Insider's Look at High-Tech High-Speed Navy Vessel 408
Xidus writes "Computerworld is running an article on the technology behind the US Navy's newest HSV (High Speed Vessel), focusing on interfaces designed to reduce the number of personnel needed on the bridge. Lots of pretty pictures. No word on OSes, although Mozilla is mentioned, and UNIX-ish desktops are visible, along with some nifty virtual-reality tactical displays. Would you like to play a game?"
off the shelf? (Score:5, Funny)
hmm I guess I've been shopping on the wrong shelves
Re:off the shelf? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:off the shelf? (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, they can remotely control the ship through a Mozilla interface. How cool is that?
Re:off the shelf? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:off the shelf? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:off the shelf? (Score:5, Insightful)
LORAN and GPS have been commercially available in civilian navigation systems for ages. Computer navigation and steering is not new. I'm a little surprised that the damage-control isn't customized, but the rest isn't that unusual. In general, a ship is a ship is a ship, and the problem of problems of making it stay afloat and go where you want are the same for military and non-military craft.
Re:off the shelf? (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell me about it... many modern ships employ the use of electrnoic throttle and rudder controls. Works just fine, unless you pop a fuse, then you're stuck with last speed and rudder settings, at least from the ferries i've seen. You would think they would employ some form of dead man's switch, where throttle is cut in the event this happens, but that would make far too much sense.
Re:off the shelf? (Score:5, Interesting)
First was a warship patrolling in the Arctic during one of the world wars (think first), and saw an enemy ship in the distance - so fired a torpedo. Problem was, the torpedo's rudder mechanism wasn't designed to handle the cold water and jammed. Described a beautiful arc while the ship carried on steaming ahead and hit the ship that had fired it in the engine room, putting it out of commission for the rest of the war.
Second was a training vessel running exercises in Portsmouth harbour in the UK. Fairly old ship with a mechanical signalling device from bridge to engine rooms - which jammed at half speed astern, and when attempting to unjam it was stuck on full astern. So, first mate sent down to engine room to countermand the order - made no headway against most of the ship's company bailing out having realised what was happening in a fairly small space too late to stop it. The ship rammed a concrete jetty at something like 15 knots in reverse. This compressed it by several feet and resulted in the only injury - one unfortunate seaman was halfway through a deck hatch at the point of impact and the pressure difference this caused shot him out like a bullet from a gun and quite a way into the air.
Re:off the shelf? (Score:3, Funny)
*YAWN* and those new-fangled engines are no good because as soon as you blow a rod you're stuck in the water with no sails. And those sails, don't get me started....in certain seas you can go into irons for days and if you don't have oars....
Don't even get me started on getting rid of swords in favor of pistols as sidearms!
Re:off the shelf? (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest advantage is that it allows relatively modern tech to be installed on ships. Back when I started in the late 80's, the fire-control stations on a typical sub had a staggering 64K of RAM. But it takes so long to certify new H/W and S/W that there was typically a 10 year lag betweeen inception and implementation. Now with COTS it's a much shorter turnaround time. The downside is that this stuff is not shock qualified, has an unproven history for long-term shipboard environmental service, and is potentially bug-ridden (don't worry, they don't let COTS equipment launch nukes).
Re:off the shelf? (Score:3, Informative)
Would you like to play a game? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Would you like to play a game? (Score:4, Funny)
but I'm sure it knows how to play global thermonuclear war!
Re:Would you like to play a game? (Score:3, Funny)
How about a nice game of chess?
(Sorry, someone had to... ;-))
Impressive (Score:4, Funny)
Some impressive IT, that, if that's the state of the AI / cyborgs on board.
Well, if it runs linux (Score:4, Funny)
Join the navy.... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally!!!!! A military carreer for the overweight masses of X-box, Nintendo and PlayStation owning couch-potatos.
Re:Join the navy.... (Score:2)
Ahh - soon they'll just have a robotic ship then and save on military wages.... *grins* - just some general pressing buttons miles from the battlefield...
Re:Join the navy.... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Join the navy.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Join the navy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
but 'Millitary outsourcing' has been going on so long they have a word for it... Mercenary
Yes, even internal to nations the military duties are often outsourced by paying someone who needs the money.
How many of the sons and daughters of current politicians serve in the military?
