Download World Of Warships here: wo.ws/3QYgPLh to receive 300 doubloons, one million Credits, a free ship, 3 Santa crates, many in-game cosmetics to deck out your ships, and 7 days premium account time when you use code HPPYNWYR2024 .
The James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" features an exact replica Sea Shadow Stealth Ship which the villain uses to launch ridiculous drill head torpedoes at Navy ships in the South China Sea.
@@GreenBlueWalkthroughindeed but we already kinda know what those designs would look like. The B2 and B21 are rather similar to earlier designs (including the German design) because it's the best design for a bomber. The potential SR72 and upcoming fighters will follow similar "tends". The prototype from top gun movie matches that kind of evolution but the devil is in the details.
@@B0tch0 Yep and it could be the aurora or an concept for the NGAD that was aged back... Or it could be the US Gov just messing with us... We won't know till 20 or so years from now if every. Edit: Assuming OfCourse it's not pure fiction which it very much can be.
The _Zumwalt_ -class failed mostly because it relied on way too many new, untested technologies all at once. Meanwhile other ships, like the Type 45 destroyer of the Royal Navy, have also incorporated stealth lessons from the _Sea Shadow_ quite successfully.
@@jacobbrassard2776 The ships cost $8 billion each. If the only problem was the cocked-up gun, they would've refit them with cheaper guns. They had multiple problems, not just a bad gun.
The Zumwalt class is unfortunately built for a purpose that never quite made much sense. She could have been wildly successful if the USN used the same basic design for an AEGIS cruiser to replace the aging Ticonderoga.
@@jiaweizhang4166 They're removing one of the radars, and will rip out the guns for a lot of VLS cells The original purpose isn't even talked about any longer ... Could have been useful in Yemen now
Yeh, almost all modern war ships have features to limit radar reflection, and a lot of that knowledge comes from that experience. Even with aircraft, "stealth" isnt really about being invisible, but just about making it a bit harder to detect you, track you and engage you. Even the F-35 doesnt need to be invisible, but just 20% increased survivability can be a big deal in war. Similarly "non stealthy" planes like Eurofighter or F-15 EX have a bunch of features to limit radar reflection. Then add modern electronic warfare (jamming, decoys, etc) to make it even harder to combat your plane, and everything adds up. The Zumwalt is a great example for when you try to force stealth so much that the trade-off makes a worse or just not affordable weapon system.
it seems very similar to early stealth planes like have have blue and tactic blue, they never entered service, but used lessons learned to make the b2 and f-117
Sweden has had visby class stealth corvettes since the begining of the 2000s,1991 they had the HSwMS Smyge was an experimenta stealtl ship Swedish Navy used to test stealth technology , launched in 1991. was used while planning the Visby-class corvettes.
It turns out the RCS of the Sea Shadow was "to low" Its RCS was much lower than the sea scatter caused by the waves. So a radar could not detect Sea Shadow but because the waves reflection was much higher than the Sea Shadow. The Sea Shadow appeared as a slow moving hole in the water in the middle of sea clutter! To much of a good thing.
Any documentation on that? That sounds like the idea that the Ohio can be tracked by looking for an area of water that's "too quiet" - maybe theoretically possible but even IF you could do it, it's far too dependent on local conditions.
So cool to see so many shots of the thing in the San Francisco Bay, I grew up there and in those days it was in the "secret" hangar over by Treasure Island. Later after I moved to the Gorge on the Oregon Washington border, they brought a different one up here for "stealth testing," because the Gorge is so deep we often can't even get Sirius radio. This one was semi submergible and super fast. I managed to see the thing from up on Underwood Mountain, on the highway between White Salmon and Willard. It threw up the biggest rooster tail I'd even seen.
February 2005, I was on a week long field trip to San Diego, and as I was taking a tour of the USS Nimitz we saw the Sea Shadow go past... really cool...
I still remember the Popular Mechanics article about this ship. The paints were fantastic, launching anti-ship missiles vertically. And a few issues later also a very small article about the swedish Smyge with a picture of the craft.
The problem with the Zumwalt Class Destroyer (most expensive Destroyer in the world) is that the West needs Destroyers as the minimal class to launch Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Russia on the other hand, can fire their equally devastating Kh-101 Kalibr Cruise Missile from Corvettes, which the Russian's claim to have "Stealth Features". I don't know about those claims, but I know a Corvette is harder to spot than a Destroyer. I think the main issue is Cost for the Zumwalt class, same as why we're not going to be building any more Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier's (also most expensive in the world plus maintenance). Despite our US Military budget being higher than the world combined, a big chunk of that actually goes missing, and into projects that get costlier and delayed (such as the US Hypersonic Dark Eagle Project which again just got delayed).
ultimately what destroyed the concept was none of that. it was simply cost being somewhere around 20x more expensive then projected and some 50x more expensive than a traditional ship. I have no doubt we still have some form of these in operation in some far away from city eyes.
The Hughes barge was actually used to transfer the submarine capture vehicle into the moon pool of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. It didn't do any sub capture itself. It was merely used as a secretive transfer barge.
There was a Navy prototype just out in the open at a dock in Panama City, Florida. (On the not-good side of the inlet, not in Panama City Beach.) Once in a while it'd have someone in a Naval uniform hanging around, but it wasn't under wraps or anything. It was a prototype for their stealth litoral combat ship.
It was so cool to see this ship everyday in the Suisun Bay here in California. Just as cool is that it was in a Howard Hugh's drydock boat. Unfortunately I believe both have been sent off to be scrapped.
