On Thursday, we took a look at the Stiletto, a wild new stealth ship that the Defense Department has built to sneak special forces onto shore.
On Sunday night, Stiletto program manager Greg Glaros paid us a visit, answering some reader comments and questions about the ship.
Thanks for your comments — Stiletto was constructed in 15 months starting Oct 04. She is made completely out of carbon fiber. Her purpose is to insert emerging technology at little cost […] and to provide a venue for operational experimentation. It is not perfect, nor is she designed to solve everyone’s needs (no she does not submerge — we left that to the billion $ club). What she is designed to do is expand our technical competence against an elusive adversary and learn operationally in a very short period of time.
With regards to its survivability or operational relevancy we will all learn by her mere existence. [One reader said the ship might be “easy to kill.”] Easy to kill We seem to easily lose sight that most military systems are all easy to destroy by a willing enemy. Our objectives should be focused on matching our adversaries at scale with an ability to cope and adapt surely the Stark, Cole, M-1 Abrams, and Hummers have taught us how easy it is to kill systems designed to survive everything our engineering imagined unfortunately what our engineer imagine often do not align with what our enemy intends
During the last two weeks Stiletto out performed our expectations with advanced speeds in calm waters and not so calm…and out performing in other areas in a time frame and within a cost that seems to be out of the reach of our requirements procss and acquisition system.
Time to operational market matters…
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Stealth Ship Chief Speaks
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Had the military made any stealth rockets or any kind of stealth weapon?
The chief almost has it right. Four-plus decades in defense-related programs has convinced me threr are talented weapon syatem designers and talented contermeasures designers.
In general, weapon syatem designers cannot think like contermeasures designers (and vice-versa).
As Alexander de Seversky said in the thirties, there will always be a progression of “ultimate” weapons defeated by new coutermeasures, followed by new “ultimate” weapons defeated by new countermeasures — ad infinitum. Expensive systems are easier to destroy on the battlefield than in the political arena.
What is happening in Iraq today is a perfect example of the process.
“stealth” missles, short range attack, do exist.
“easy to kill” presupposes being able to find and target something. Stealth is intended to minimize this.
each step up the technology ladder costs more.…but a billion dollar system can be negated with cheap, NUMEROUS, unsophisticated means.…example: it is possible to find a stealth aircraft, without radar or infra-red, by triangulating its’ accoustic signal…while not precise, it is dirt cheap and a serious threat. Likewise, high tech air to air missiles can be carried aloft on something as cheap and as simple as a nice P-51.….…and an entire airforce of HUNDREDS of those can be realized for the cost of a few modern fighters.…..
anybody listening???!!!!
anybody give a real damn?
Holy crap, Byron…when have you ever contributed anything of substance to this website? Do you disagree to disagree, or do you actually have an objective?
“The chief almost has it right” Like you would have the foggiest clue, but trying to say one group of people (the weapon designers) cannot think like the others (the countermeasure designers)…when the same folks work on both.
Anyone can quote de Seversky, who only says the painfuly obvious…and, to put it in a nutshell, is this: Those who design the offense are (literally) one step ahead of those who design the defense. Or are they? It all depends where in the cycle of attack and defense you care to look.
“Expensive systems are easier to destroy on the battlefield than in the political arena”…please, cite some relevant examples, and how you are a legitimate authority to quantify a given weapon systems effectiveness versus a give threat. I know it will entail some thought out research on your part, but if you try really hard, I am sure you can do it.
“What is happening in Iraq today is a perfect example of the process”…Once again, quantify and qualify what you write. It is disheartening to see someone post something just because “that’s the way they think it is”, which is what you have done.
Campbell…what can I say? ““stealth missiles”, short range attack, do exist.” Please explain to the readers what you meant by that ambiguous quote. Also, you have tried to qualify your assessment with pseudo-science. While acoustic signatures may find something, and give you a rough guesstimate of where it is, by no means will you have targeting-quality data. What do you mean by “dirt cheap” and “a serious threat”? To whom? How? Once again, you fail to back up your assessment with any real fact and assume the rest of the pack will go along with your stab in the dark because it sounds somewhat plausible (but isn’t). And, for the coupe de grace, “high tech air-to-air missiles carried aboard P-51 Mustangs”? How much were you drinking when you typed that? I will entertain your point, and tear it apart with a little fact. Lets say we mount an AIM-7 (that’s the Sparrow semi-active air-to-air missile) on a P-51 (if it could conceivably carry it). Now, our little P-51 is putting around with a thousand of his buddies and wants to make a BVR shot. OOPS! The P-51 has no radar! So, the P-51 could not get an accurate location of its target, pass that data to the missile, and enable it to launch. Even if you could enable the missile to break away and fire its engine, the P-51 still has no radar to reflect (or cause the energization of the target aircraft skin to radiate a significant return…it is all the same for the laymen…I just wanted to entertain the radar engineers out there) energy that the passive seeker could home in on. I hear you thinking it, but don’t. The scenario wouldn’t be any different if you mounted an AMRAAM on the P-51…you still need the tracking data from the host aircraft radar to feed the missile prior to firing.
Josh…nevermind. Just listen and learn.
Look for more postings from the Killer Of Fools!
I made the comment that she should submerge. It looks like a tiny ship and if a storm comes, she is going to get beat up pretty bad. If she can go down and then ride it out– that would be better. Plus it would give her more stealth options, like if a commercial/civilian/bad guy ship comes nearby she can just go down and avoid visual detection.
Either way it looks cool. I dont know how stealth it is as far as being invisible to sensory. Either way it looks cool and I wouldnt mind taking her for a spin around Narraggensett Bay where I am. Maybe the Navy can loan me one for a day.
okay, I’ll reply. silly, but perhaps a few others would like to watch this nonsense.
If a human eyeball can spot, and cause a manpad to be fired at an airplane from the ground.…..and if that is considered a serious enough threat to cause tactical aviation countermeasures (are we supposed to believe that this does NOT?).…than a human eyeball on board a P-51, which could indeed carry and fire a Sparrow, and take a target down.
as to finding a stealth aircraft via accoustic signal…no, it is not precise, I did indicate that…but it can become a serious threat if it can then be used to direct numerous hositle aircraft towards, even to the rough vacinity of, a target stealth aircraft. even ramming it accidently then becomes a “threat”, although somewhat less than looking for it and firing missiles at it.
wars, battles are won with imagination, not simply with technology. have you lost that ability?
“radar”? who said anything about radar other than yourself? and yet, a lot of air to air combat was formerly conducted without it.
alas, I expect you may be to young to know this, and so I forgive your tirade. ciao
Campbell, please sit down. There’s a world of difference between a person firing a Stinger-style missile from the ground while stationary, and firing a Sparrow without any targeting equipment in a plane not equipped to carry it and travelling at 200 mph. The fact that no one has ever retrofitted prop planes to carry missiles like this should be evidence enough that it’s a bad idea.
Sure, you can listen for stealth aircraft and fire in their general direction. Again, the fact that a grand total of ONE stealth aircraft has ever been shot down should show you how effective such a tactic is.
JTW, my understanding on this (wish I could find a cite for you) is that it’s radar cross section is so small that it effectively disappears between the waves. While making it submersible would certainly be cool, I’m not sure if it really needs it. The thing should be quick enough to maneuver around any truly bad weather. I don’t believe it’s intended as truly “ocean-going”.