Given the many lives at stake, the only people even possibly qualified to make grave decisions about going to war, of authorizing people to kill and to risk being killed, are those that have experienced those same horrors firs
Re:Join the navy.... (Score:3, Insightful)
George H.W. Bush served in the national guard (his father was director of the CIA and later president). Al Gore Jr served in vietnam (his father was a US senator.) John McCain spent a lont time in the Hanoi Hilton (his father was an admiral). That's just off the top of my head in recent memory.
Re:Join the navy.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not so far out as you might think. This may be Urban Legend (tell me if so), but there is a tale of exactly this.
About 20 years ago, in the days of Pac-Man and similar, when computer games were only available in bars and arcades, the people building the North Sea oil rigs were having trouble: the Remote Operated Vehicles they used for deep-water inspection and minor repairs were too difficult for the operators to control. So they sent out recruiters to hire the top players in the arcades of Aberdeen. And, allegedly, it worked: the arcade warriors were much better ROV operators than the serious engineers.
Netzero? (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, i think netzero tried to sell me on that crap about six months ago
No AOL! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Netzero? (Score:3, Informative)
But still I wish the
Pictures of the ship (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pictures of the ship (Score:4, Informative)
Agility and cunning vs. raw power (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks cool. I always wondered why navies never seemed to use multi-hulled ships, given their speed and handling characteristics. I guess in the days when all that mattered was the size of your gun and the thickness of your armour, it was a bit irrelevent.
If the rules are changing and speed/tactical operations are the New Way, I wonder whether high manoeuvrability "tanks" will be back on the agenda as well, then? They were never much good in the old days, when the accuracy of your opponent's gun was so bad that even if you dodged you might take an unlucky hit anyway (when armour would still protect you, of course) but if we're all about agile units able to get in and out quickly and stealthily now...?
Incidentally, am I the only one who spotted loads of cool things about the ship in the original article... except for any offensive capability (other than via aircraft)? If it's a multi-role vessel, you'd have thought it would carry some sort of firepower, even if only for self-defence!
If you'd have to kill me, don't tell me. :o)
Re:Agility and cunning vs. raw power (Score:5, Informative)
The Soviets were the first ones to realize that a $500,000 50' cutter (say a Namchuka class missile corvette) with a big anti-ship missile could disable or sink a $20 billion aircraft carrier. Of course a heavy machine gun could sink the ship, but Soviet sailors were just conscripts anyway.
As unsexy as it is, they have a point. A modern aircraft carrier battle groups is vulnerable to attack and has to stay as far as 500 miles offshore to avoid shore-based missile batteries. A single SCUD missile with a big nuke could disable an entire US CVG.
Re:Agility and cunning vs. raw power (Score:3, Informative)
A SCUD would be irrelevant for this purpose -- a carrier group would never come into range (and I've read that SCU
They already exist (Score:4, Informative)
Okay, so I watch the History Channel and I love Mail Call with R. Lee Ermey. The fact is that there ARE high speed "tanks" of a sort. The army and marines both have light attack vehicles which are fasted and armored, but not nearly as well fortified as a M1A1. The Marine's main assault vehicle is in fact amphibious, useful for beach landings and fording rivers. The Marine's vehicle is also wheeled and mounts a 30 mm gun, much smaller than the devastating gun mounted on the M1A1.
I wish I had links for you, but those types of tanks have been in existence for years. The navy may be behind a bit because with the size and cost of the craft, the development cycle of new naval tech is often a little longer.
Re:Agility and cunning vs. raw power (Score:3, Informative)
INCAT's specs for the Evolution 10B:
The debate above is sort of moot, since the PDF specs for HSV2 from INCAT list a max speed of 38 knots fully loaded at 627 tonnes deadweight. However, the external profiles and dimensions are nearly identical, and the Evolution 10B lists a max speed of 36 knots at 750 tonnes. The 10B lists 40 kts at 375 tonnes and the HSV2 specs 42 knts at 300 tonnes.
(Aside: it kinda makes the Nimitz-class carriers more impressive whe
Re:Pictures of the ship (Score:4, Informative)
If you want to see more than a few exterior shots, try this PDF [incat.com.au] from the manufacturer. Page 6 has some nice deck by deck diagrams with lots of info if you zoom in real close. The helo storage bay is a nice touch.