The barge was originally built for Clementine, the UAV Claw used to covertly rise the Soviet sub. It is now a floating drydock used by a private shipyard
I worked at Bay Ship during that period. Part of the purchase agreement for the barge was that they had to demolish the Sea Shadow (which was inside of the barge) before they could take delivery, which they did.
@@yxmichaelxyyxmichaelxy3074 Technically you are correct. The Hughes mining ship did get the grapple on one, but it broke apart as they tried to raise it, so they only got a small piece of it.
Yes - they promoted spending - billions - to convert old SSBN subs to SSGN's as seal insertion - but how close to shore are you going to get with a 520 ft nuclear submarine. Totally laughable.@@haroldb1856
The zumwalt was also made of aluminum in such a way that they are facing issues with corrosion, and the main weapon they were designed to use was to expensive to fire. It's one thing to have custom ammo for 30 ships, it's entirely another thing to have custom ammo made for two or three ships.
HMB-1 was built to service the Gloma Explorer's claw. This was also built at LMS at the Port of Redwood City. Believe me I was on it at the dock at Treasure Island why Bay Ship and Yacht when the were about finished with the salvage work.
The new destroyers were all built around a concept of a guided/highly precise ordinance gun (VGAS). A fancy and insanely expensive concept that was still in the planning stages when the ships were proposed and built. When problems with the guided munitions arose, it simply made all the other problems the ships were experiencing unbearable. With each round costing almost 1 million, well... Obviously the idea was scrapped with the munitions cost balloning to ludicrous levels. Basically the ships were built in anticipation of having cost effective guided munitions. Something the contractor promised but couldn't deliver. There are articles everywhere about it. Finger pointing everywhere, too. A real clusterfuck.
I have a friend who did helicopter testing with this ship out of San Diego. It so long ago I don't recall much other than he said his SH-60B flew missions with it for a week or so and then it was hard to find on radar, but the bravo radar was not great to begin with so...
I took a San Diego harbor tour back '04 and part of the tour was passing by the Sea Shadow's dock. Not sure how it is nowadays but back then they'd leave the front door open so you could get a good look at it. Super cool to see in person.
One of the main uses for the navy is intimidation. Openly sending an aircraft carrier task force to someone's back yard tends to make negotiating go smoother. A stealth navy kind of defeats the purpose. The large number of warships travelling together and their overwhelming amount of firepower makes hiding unnecessary.
defeats the purpose for america maybe, but a slow, inefficient, but super stealthy submarines has a myriad of practical uses in an actual war. Imagine if they had a small bunch of them just sitting around the bering strait, the black sea, red sea, any other important but relatively small area of sea.
@@razorburn645 I think submarines are a big part of what made "stealth ships" somewhat obsolete. You dont get much more stealthy than a submarine under water. Modern warships do use a lot of stealth design principles though, to make them just a bit harder to track and combat.
During construction. Everyone in the HMB-1 referred to them as Nacelles. As my old man used that word so many times after that project and kept his word and never talked about it until his contract was up.
The WW2 Germans used an anti sonar coating on their submarines called “Albrecht”. Tested on 1942 it suffered from poor adhesion but this was fixed in 1944. A u-boat called the “black panther” caused the allies problems but it hit a mine. The Germans also used an anti radar coating called schornsteinfehger on their mast heads. Late 1944 tech so too late to make a difference.
Big doubt, Sonar and Radar are two different things and no evidence exists to prove any of the German WW2 Stealth paint or coatings ever worked, when the HO229 was taken apart and studied (often called a stealth bomber by idiots), no evidence of the so called "stealth coating" existed. Sonar works by bouncing sound off the sea floor or whatever is in the water (subs, ships, fish, whatever) unless this WW2 German wonder project made a U-boat somehow have zero mass to allow sound waves to go though it, it did not work, *real* sonar protected stealth ships are stealthy to sonar by having very little of their hull in the water, sonar returns incorrect data. Radar works by bouncing fast as light energy waves off objects and measuring return samples, "stealth" aircraft avoid this by deflection or energy absorption and not allowing a return sample to the radar, this does not work on sonar.
@@deepbludreams The German Anti Radar Coatings and Anti Sonar Coatings were extensively investigated after WW2. I will link to the reports but if you google . " The Schornsteinfeger Project C.I.O.S Report XXVI-24 May 1945. " We have many reports and were found to work very. Don't call anyone an idiot because often the bit of an idiot may turn out to be you. The anti Radar Coating was a German Navy Project arising from Doesnitz's 1943 anti radar conference and had nothing to do with the Luftwaffe. Never trust Natgeo, Discovery or the History Channel even if Northrop Grumann is involved. -Schornsteinfeger was a Jaumann absorber used on snorkels with hundreds of subs subs were equipped. It absorbed 96% of radar and reduced detection range to only 15% for 9cm radar in calm seas. Worked also with 3cm radar and was more effective in rough seas due to the reduced signal to noise ratio It had 9 layers of cardboard impregnated with graphite to make it semiconducting. This was impregnated with plastic to make it water proof. The density of the graphite increased exponentially to absorb the radar. For a metal surface Think of a wave hitting a vertical harbor wall and a wave reflecting perfectly. The Jaumann absorber is like a gently slopped beach, the wave does not reflect immediately but is absorbed in pebbles and rocks as it surges up the slope. What little reflects cancels with the incoming wave. -The other absorber was the Wesh Absorber also used on u-boats. -This worked using ferrite (iron oxide) materials with crystal structures tailored to different wavelengths. Wheras the Jaumann absorber absorbed 96% at its optimal wavelength the 80% at 1/3d wavelength 3 wavelengths the Wesh worked at 90% but spread over about 10 times the range. -Wesh was only 2mm to 4mm thick and made of corrugated rubber. It was used on the curved pats of the snorkel and periscope where the jaumann absorber was harder to fit. -The two methods Jaumann absorber and Ferrite could be combined to achieve 99% absorption across a wide band. This was not used in service due to the end of the war. -Proof the Germans had effective radar absorbers.
