[ExI] robo-rescue

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> 
Subject: Re: [ExI] robo-rescue

 

>…Spike, I have been following the reports from Ukraine. They take down Russian copters with the least expensive, FPV drones…

 

Agreed.  The commies don’t have the same kind of countermeasures we do.

 

>…A battleship is defined by huge guns…

 

It was at one time.  But that has been a long time ago Keith.  There is no reason to carry huge guns now and hasn’t been for a long time.

 

>…and enough armor to stand up to a projectile…

 

Projectile Keith?  Indeed?

 

>…from another battleship of the same gun size. This is not the current situation…

 

Ja, of course it isn’t.

 

>… Your submersible idea is not impossible, but there is no way it would be called a battleship…

 

Are we really distressing over a name?  For a system which has no precedent?  What should we call a ship which carries drones, has all flat plate exterior (for radar minimization), rides on hydrofoils at relatively high speeds, can submerge and sit quietly indefinitely, has no crew, has no guns, with a primary mission of being anti-surface ship?  What would you call such a device?  Shall we call it a schmattleship?  

 

>…BTW, nobody uses diesel for main propulsion; it is all turbines… Best wishes,  Keith

 

 

I was thinking generators.  A Diesel spins a generator inside the (nearly) rectangular solid part of the ship, then the drive screws are electric (in order to reduce their cross sectional area down there under the water.)  Think of a catamaran-like hull with the screws aft, with very little of the twin hulls submerged during high speed dashes.

 

The reason Diesel would be a good fit for that application is that a floating snorkel on a flexible tube could allow it to breathe while underwater.  I have no objection to imagining a gas turbine however.  A Diesel might be more efficient, but gas turbine works too.  Either way, the idea is to generate electric power to turn drive screws for (probably) short high speed surface dashes, the kind of maneuver a submarine cannot do without burning up huge amounts of fuel.  After a few minutes dash on the surface, it would glide right back down under the surface and disappear, with buoyancy tanks filled with compressed air, ready to pop up nearby and raise bloody hell with enemy surface ships, for which it knows the location after being informed by satellites.

 

Another consideration would be cost.  A Diesel-generator doesn’t cost much, which is important here because the system I am proposing is itself a drone as well as a drone carrier.

 

Come on Keith, lets see some of that magic Henson imagination sir.  We read your books.  We are looking for a ship of some kind which can skate along the surface at about 80 km/hr, submerge indefinitely, launch drones against enemy surface ships, then dip back out of sight as soon as the drones are launched.  Do let us not get tangled up in names, but rather think of the mission.  The mission is to own the Strait of Hormuz, for which the Navy has had a century to develop tools.  What do you suppose they invented.  Feel free to propose a name and feel freer to write a SciFi story or book using a schmattleship.

 

spike

 

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