New in Gentoo portage! (Score:2, Funny)
Hmmm... Who mans the fire hoses? (Score:5, Insightful)
"uses paperless charts"
It worries me that China is working on an anti-satellite warfare, and the military keeps marching down the GPS for everything road. WWIII could see a lot of pretty hardware sitting at the docks while the navigator runs down to supply to see if they have any "old fashioned" compasses and charts.
Oh well. The military knows what they are doing, right?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmmm... Who mans the fire hoses? (Score:5, Interesting)
With everything being "off the shelf" hardware, how much emp it can take is a good question. There are test facilities [navy.mil].
I can understand mil-rad hardened transistors surviving, but all that stuff clearly has to use low voltage CMOS that can be blown if there is a nearby lightning strike.
I think most worrisome is a computer glitch (not to mention a bullet) hitting the right server at the right place to cause the ship to be dead in the water because engine/navigation controls don't work.
If it could bring down an Osprey helicopter, [ncl.ac.uk] one has to wonder about ships also.
Being the military, they probably (or should) have taken such things into account when deploying the systems.
You also have to wonder how much time they spend patching all the software.
Re:Hmmm... Who mans the fire hoses? (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like the USS Yorktown [gcn.com] in 1998?
Re:Hmmm... Who mans the fire hoses? (Score:5, Informative)
EMP is not now a new threat. You can bet the Navy have thought of it.
Too much tech? (Score:2)
Isn't this the same military that wants the OICW [hkpro.com]? (Well, the senior officers seem to, anyway. The guys who are actually going to trust their lives to it don't seem so sure.)
Hasn't anyone watched Tomorrow Never Dies? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, you might have a problem deploying your transmitters near enough to a Navy vessel to be effective, unless you happen to have your own LEO satellites, carrying otherwise legitimate earthbound communication/TV/etc....
Re:Hmmm... Who mans the fire hoses? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh well. The military knows what they are doing, right?
Actually, in many cases they do.
Speaking as an ex-tanker, tank gunnery qualification involves numerous "degraded mode" exercises. Some engagements you have everything- computer, thermal sight, rangefinder, healthy gunner, etc. For others you only have parts of that, or perhaps just the backup optical telescope with an aiming reticule (M105D for my tank).
Very very smart. Then again, I knew a fair number of gunners who *only* used the M105D in every daylight exercise, no matter what they were allowed to use. (It's obviously useless at night) They generally got good scores- you can guesstimate the target distance pretty well and with a bit of windage correction you can get shots off a lot faster than with all the bells and whistles.
Re:Hmmm... Who mans the fire hoses? (Score:3, Interesting)
Open the bomb bay doors, Hal (Score:2, Funny)
Just curious... (Score:3, Insightful)
win2k is allowed (Score:4, Informative)
UNIX-ish desktops? (Score:5, Informative)
this looks liks [computerworld.com] windows to me. This [computerworld.com] even has the windows default titlebar fade action going on.
Re:UNIX-ish desktops? (Score:2)
I'm also pretty sure this is the same ship we laughed about a couple years back because it's Windows NT -based navigation and propulsion controllers failed, and the ship had to be towed back to port.
I remember this dearly, as a mac user
Re:UNIX-ish desktops? (Score:2)
Oh dear, there is even a command line shell........" shutdown -nuke Now"
Re:UNIX-ish desktops? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, it's second-hand. (Score:2, Insightful)
For sure the cheapest way to obtain a new fast vessel class for a navy! Common sense, really: use commodity hardware.
US Navys's HSV 1 "Joint Venture" is a similar arrangement (it's actually Incat's first 96-metre ship, in previous civil life served as "De
Re:Its being rented. (Score:2)
For the link impaired, here is the website. [incat.com.au]
So, the only questions that remain is if the 11.4 mil includes phone support, and are they going to put the ship on ebay when they are done with it?
Dual hulled... (Score:2)
Re:Dual hulled... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also more maneuverable due to having its twin screws so widely separated. Forward on one screw and reverse on the other and the ship comes about in its own length (pretty much).
The ship also doesn't need to be ballasted in the same manner as a monohull, because of the inherent stability of its broad beam.
The disadvantages include the inability to right itself if capsized and a more complex compartment layout.
Re:Dual hulled... (Score:4, Informative)
This boat is an Incat [incat.com.au] fast ferry, built in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Incat have made about 40% of the large fast catermaran ferries around the world.