@@deepbludreams - I have posted above on German anti radar coatings used on their submarine snorkels and periscopes. I have given declassified Government sources. -Now I will post on the Albrecht anti sonar coating applied to u-boat hulls. -Albrecht consisted of metal mesh punched out with two or more sizes of holes. The holes were filled with rubber and the mesh covered in thin rubber. -The hole diameter determine a resonant frequency. Absorption of sonar and sound waves was at its p0eak at these resonant frequencies but also worked to either side creating a broad band absorber. -Albrecht seemed to reduce detection range against passive hydrophone sonar by about 15% which implies about 70% absorption of sound (power of 4 law) . It's effects against active sonar were to similar degree. In general a 50% absorption achieved only a 15% reduction in range (power of 4 law) but its usually 2-3 times more due to S/N ratio reduction.
Probably has to do with the fact that Airplanes only need to deal with Radar coming from below the plane. While a ship needs to deal with Sonar, and Radar coming from two different directions. Sounds like it's 3x harder, and a ship is much slower.
@@robertw1800 There is also hydro acoustics, unless the stealth ship is traveling relatively slow for a military surface ship, it's propellers moving can be heard for way outside of radar or active sonar range anyway. The US has had a network off it's coast that could detect/track ships/subs near Europe since the 50s. So unless there is a lot of other traffic in the area, kind of hard to not at least give away the general area operating in.
So they only ever built one? Cause there’s a ship that looks very similar next to the USS Albacore submarine museum that for years was just sitting by itself across the river from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
😂I had a Micro machine or the like of this one. It came with space plane, and a stealth shuttle on the back. There was one of the Strike games series on the SEGA Genesis in the first mission area.
On the SWATH ships I’ve been working on lately, we call them Demi-Hulls. The part attaching them to the cross deck is called strut. The interior structural brackets which take the bending moment are called haunches.
To have come out in 1985, it really does look like brand new tech, at least to the untrained eye. But was it just a proof-of-concept or could do anything besides stealth?
@@MarcosElMalo2 Point being, they didn't have "an unlimited budget", it was very modest for a ship of this size, and would have been even less had the Navy not pestered them to death with nit-picking (Kelly's unwritten rule).
The Skunk Works had almost nothing to do with the Sea Shadow. It was built by Lockheed Sunnyvale at their Redwood City facility. And no - the Skunk Works is absolutely not know for reasonable cost..@@brettbuck7362
I think the model is wrong. There was a boat called "Ghost" built by Inventor Gregory Sancoff who wanted to make a cool boat for the Navy had propellers in the front of the torpedo-looking pods. The propeller in the front design created a supercavitation effect allowing the boat to go much faster. The Sea shadow takes many design elements from Gregory Sancoff's design. Whether or not Sancoff got anything out of the Navy "borrowing" from his concept is probably locked away behind security clearances and NDAs.
As usual it was the high cost and lack of necessity. In a fully fledged war with a neat peer opponent like China or Russia I expect we'd see a lot of stealth ships suddenly pop into existence.
Calling Russia "near peer" at this point is just silly, especially in terms of naval power. Actually, in terms of naval power, calling China "near peer" is silly too. China's total fleet has similar combat power to a single US carrier group... the US has 11 carriers.
@@timeshark8727 OK chest-thumper, calm down. Russia's navy has seen better days, but it would be unwise to dismiss China's navy. It doesn't need to be as large or as "powerful" in total, it only has to exert power where it's needed, which currently remains the South China Sea, and in case of a hot war, the Sea of Japan. In terms of technology and applied power within a region, China is comfortably "near-peer", and the USA having to work hard to ensure they stay ahead. Both countries has technologies and advantages the other lacks. That kind of hubris is the kind that led Russia to lose a modern battlecruiser. Fortunately for the USA, it's top military officers aren't as myopic as you are.
I do remember seeing this ship on the gov auction website pretty cheap. I debated on bidding but I did not know anything about diesel engines and it was all the way in California. Did not know how to bring it to Florida and I figured it would cost me an arm and a leg in fuel to sail it.
The one in the movie is shown to be much bigger though. I wonder if they were able to use the real ship or used a miniature. The timing looks right as well since it was just declassified when Tomorrow Never Dies came out and the ship wasn't destroyed yet.
