboprop bombers, flown by equally ancient (and deaf) pilots), loaded with 500-600-mile range ASM missiles of one funky Russki sort or another.
Say 25 of'em launch 75 missiles at a CVN from 350 miles or more out ... can we take out ALL 75 missiles? Even if we know where the Bears are, can we survive a sneak attack?
Them big flat decks make me very nervous. I remember my days guarding the Fulda Gap ... the Russkis believe that quantity has a quality all its own. Can they just overwhelm our yachts?
Actually, it has sharks tied to the hull....with lasers.
20 SS-N-19 “Shipwreck”
Sounds like a fleet killer. Wish she was one of hours instead of Russian.
Question would be how well does the CnC Missle pick the high value targets.
Interesting concept
Yeah. (Shaking head). These guys start to believe in heavier-than-air flight and look where they end up. Some of them even think they're going to take off and land from a ship. And just what, I ask you, are they going to do about the sails, hmm?
The whole ironclad thing is a dead end. I mean, come on, guys, iron sinks, right?
Similar
http://www.startrek.com/uploads/assets/db_articles/aee83a969d3ee604f5961a9e884689ba25ca52b0.jpg
A torpedo tube for torpedoes, what will they think of next?
Which brings to mind a saying of an old submariner friend of mine.
“Ships of War: there’s submarines and everything else is a target”.
It’s very disappointing that Sea Power magazine can’t get hullforms right. But when you pull your copy directly from a company press release, you get what you get. Ghost is a trimaran that becomes a catamaran when going fast enough; it is not a SWATH. Look up the T-AGOS 19 class or T-AGOS 23 if you want to know what a real SWATH looks like.
They can aim them and yell “PewPew” on the com.
“...But when you pull your copy directly from a company press release,...”
Happens a lot...
Apparently that has become a mandatory course in “journalism” school.
Think it’s more just a case of the journalist being too lazy to do research...
That was my point. I could understand the NYT or WaPo not knowing one ship type from another, but Sea Power is supposedly dedicated to that area of knowledge.
Deadline to get the article out the door?
You know, the old “Just go with we got, and just get it done!” mentality.
That’s probably what happened.
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