They used to run an Incat ferry across Bass Strait from Tasmania to mainland Australia. It would get from Devonport (Tasmania) to Melbourne in about 6 hours - the traditional ferries took 14 hours. Quite a difference, and it's really neat being on a boat that size when it starts moving. However, Bass Strait has some pretty impressively bad weather (try looking for Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race to get an idea)... The Incat ferries were just not suited to it (for the general public, anyway).
They can still move quickly if you don't mind lots of extremely sick people on board (soldiers are supposed to be tough, right?). Incat have won (and currently hold) the trans-Atlantic Blue Riband (Hales Trophy) [vulkanusa.com] (and have actually won it three times - usually while delivering their ferries!) - with an average speed of 38.8 knots (about 72km/h)
Re:Dual hulled... (Score:2)
I saw the HSV 2 Swift (from a distance) in Hobart last year while at the SAGE-AU [sage-au.org.au] conference.
Nearby was another Aussie-built naval vessel, a Huon-class coastal minehunter [navy.gov.au] - I forget which one, probably HMAS Yarra. You wouldn't know from looking at them that they have a glass-reinforced plastic hull!
Damage Control (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damage Control (Score:2)
Nowadays, there is so much overkill-factor that being hit at all is almost sure death for the ship. Thats why ECM and phalanx guns are much more important than any crew trying to fix what a torpedo or cuise missile has left to fix (meaning not much)
Re:Damage Control (Score:5, Informative)
Take the number of modern-navy ships sunk by battle damage post-Vietnam. Now take the number damaged post-Vietnam. The latter is considerably greater than the former. I'll work backwards a bit here, but I might get a few transposed.
USS Cole: Kamikaze floating bomb. Sealifted home, repaired.
USS Princeton: Mine impact, with sympathetic detonation of a second nearby mine. Severe structural damage, fires, cracked superstructure, flooded magazine. Ship was capable of conducting air action within two hours, stayed on station as local AAW command vessel for an additional 30 hours until relieved.
USS Samuel B. Roberts: Mine impact. Sealifted home and repaired.
USS Stark: Two Exocet strikes, with one missile detonation. Sailed home under her own power, and repaired.
Damage control is the difference between the Stark, which took two Exocets and sailed home, and the HMS Sheffield, which took a single dud Exocet, burned from stem to stern, and sunk under tow. It is taken *exteremely* seriously by the US Navy, and while we don't plate ships with inches of steel armor any more, rest assured that a lot of money is spent on redundant systems, DC training, shock-hardening, and "armor of form" to allow ships to continue fighting after they get hit, and to make it home for repairs. Even if we're not talking about combat, there are all sorts of Bad Things that can happen to ships. Take a look at the Belknap [navysite.de](collided with the Kennedy, fuel spill, fire, basically burned down to the waterline), the Forrestal [navy.mil], or the Enterprise [bigefire.com] for examples.
It's accidents like those that drove home how unbelieveably important damage control is. Yes, if a Mach 2+ SS-N-19 delivers its 750 kilogram warhead successfully, the ship's a definite mission-kill at the least. But there are a whole host of less-destructive situations that can result in disaster with bad DC, so DC is considered somewhat...important. No, damage control isn't what it was in WW2: It's a helluva lot better.
Re:Damage Control (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Damage Control (Score:4, Informative)
The Sheffield's superstructure was not aluminum, it was solid steel [btinternet.com], like her hull, and like the superstructure and hull of all Type 42s.
And, no, the missile did not detonate [ayup.co.uk].
What made the fire so catastrophic was not the mythical aluminum superstructure, but rather than the missile severed the fire mains, making shipboard firefight all but impossible.
Re:Damage Control (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because this is a Navy vessel doesn't mean it's a combat vessel. This is a technology evaluation and demonstration vessel. Nobody expects it to go into combat and take hits. It's so the Navy can play around with all this stuff, see what works, what doesn't work, and incorporate the bits that work into new warship designs. This thing ain't getting anywhere near a shooting war, so judging it on how it would stand up under fire is somewhat ridiculous.
Re:Damage Control (Score:2)
It's years ago so I may be remembering incorrectly, but didn't the British Navy conclude that the loss of several ships to Exocets was down to a mix of poor design and inadequate damage control?
I've been on it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to be outdone the Army also has it's on vessel aptly called the TSV (Theater Support Vessel).