The original Sea Shadow was likely retired either scrapped or is being held in storage somewhere. However, see that the idea of a stealth surface ship is bonkers in my mind is being too shortsighted. Now a lot of people seem to get terms, mixed up or mixed together. For instance, I’ve seen people basically use the phrase stealth to equate to essentially invisibility. Now stealth doesn’t necessarily mean being visually unidentifiable or detectable. Current stealth technology is all about being invisible to sensors. After all, even on a flat featureless ocean , without advanced optics and stuff even trained naval personnel likely will not actually see a ship coming until it is at the point of which we would call on the horizon. And by the way, the average human can only see about I think it’s 10 miles before their brain essentially can’t discern what something is in the distance without enhanced optics. The sea shadow itself I like to think it was more of a proof of concept. Rather than an outright idea for a ship. Now the kind of technology that it used to float, and all that stuff is a well understood technology. In fact, there are private companies that are developing Both pleasurecraft, and even potential rescue vehicles that have a similar design in terms of how they go through their locomotion. One of which is very interesting, where the screws actually aren’t on the rear of the vessel they’re actually at the front. And they act like the propellers on an airplane, pulling the vessel through the water instead of pushing. But again, I’m more than willing to bet that the technology that was used for the development of the sea. Shadow is probably still highly classified and newer versions are likely on the drawing board, if not in small scale, prototyping tests. Vessels like this would be ideal for the deployment of special forces units, or even to be used as scouting vessels. Hell, another idea would be use the overall design, but shrink it and turn it into an un spy device or something. Honestly, the overall idea of a vessel like the sea shadow at least I personally feel is scientifically and tactically sound. Think about it this way. The Comanche. The space age looking stealth helicopter that would’ve probably supported and then maybe it some point replaced the attack helicopters such as the Apache and cobra. Allegedly that program was also shelved, but we also need to take any consideration. The fact of the alleged stealth Blackhawk helicopters that were used during operation Neptune spear. Something tells me that the stealth attack chopper idea didn’t pan out at least as much as we know they likely use the data for the development of these stealth versions of the Blackhawks. They say that the project has been canceled likely does not mean that the project truly has been canceled. It may simply be stated that way to pull it out of the public eye. Perhaps something was discovered that required more in-depth and secretive testing.
Sea Shadow was scrapped. Its hangar, after sitting in the Suisun Bay mothball fleet for a number of years, was sold to a ship repair company for use as a floating dry dock; Bay Ship & Yacht Co, Alameda CA USA. (Right next to the Main Street Ferry terminal. You can see it any day you take the ferry. :) )
My brother (who was in the Canadian navy) claims he was on the bridge of his ship (City class DDE) when the Sea Shadow passed within less than a mile of them, but the radar screen was showing it 20+ miles away.
There was a Micro Machines model of this ship. I have one. It has a door along the top that flips open to reveal round missiles of some kind, ready to launch.
Frankly, stealth ships are redundant. Being able to find, and more importantly hit, a ship in the open ocean with long range guns or missiles is already incredibly difficult. When attacking fleets with planes you are often within visual range, which there is no stealth for. Then there are submarines, which are an entire class of stealth ships.
You can see a ship of any decent size at hundreds of miles with radar, basically to the horizon, which can be extended with aircraft. If you can't see it on radar you would need to visually acquire it, which fair weather is about 30 miles or so. Not to mention the fact that stealthly ships DO exist. There are many full stealth, and reduced radar cross section ships, the new Gerald R Ford carriers being one, as well as the San Antonio class amphibious dock ships.
"When attacking fleets with planes you are often within visual range" 🤣Yeah, sure, is not like we have radars, and airborne radar, who can "see" ships at hundreds of KMs, or sonars, who can "hear" ships at THOUSANDS of KMs ! Or satellites / drones, who can see a ship trails from space !
Just about all newly constructed warships have some degree of stealth measures, like angling the sides, hiding anchors ,lifeboats, fittings, behind screens or inside the superstructure, cutting off corners, weird shaped stanchions, less black paint, ...
@@Wannes_ - true, but only an idiot ( or mafia and corrupted DoD, like the US ) will invest zillions ( zillions like in Zumwalt, the murican failed withe elephant ! ) only an idiot will invest millions in a full stealth ship - is just impossible to "hide" a big surface ship. Is NOT just the Radar - is the visual acquisition from Space, the IR signature, and, crucial, the NOISE. You simply CANNOT move FAST ( over 20 knots) and remain silent. Especially on the surface. Modern satellites can spot the trails of medium/big ships from thousands of KM, then extrapolate instantly the position of the ship. Any decent navy who want stealth ships will build subs. Corrupted idiots will build Zumwalt.
you missed the most important reason why it was canceled and became a pur research vesal, Because 'clue' it shows up on radar like a 60 foot hole in the middle of your lawn. 'have you got it yet' it's problem was it was to good and showed up as a dark ship shaped patch on the radar screen
It was a classified project that we were not supposed to know about, so we called it the Sea Bat. Sailing SOCAL between 87-93 I had to dodge it too often.
@@S0RELOSER Yes, I saw it, while sailing on Southern California OpAreas. While Navigator of the USS Racine home ported out of Naval Station Long Beach, I preferred to night time steam a racetrack between Santa Catalina and San Nicholas Islands. I thought it was cool. I loved the Swath design and the Navy was testing it for sea keeping and loading abilities. It was a pain, because I wanted everyone to have a quiet night, so I avoided known operating areas & since they kept that one secret, I never knew if she would pop up in the early morning.
Sea Shadow operated out of NASNI while I was stationed at Deep Submergence Unit. It was in and out a lot, but it didn't go out when the weather was sloppy, so it might not have done well in higher sea states. Cool ass ship for sure
I have heard that a downside of these stealth ships is that they are to stealthy, meaning that while you can't see the ship, your radar also can't see the water the ship is displacing, so it looks like a hole in the ocean.
I've read that too. An aircraft with surface search radar flying high enough, can indirectly detect the Sea Shadow, as the return signal from the ocean surface will be absent where the ship is, so its detected because it dosn't reflect enough of the radar beams back, to mimic what that the ocean surface does. 🤔🤔🤔
No matter how stealth a surface ship can be, it's no match for submarine's Stealth ability, and the fact that submarine can launch torpedo and missile while diving and being protected from air-strike makes us wonder why do we even need a stealth surface ship in the first place.
