New technology" boats"

[hobbit]

With the advancement of computers and satelites I can sit at my machine and do some pretty snazzy things what with Google Earth or whatever the sat program is and almost scan the world. OK cant tell the time on Big Ben. That aside and back to the sats, modern warships and in particular submarines must surely be more advanced than some old bloke on a PC. By that I mean at periscope depth an arial or antenna capable of looking anywhere on the earth or sea via one of the many satelites in orbit around the planet. This would be a huge plus for " boats" with the missiles etc and a massive advantage over skimmers. It seems even night is no obstacle now with infra red so during an "attack" could a submarine attack team sit in a lounge type setting as if playing a PC game. The ming boggles but it seems anything is possible so is this technology used or have I been watching too many James Bond films, :roll:

 

[Not_a_boffin]

Just remember, the satellite image you see on Gary Google is far from real time, some of them are several years out of date.

Getting real-time imagery of exactly the place you want at the time you want requires more bandwidth than you'd want to expose a mast for.

 

[hobbit]

Just remember, the satellite image you see on Gary Google is far from real time, some of them are several years out of date.

Getting real-time imagery of exactly the place you want at the time you want requires more bandwidth than you'd want to expose a mast for.

Good point and I suppose I was thinking of the recent attack in Iraq when the good guys wiped out that baddie through sat I thought. Must come a time when it will be possible though as technology is forging ahead so fast anything seems possible. Hard to grasp as even the bleedin' telephone was high tech when I was a nipper although cars had been invented. Anyway, cheers for that,

 

[Maxi_77]

On the other hand our UScousins have been doing quite a lot of work on autonomous submersibles. We are getting close to the point where a boat could be preprogrammed to carry out for example a surveillance mission. The comms problem does make real time control a trifle difficult. I did some work on sonar data links some years ago, worked OK most of the time but it was pretty short range only, from one side of an oil rig to the other.

Mind you now that sattellite broad band is srating up you could get some pretty good images into a remote boat that way without to much mast exposure if you concentrated on the image rather than all the extra stuff you get with Google.

Getting stuff back though can be a bit more of a problem.

Peter

 

[Tui Bird]

Funny thing --- Maxi77 mentioned a description (American Cousins ) that haven't heard for years ( grew up in WW2 in UK and by 1955 we were i NZ , so things in the UK are often forgotten . I recent times been researching UK _US political relations . First thing I learnt was the President FDR , told Churchill during the war that it was his intention to dismantle the British Empire ( In FDR son's book--he was at the dinner party where Churchill was told and went pale ! ) .. The words of the Atlantic Charter , implied the same - caused a stir in Parliament . Then there was Lend -Lease (often seen as a US gift !!!) -- finally paid back in 2008 ---Nothing for nothing . I have fairly recently found out that Hitler declared war on the USA , following the attack by the Japanese , otherwise Congress was against getting in a war with Germany , and when the British Pacific Fleet( war in Europe over) was intended join the assualt on Japan the High USN command in Washington , told the local Admiral Nimitz the BPF could not be involved for political status reasons -- a wiser man -the local USN , C-in-C Admiral Nimitz welcomed four armoured deck carriers and two modern battle ships ( they did a good job against the Kamakazi based in large numbers in Korea) . There is more ,but that's enough to be wary of the USA and the best interests of the country of my birth . I wondered why the two new big RN carrier were oil burners --Britain could surely build reactors? Then I recalled that only one Japanese Port reluctantly allowed in one nuclear carrier , I then read that at least on of the new carriers was going to be based in Japan !!! Don't really understand ,but as part of NATO . I was on a boat when NATO was formed to front up to evil Uncle Joe and the Red Navy . The SM RN Admiral said our main purpose anti-submarine ??? I think you say we won that one some years ago and the chances of a Red Navy s/m fleet blocking the Atlantic like the U-Boats of WW2 disappeared a long time , so why North Atlantic Treaty . I should say my wife and I have quite a number of American relatives and I have had very kind friends who served in the US Submarine Service a long time ago, some passed away now. (http://rnsubs.co.uk/articles/development/guppy.html ) All live a long way from Congress and Washington. The real American cousins !