On the HSV the exercise servers/work stations run Windows, if there were "UNIX-ish" systems there they must have been hiding.
The boat itself is sweet, actually very similar to the "Cat" in Maine. That's the ferry from Nova Scotia to Bar Harbor with a top speed of 55(?) knots or so.
pretty screenshots are all very well... (Score:5, Informative)
I used to work in military research here in the UK, and worked on a project not *too* dissimilar to the COMBATSS/InfoScene bit mentioned in this article (I probably shouldn't divulge exactly how similar or not, for obvious reasons :) ). At least, from the brief mention in the article, it seems to be a similar kind of system, in principle at least.
Our stuff was written as a kind of proof of concept, with a fairly basic GUI (x/motif iirc), and most of the work being done on the data processing to ensure it was an accurate representation of reality.
we once had a meeting with a team from the US who were working on a similar system to our own, the plan being to see if we could benefit from each other's work. they gave us a demonstration of their product, which initially seemed much closer to completion than our own. it had a beautiful 3D interface (much like the screen shot in the article) and they demonstrated how a user could easily pan round in real time and see what was happening with a simple drag-and-click of the mouse.
then we asked them about how they actually processed the data, as this was the most important part of the system (obviously, no matter how good the interface it's a bit pointless if the stuff you're looking at is just plain wrong), which is where things fell apart a little. the actual backend of their system had hardly been started - the stuff we were seeing was all manufactured data created for demos, which kind of negated the entire point of the exercise from our point of view. they had a much larger team working with a much bigger budget than we did, but had effectively just come up with a nice GUI - and it didn't actually do anything that our basic motif GUI didn't, it just had more colours and more 3D stuff. we weren't really interested after that...
the point being that even in the military, even if something looks great on screen is no indication of whether it's actually any use or not. our system was actually deployed and used (on a testing basis) by the UK armed forces - what became of it since then i couldn't say as i got another job soon after, but it was clear that the US system was many months behind our own in terms of usefulness.
and on a slight tangent...
the whole thing reminds me of the well publicised FIST system that was featured on UK TV a few years back - basically trying to bring the infantry soldier into the 21st century using in-helmet HUDs and super smart targeting/comms systems etc... it was developed at the same place I worked but had so many problems i think it was shelved - after huge spending. but then, it did use windows as the underlying OS (don't ask me why), which for a mission-critical system always seemed a bit... stupid.
I often wonder for some of these things whether they were instigated by military ppl out of necessity or genuine improvement, or by politicians who just want things to look good
Re:pretty screenshots are all very well... (Score:4, Insightful)
I cannot understate this......everybody knows that a product with pretty screenshots is easier to sell than an ugly one even if the ugly one is much better at doing what it is supposed to do......but real world experiences have shown me that if a software is pretty it does not even need to do anything at all!
I'm not joking here, I have seen software that has been sold and initially installed purely on the basis of a simulated user interface. Management are happy because it looks pretty, and users just carry doing thier job with "the old system" until such time as the "bugs are ironed out" in the new system. Put another way, a total lack of functional code is just a bug, whilst lack of a pretty screenshot is lack of product.
I hestitate to say this is wrong, however. When I go and look at the home page of a new software package one of the first things I look at is the screenshot, and I rarely look at the todo list or "Known issues" until I have actually installed!
Re:pretty screenshots are all very well... (Score:2)
(Me, I read the issues lists and defer screen shots. Eventually I get to analyzing whether the menus and layouts make sense to me, but that comes long after "does it do what I
Technology & Ships (Score:5, Informative)
At the time, I was mid-way through completion of a computer science degree, which I am currently finishing. I was completely shocked by the lack of pervasive computing on board the ship - a complex environment, where any and all silicon help could prove to be highly advantageous.
Two newly acquired computers, running NaviSailor [vei-systems.com] were onboard, and provided (what most of my fellow mates/luddites took as) advanced information in a no-hassel manner.
There is a great deal of money to be made in the shipping business. It is a complex and intricate profession, and most of the people onboard shipping vessels exhibit a great degree of perfectionism. Afterall, wrecking a multi-million dollar ship with hundreds of thousands of dollars of onboard cargo would be quite disasterous to one's career.
The long and the short is that these people need attention. Here is a niche market ripe for the taking. Custom software geared towards making watches, navigation, and docking less error prone has yet to be made. All you who complain of a lack of work -- that fattest worms are found only by lifting the heavier stones.