Subs don't have "stealth" an undetectable sub does not exist, nor a "stealthy" one, good reason why subs spent the entire cold war tracking each other. Subs only have "Stealth" with in X distance of destroyers, it's why modern sonar systems are such a heavily protected state secret. They are just hard to surface detect because modern ones can just stay underwater for their whole patrol, surface ships can and do detect subs with hydroacoustic systems of various flavors, and after a torpedo or missile launch they pretty much instantly die from return fire in the form of surface ship launched torpedoes or helicopter anti-sub torpedoes/depth charges Also on the surface or at launch depth they are pretty easily detected, the destroyer is still the natural hunter of subs, subs have not displaced surface ships, hell even an entire class of aircraft exist to kill subs, not to mention aircraft dropped submarine detection systems. So no, Subs are not protected against air strikes, if anything they are the least protected, they cannot really defend themselves and any hit will in most cases sink a sub.
During construction. Everyone in the HMB-1 referred to them as Nacelles. As my old man used that word so many times after that project and kept his word and never talked about it until his contract was up.
@@mirthenarysimple, stealth aircraft have the speed advantage and could outrun and outmanuever missiles and other aircraft, while a stealth ship has the disadvantage of not being able to hide in the clouds like a jet fighter does, also Stealth Submarines have the advantage of outmanuevering and counter enemy fire by diving or deploying dummy submersible's to confuse enemy torpedoes. Generally Stealth Ships have the disadvantage of not being able to hide their radar cross section efficiently and not being able to outrun their enemies without depleting their weapons and other assets, once that ship is spotted enemy aircraft will be sent for support and destroy it, all in all stealth technology is only highly feasable on submersibles and aircraft.
Eh, the daylight visibility thing can be solved with the right paint job. Maybe an updated Dazzle design so the angles don't stand out so much. That's all I can think of... Not much better than current designs.🤷
I remember looking over and seeing this thing while driving on base at Norfolk Naval base. Looked so cool. Would have been fun if they gave us a tour or told us about it. It was out in the open no hanger or anything they just didn't give it any press like it was a dying ship no one wanted to talk about. Like fast and the furious Tokyo drift.
The FREMM, Visby, and pretty much most of every new frigate and destroyer built today are based on LO. Just look the PLAN ships, look at the type 055, it's the culmination of stealth tech in ships.
@@YellowLab-bg3os true that satellites have time windows, but those time windows are very short. But even if you managed to stealth the entire support fleet, the enemy are bound to notice something. Also the sub carrier worked, but it probably couldnt carry enough fighters, ammo, or jet fuel to be effective
It's worth (IMHO) mentioning that part of the reason for no curved surfaces is that they just didn't have the computing power at the time to calculate a stealthy hull or fuselage with curves. Hence the reason modern stealthy aircraft DO have curves is that this isn't a problem now.
Ahh yea, the stealth ship, something they had already solved even more comprehensivly with submarines and without the drawback of just being visible.. Wonder why they didn't catch on 😂
If that were true, then there'd be no other warships. There are other warships. They aren't very stealth. Wouldn't it be nice if they were? Let's build a testbed to see what we can learn. To apply to the non-submarine navy that we already have and expect to continue to have.
@@petermgruhn the modern surface fleet is not designed with stealth as the main priority, their roles are completely different. The reason people don’t make stealth ships is that there is no obvious advantages to them over submarines which are inherently better at being inconspicuous. I can’t name one thing a stealth surface ship can do that a submarine can’t do. Wanna sneak up on an enemy ship and sink it with torpedoes? Use a submarine. Wanna conduct reconnaissance on enemy naval activities? Use a submarine. Want to deliver special forces soldiers inconspicuously to an enemy shoreline? Use a submarine. In conclusion stealth ships aren’t a thing because which have submarines which are objectively better
I got to speak to a former member of the DoD (1950s/60s) and they spoke whole heartedly about the technology available to the US military. The stuff you actually have, and HAVEN'T seen. I feel like the secrecy featured in this video is a testament to their information.
During testing they kept it a San Nicolas Island. I'm a scuba diver and when we had a chartered a boat out to there we were told the island was closed for that time.Only later we found out it was Sea Shadow doing test ops out of its barge. I went and saw the ship when it came to San Pedro for the public to check out. I read it was to good and made a blank spot on radar.
I’m a masters naval architecture student designing a swath wind farm support vessel and even I don’t fully know quite what to call the “nacelles”. People call them sponsons, pontoons and demihulls from the papers I’ve read.
In 1995 I was stationed at North Island Naval Air Station. Can’t say what I was doing on that base but I did see this ship come in while on duty. It was all hush hush stuff.
It was indeed fully submersible, as it's original use was to be sunk under the Hughes "mining ship", which had a huge extendable claw to retrieve the soviet sub. The intent was to pick up the sub and bring it up under the ship, sink the barge and move it under the claw, put the sub in the barge, then bring the barge out from under the ship and refloat it. That whole saga has been well documented.
@@martinbose7163 the roof does not submerge, the dock was not water tight. It is just a normal floating drydock, nothing more. It can Mostly submerge the hull, but that is all.
![[LIVE] นาทีนี้ต้องพี่ทนาย | ทนายแก้ว vs ทนายไพศาล | #คุยให้เด็กมันฟัง EP.47 (02/11/67)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HmquaO-PL_M/mqdefault.jpg)
Download World Of Warships here: wo.ws/3QYgPLh to receive 300 doubloons, one million Credits, a
free ship, 3 Santa crates, many in-game cosmetics to deck
out your ships, and 7 days premium account time when you
use code HPPYNWYR2024 .
