U.S. LAUNCHES CATAMARANS FOR WAR

U.S. LAUNCHES CATAMARANS FOR WAR
Catamarans usu­ally bring to mind island vaca­tions, not war zones. But the U.S. mil­i­tary is about to send a high-​​speed, exper­i­men­tal cata­ma­ran to the Middle East in prepa­ra­tion for a pos­si­ble Iraqi con­flict.
The 370 foot Joint Venture HSV-​​X1 car­ries a heli­copter, and can move 300 troops at a time. It can be used in a vari­ety of roles, the Virginian-​​Pilot reports: “as a base and deliv­ery vehi­cle for spe­cial oper­a­tions forces, as a base for under­wa­ter vehi­cles for mine war­fare, and as a med­ical treat­ment sta­tion that deliv­ered patients to a hos­pi­tal ship.“
Most impor­tantly, the HSV-​​X1 can do this all in a hurry: fully loaded, it skips along the oceans at 40 knots (46 miles per hour) — more than three times faster than the Army’s cur­rent Logistics Support Vessel.
THERE’S MORE: An obser­vant Defense Tech reader points out that cer­tain mod­els of the cata­ma­ran will come with — get this — a 20′ by 20′ by 4′ “mam­mal pool.”

January 21st, 2003 | Uncategorized | 250No Comments »http://defensetech.org/2003/01/21/u-s-launches-catamarans-for-war/U.S.+LAUNCHES+CATAMARANS+FOR+WAR2003-01-21+15%3A19%3A24cjmilcom You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.