-pararox-
Re:Technology & Ships (Score:2)
AFAIK there is some very serious software available, over the years I have seen various applications published in the IEE computing and control journal......but it is probably very difficult to sell to conservative ship owners.
BTW, a couple of years an investigation into a Greek shipping accident revealed that the ship was sailing itself and the crew were all watching a football match. This is a
Re:Technology & Ships (Score:2, Interesting)
" I think you will find that you have to comply with a **lot** of regulations **and** be rock solid and proven."
I can make no claims against this. The Coast Gaurd is highly regulatory, making water travel both safe and very technical. It is for this reason that few (if any) all-encompassing (sp?) software navigation systems have been written. To do so would be a Hurculean
Heh. (Score:3, Interesting)
As a squid who has actually been on board...and whose command was thinking about claiming the ship as our flagship to replace our old one(Gogo Second Fleet!) One interesting fact: The HSV Swift
Between that, and the fact that there's essentially no armor or weapons, I'd personally prefer not to serve on that ship, but then again the final designs that the Navy would have built would presumably be able to take some kind of beating and dish a bit back out.
BS propagation. (Score:4, Interesting)
The U.S. Navy has a new ship in its fleet that officers say may be the most technologically advanced vessel produced to date, with IT capabilities that are revolutionizing naval warfare and may play a vital role in responding to potential terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Officers would say anything to promote their plans. But how such a fine military vessel can play a vital role in responding to potential terrorist attacks, is beyond me. Terrorists most usually attack by carrying explosives with them, into crouded places, or drive ground and air vehicles into their targets. The one exception of sea terrorism that comes to mind is USS Cole, but the vessel described above would be incapable of preventing the USS Cole bombing the way it happened.
When the military talks about terrorism, I run away. They usually talk in order to keep the money coming in. Otherwise, terrorism is something that secret and intelligent services deal with, not the military. The military is unable to defend against terrorism; it can only defend against visible enemies. Terrorism is invisible, especially if t is low tech.
By the way, does the new vessel use Microsoft Windows ? There was an incident, back then, about a US military ship that went dead because of a Windows network bug that propagated itself to all the ship's servers, causing the ship to be dead for over two hours.
Re:BS propagation. (Score:2)
It's not just the military. Everyone on TV who mentions it, and how they can stop it, is simply trying to get more money or more job security. In the case of Bush, both.
Navigation a lost art? (Score:3, Insightful)
I percieve this technology as being really damned useful. Even back in 1983... I was the only person who could figure out how to use the LOMAR(sp) system to gadge our posisition, but never the less took readings with a sextant. For 10 days our readings were within minutes of each other, the new system proved it self, but was still a good practice in the event the electronics failed.
I'm all for technology. GPS is a wonderful thing! Digitaly displayed charts are much easier to deal with then protractor and compass. Electronic and remote controls I can see as being useful. But all these wonderful tools are dependent on electricity to operate. It's my hope they would see the wisdom of using humans, paper charts, compass and sextant in the event of a catastrophic failure. After all, being military and sea salt water and technology don't mix. When push comes to shove, you gotta fight for flee... not continue pushing the crosswalk button in the hopes it does something.
rumours.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Enemy takeover? (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article (talking about the unmanned "Fire Scout"):
Here is one hoping, their encryption is up for it, and their SSL implementation is reliable. Otherwise, "man in the middle attack" may get a new meaning and that "another aircraft" may not be a friendly one...
Re:This is not cool. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is not cool. (Score:4, Insightful)
So your argument is what? -- That defenselessness will always lead to peace and never function (as it has historically) as a magnet for risk-free aggression? "Those that will not bear swords can still die on them" (Tolkien)
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2)
...or that wars would be harder to wage if we - the people - only agreed to fight defensive wars?
Incidentally, Andora (between Spain and France) had, not that long ago, a defense budget that stretched to a clip of ammo. Andora hasn't been invaded recently, not even during the 20th cen
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2)
And if spain decided to attack them, they wouldn't stand any chance whatsoever; if France attacked them..I was going to say something predictable there, i'll leave it at that.