What about the USS Eldridge? Ho yeah, it dissapeared.
Could you do a vid on the new flraa helicopter and it’s status?
Weather efects should not be a selling point in this day and age of gaming
The James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" features an exact replica Sea Shadow Stealth Ship which the villain uses to launch ridiculous drill head torpedoes at Navy ships in the South China Sea.
Makes you wonder about the darkstar in Top gun maverick don't it?
Exact replica. Oh okay buddy
The original was sunk as seen in the movie by the Royal Navy
@@GreenBlueWalkthroughindeed but we already kinda know what those designs would look like. The B2 and B21 are rather similar to earlier designs (including the German design) because it's the best design for a bomber. The potential SR72 and upcoming fighters will follow similar "tends". The prototype from top gun movie matches that kind of evolution but the devil is in the details.
@@B0tch0 Yep and it could be the aurora or an concept for the NGAD that was aged back... Or it could be the US Gov just messing with us... We won't know till 20 or so years from now if every. Edit: Assuming OfCourse it's not pure fiction which it very much can be.
The _Zumwalt_ -class failed mostly because it relied on way too many new, untested technologies all at once. Meanwhile other ships, like the Type 45 destroyer of the Royal Navy, have also incorporated stealth lessons from the _Sea Shadow_ quite successfully.
It’s cause it had a stupid gun and they didn’t build enough of them to even make the Amo worth buying
@@jacobbrassard2776 The ships cost $8 billion each. If the only problem was the cocked-up gun, they would've refit them with cheaper guns. They had multiple problems, not just a bad gun.
The Zumwalt class is unfortunately built for a purpose that never quite made much sense. She could have been wildly successful if the USN used the same basic design for an AEGIS cruiser to replace the aging Ticonderoga.
Imagine when they were building the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier and didn’t failed….
@@jiaweizhang4166 They're removing one of the radars, and will rip out the guns for a lot of VLS cells
The original purpose isn't even talked about any longer ...
Could have been useful in Yemen now
It still allowed us to learn a lot and factor the knowledge gained into the production of future ships. Even if they aren't quite as stealthy.
Yeh, almost all modern war ships have features to limit radar reflection, and a lot of that knowledge comes from that experience. Even with aircraft, "stealth" isnt really about being invisible, but just about making it a bit harder to detect you, track you and engage you. Even the F-35 doesnt need to be invisible, but just 20% increased survivability can be a big deal in war. Similarly "non stealthy" planes like Eurofighter or F-15 EX have a bunch of features to limit radar reflection.
Then add modern electronic warfare (jamming, decoys, etc) to make it even harder to combat your plane, and everything adds up.
The Zumwalt is a great example for when you try to force stealth so much that the trade-off makes a worse or just not affordable weapon system.
Bruh it looks like an autistic almost sunken F-117
it seems very similar to early stealth planes like have have blue and tactic blue, they never entered service, but used lessons learned to make the b2 and f-117
Sweden has had visby class stealth corvettes since the begining of the 2000s,1991 they had the HSwMS Smyge was an experimenta stealtl ship Swedish Navy used to test stealth technology , launched in 1991. was used while planning the Visby-class corvettes.
Maybe hunter Biden has taken them all to deliver his coke to the whitehouse…or sold them to China..
@@YellowLab-bg3osyeah the Type 212 class, and then Sweden also has the Gotland class (which is also equally stealthy)
I think about the same! The Smyge came to mind.
I've seen both in the Stockholm archipelago in the 90's, one big and one small. They looked like nothing else, and obviously military.
The Visby Class is a beautiful design
It turns out the RCS of the Sea Shadow was "to low" Its RCS was much lower than the sea scatter caused by the waves. So a radar could not detect Sea Shadow but because the waves reflection was much higher than the Sea Shadow. The Sea Shadow appeared as a slow moving hole in the water in the middle of sea clutter! To much of a good thing.
almost like a shadow
@@markderonde6226Yeah like a shadow on the sea.
They could have electronically added in some noise.
Any documentation on that? That sounds like the idea that the Ohio can be tracked by looking for an area of water that's "too quiet" - maybe theoretically possible but even IF you could do it, it's far too dependent on local conditions.
YES, but where I don't remember. This information is many years old.
Pentagon: Where is our stealth ship?
Navy: we can't find it anymore...🤣
That is why you don’t allow AIs to be available in public,
ChatGPT took over it 😤
The inspiration for the stealth ship in _Tomorrow Never Dies._
The sea shadow is my favourite ship in the world, shame it was scrapped
“It belongs in a museum!!!”
So cool to see so many shots of the thing in the San Francisco Bay, I grew up there and in those days it was in the "secret" hangar over by Treasure Island. Later after I moved to the Gorge on the Oregon Washington border, they brought a different one up here for "stealth testing," because the Gorge is so deep we often can't even get Sirius radio. This one was semi submergible and super fast. I managed to see the thing from up on Underwood Mountain, on the highway between White Salmon and Willard. It threw up the biggest rooster tail I'd even seen.
February 2005, I was on a week long field trip to San Diego, and as I was taking a tour of the USS Nimitz we saw the Sea Shadow go past... really cool...
When I was working at National Steel and Shipbuilding in the late 90's I remember seeing it in one of their drydocks.
The Sea Shadow was just a technology demonstrator. It was never intended to be a in service ship.
I still remember the Popular Mechanics article about this ship. The paints were fantastic, launching anti-ship missiles vertically.
And a few issues later also a very small article about the swedish Smyge with a picture of the craft.
"So, how stealthy is our new ship?"
"I'll tell you when we've found the damn thing."
The problem with the Zumwalt Class Destroyer (most expensive Destroyer in the world) is that the West needs Destroyers as the minimal class to launch Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Russia on the other hand, can fire their equally devastating Kh-101 Kalibr Cruise Missile from Corvettes, which the Russian's claim to have "Stealth Features". I don't know about those claims, but I know a Corvette is harder to spot than a Destroyer.
I think the main issue is Cost for the Zumwalt class, same as why we're not going to be building any more Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier's (also most expensive in the world plus maintenance). Despite our US Military budget being higher than the world combined, a big chunk of that actually goes missing, and into projects that get costlier and delayed (such as the US Hypersonic Dark Eagle Project which again just got delayed).
The inspiration for the stealth boat from Tomorrow Never Dies
Just wanted to comment that. 🎉
Wrong, the inspiration for tomorrow never dies, was the stealth ship..
I thought they used the Sea Shadow as the Sea Dolphin II in that movie. Just looked, and I guess not. It's a good look-alike though.
I believe the Swedish Navy got some stealth ships, the Visby-class should be a stealth ship
@@YellowLab-bg3os who doesn't love a curvy boat?
the French Frigate Belharra too...
th-cam.com/video/y_9ivwPWc_w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=xkxPpOG90537UgB7
Norway have the fastest warship in the world 🙂
Very cool. I love how its super top secret and the engineer brings his two little boys and takes pictures! 😂
ultimately what destroyed the concept was none of that. it was simply cost being somewhere around 20x more expensive then projected and some 50x more expensive than a traditional ship. I have no doubt we still have some form of these in operation in some far away from city eyes.
The Hughes barge was actually used to transfer the submarine capture vehicle into the moon pool of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. It didn't do any sub capture itself. It was merely used as a secretive transfer barge.
There was a Navy prototype just out in the open at a dock in Panama City, Florida. (On the not-good side of the inlet, not in Panama City Beach.)
Once in a while it'd have someone in a Naval uniform hanging around, but it wasn't under wraps or anything. It was a prototype for their stealth litoral combat ship.
It was so cool to see this ship everyday in the Suisun Bay here in California. Just as cool is that it was in a Howard Hugh's drydock boat. Unfortunately I believe both have been sent off to be scrapped.
The barge was originally built for Clementine, the UAV Claw used to covertly rise the Soviet sub. It is now a floating drydock used by a private shipyard
Bay Ship & Yacht Co, Alameda CA USA. (Right next to the Main Street Ferry terminal. You can see it any day you take the ferry. :) )
I worked at Bay Ship during that period. Part of the purchase agreement for the barge was that they had to demolish the Sea Shadow (which was inside of the barge) before they could take delivery, which they did.
No Soviet sub has ever been raised by a foreign foe. Who gave you this lie?
@@yxmichaelxyyxmichaelxy3074 Technically you are correct. The Hughes mining ship did get the grapple on one, but it broke apart as they tried to raise it, so they only got a small piece of it.
@@yxmichaelxyyxmichaelxy3074 Glomar Explorer. www.google.com/search?q=glomar+explorer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f81913a3,vid:iZzvnPnCTqM,st:0
I have been watching your videos for 2 years, I am happy to see how much your channel has grown, I hope you soon reach a million.
You just brought a memory I had forgotten back to the surface, these were so cool to me when I was younger.
I could imagine them using this as as a landing ship for night raids
Special Operations Troop transport.
Approaching the shore in shallow or restricted waters is a scenario where a stealth ship is better than a sub.
Yes - they promoted spending - billions - to convert old SSBN subs to SSGN's as seal insertion - but how close to shore are you going to get with a 520 ft nuclear submarine. Totally laughable.@@haroldb1856
The zumwalt was also made of aluminum in such a way that they are facing issues with corrosion, and the main weapon they were designed to use was to expensive to fire. It's one thing to have custom ammo for 30 ships, it's entirely another thing to have custom ammo made for two or three ships.
HMB-1 was built to service the Gloma Explorer's claw. This was also built at LMS at the Port of Redwood City. Believe me I was on it at the dock at Treasure Island why Bay Ship and Yacht when the were about finished with the salvage work.
The new destroyers were all built around a concept of a guided/highly precise ordinance gun (VGAS). A fancy and insanely expensive concept that was still in the planning stages when the ships were proposed and built. When problems with the guided munitions arose, it simply made all the other problems the ships were experiencing unbearable. With each round costing almost 1 million, well... Obviously the idea was scrapped with the munitions cost balloning to ludicrous levels. Basically the ships were built in anticipation of having cost effective guided munitions. Something the contractor promised but couldn't deliver. There are articles everywhere about it. Finger pointing everywhere, too. A real clusterfuck.
I have a friend who did helicopter testing with this ship out of San Diego. It so long ago I don't recall much other than he said his SH-60B flew missions with it for a week or so and then it was hard to find on radar, but the bravo radar was not great to begin with so...
I took a San Diego harbor tour back '04 and part of the tour was passing by the Sea Shadow's dock. Not sure how it is nowadays but back then they'd leave the front door open so you could get a good look at it. Super cool to see in person.
Geee, wasn't that the ship in "Tomorrow Never Dies?"
The big gold circle on top of those Polaroid cameras was sonar? I had no idea.
Yes, the later SX-70s had them, as well as some other models.
Galoob made all sorts of real and concept Micro Machines toys, including the Sea Shadow, the Aurora hypersonic plane, and the Sanger spaceplane.