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2)
Andorra might not be the best example
True (although Spain or <ahem> France might find it quite easy to invade...), but I think this just demonstrates that there are reasons besides superior firepower that might make any given country less desirable for invasion. Britain, historically, was weakly armed (no "standing" navy until Henry VIII, no standing army until Cromwell) but rarely invaded. In contrast, Russia has a vast population, a standing army for most of recent history, and history (the Rus
Dear Peace-nik, (Score:3, Insightful)
Please cease the use of any of the following: Computers, all frequency hopping radios such as a cellphone, any device making use of transistors of any sort, aluminum cans, modern four wheel drive vehicals, any civil project which might have involved explosives (most roads, power generated by dams, and possibly drinking water), weather forecasts produced with aid of any satellite
Keeping Sealanes Open (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is not cool. (Score:4, Insightful)
No military weapons were involved when some islamic terrorists drove airplanes into the World Trade Centers and Pentagon killing 3000 people.
In fact, they didn't even use guns, but "box cutters".
Perhaps a more accurate statement would be "as long as there are men, there will be war".
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2)
No. They wanted to see Americans die, and their social agenda (a worldwide islamic state) furthered.
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2)
Fucking A. killing very very bad people. People who are out to destroy me and my family. People who kill at random, using the most terrifying methods as possible.
I cannot believe you are trying to write off the benefit to the world brought by the whole American experiment because of its military-- the same military that defeated the Nazis, the Communists, a whole peanut gallery of pirates, dictators, and terrorists, BTW.
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2, Insightful)
Um, a couple of minor caveats.
All that technology to serve the end of having fewer people be needed to risk their lives.
This doesn't necessarily result in less men in the military. Rather, it could easily result in the same number of men, but more firepower distributed to each man. After rate of fire, individual firepower is something that will decide wars. Just having a machine gun is one thing, but having a machine gun in the hands of every troop is quite another (historical precedence for that).
Re:This is not cool. (Score:2)
If there's another world war brewing, it's probably because of two things: religious extremists (and the nations whose governments support them) and the belligerence and meddling foreign policies of the United States of America (or, to be fairer and more precise, the current government of the United States of America). Neither of these things is going to be fixed by spending a military budget
Re:New tech... same old problems - probably. (Score:2)
Shit. Now the Yanks can accidentally kill their allies from the comfort of their PCs. Great.
I'd just like to point out that death by friendly fire as been around for as long as projectile weapons have been on the field. Yeah, the US military screws up and kills the wrong people, even in peaceful situations, but so does every other military with projectiles and vehicles. That's why they're called "accidents". :)
Re:New tech... same old problems - probably. (Score:2)
I know what you're saying, but the US has far, FAR more friendly-fire accidents than other nations. I mean, it's not often you can think many accidents off the top of your head that you can attribute to one nation: The Canadian observers blown up by USAF figters. The RAF Tornado shot down by patriot missiles. Tha
Re:New tech... same old problems - probably. (Score:2)
There's not much to disagree with, here, so I won't waste our time doing so. :)
Instead, I direct you to US history, where the last serious war we fought in was WWII. Sure, the rest were "serious" in the sense that they involved killing and so forth. Viet Nam was fought with conscript troops, and conscripts are the worst troops you can have. I forget about Korea. Other than that, we've had small engagements, and UN-supported engagements, and very little else. The US doesn't have a long history of war.
Re:New tech... same old problems - probably. (Score:2)
This term always annoys me. What's so goddamn friendly about shooting your allies anyway?
Friendly fire refers to some very distinct situations. For example, your flanks come in faster than expected, and since they're opposite each other, their bullets are likely to fire into each other. If they stop shooting, the enemy that's sandwiched between them will get the upper hand, but if they keep shooting some of their shots will hit the other flank, resulting in casualties by friendly fire. Also, you might
Re:New tech... same old problems - probably. (Score:2)
Would you care to give some examples of British 'friendly fire'? Almost every example of 'friendly fire' I can think of in recent years has been trigger-happy Americans in aircraft shooting British vehicles which were clearly marked as such (the majority of exceptions being trigger-happy Americans shooting other trigger-happy Americans on the ground).
Maybe if Americans thought a little more before shooting, the British mil
Re:Something peculiar here (Score:2)
"As I'm coming into port, you'll see me standing here like this with my hand behind me on the joystick and driving"
Re:hull material (Score:2)
Re:hull material (Score:2, Informative)
In any case, the problem with aluminium is that it is softer and melts more e
Re:video games (Score:2)