Loved it then and still do. A wonderful ship.
One of the main uses for the navy is intimidation. Openly sending an aircraft carrier task force to someone's back yard tends to make negotiating go smoother. A stealth navy kind of defeats the purpose. The large number of warships travelling together and their overwhelming amount of firepower makes hiding unnecessary.
defeats the purpose for america maybe, but a slow, inefficient, but super stealthy submarines has a myriad of practical uses in an actual war. Imagine if they had a small bunch of them just sitting around the bering strait, the black sea, red sea, any other important but relatively small area of sea.
Another main use for a navy is winning wars on the ocean. Bringing force to bear at times and locations unexpected kinda supports that role.
You say that yet subs are still a major component of most navies.
@@razorburn645 I think submarines are a big part of what made "stealth ships" somewhat obsolete. You dont get much more stealthy than a submarine under water.
Modern warships do use a lot of stealth design principles though, to make them just a bit harder to track and combat.
Merry Christmas Nick!!!
I believe the part with the nacelles would be more called pontoons
During construction. Everyone in the HMB-1 referred to them as Nacelles. As my old man used that word so many times after that project and kept his word and never talked about it until his contract was up.
LCS and Zumwalt killed the stealth program. They'll have to start over, with new people on the project. It's about at the level of the F-117 so far.
The WW2 Germans used an anti sonar coating on their submarines called “Albrecht”. Tested on 1942 it suffered from poor adhesion but this was fixed in 1944. A u-boat called the “black panther” caused the allies problems but it hit a mine. The Germans also used an anti radar coating called schornsteinfehger on their mast heads. Late 1944 tech so too late to make a difference.
The German submarine U-480 had the stealth coating. I think it was destroyed by a mine.
Big doubt, Sonar and Radar are two different things and no evidence exists to prove any of the German WW2 Stealth paint or coatings ever worked, when the HO229 was taken apart and studied (often called a stealth bomber by idiots), no evidence of the so called "stealth coating" existed.
Sonar works by bouncing sound off the sea floor or whatever is in the water (subs, ships, fish, whatever) unless this WW2 German wonder project made a U-boat somehow have zero mass to allow sound waves to go though it, it did not work, *real* sonar protected stealth ships are stealthy to sonar by having very little of their hull in the water, sonar returns incorrect data.
Radar works by bouncing fast as light energy waves off objects and measuring return samples, "stealth" aircraft avoid this by deflection or energy absorption and not allowing a return sample to the radar, this does not work on sonar.
@@deepbludreams The German Anti Radar Coatings and Anti Sonar Coatings were extensively investigated after WW2. I will link to the reports but if you google . " The Schornsteinfeger Project C.I.O.S Report XXVI-24 May 1945. " We have many reports and were found to work very. Don't call anyone an idiot because often the bit of an idiot may turn out to be you. The anti Radar Coating was a German Navy Project arising from Doesnitz's 1943 anti radar conference and had nothing to do with the Luftwaffe. Never trust Natgeo, Discovery or the History Channel even if Northrop Grumann is involved.
-Schornsteinfeger was a Jaumann absorber used on snorkels with hundreds of subs subs were equipped. It absorbed 96% of radar and reduced detection range to only 15% for 9cm radar in calm seas. Worked also with 3cm radar and was more effective in rough seas due to the reduced signal to noise ratio It had 9 layers of cardboard impregnated with graphite to make it semiconducting. This was impregnated with plastic to make it water proof. The density of the graphite increased exponentially to absorb the radar. For a metal surface Think of a wave hitting a vertical harbor wall and a wave reflecting perfectly. The Jaumann absorber is like a gently slopped beach, the wave does not reflect immediately but is absorbed in pebbles and rocks as it surges up the slope. What little reflects cancels with the incoming wave.
-The other absorber was the Wesh Absorber also used on u-boats.
-This worked using ferrite (iron oxide) materials with crystal structures tailored to different wavelengths. Wheras the Jaumann absorber absorbed 96% at its optimal wavelength the 80% at 1/3d wavelength 3 wavelengths the Wesh worked at 90% but spread over about 10 times the range.
-Wesh was only 2mm to 4mm thick and made of corrugated rubber. It was used on the curved pats of the snorkel and periscope where the jaumann absorber was harder to fit.
-The two methods Jaumann absorber and Ferrite could be combined to achieve 99% absorption across a wide band. This was not used in service due to the end of the war.
-Proof the Germans had effective radar absorbers.
@@deepbludreams - I have posted above on German anti radar coatings used on their submarine snorkels and periscopes. I have given declassified Government sources. -Now I will post on the Albrecht anti sonar coating applied to u-boat hulls.
-Albrecht consisted of metal mesh punched out with two or more sizes of holes. The holes were filled with rubber and the mesh covered in thin rubber.
-The hole diameter determine a resonant frequency. Absorption of sonar and sound waves was at its p0eak at these resonant frequencies but also worked to either side creating a broad band absorber.
-Albrecht seemed to reduce detection range against passive hydrophone sonar by about 15% which implies about 70% absorption of sound (power of 4 law) . It's effects against active sonar were to similar degree. In general a 50% absorption achieved only a 15% reduction in range (power of 4 law) but its usually 2-3 times more due to S/N ratio reduction.
seems like an interesting concept
Surprisingly, the stealth bomber made it through till to today while the stealth ship doesn't.
Probably has to do with the fact that Airplanes only need to deal with Radar coming from below the plane. While a ship needs to deal with Sonar, and Radar coming from two different directions. Sounds like it's 3x harder, and a ship is much slower.
Plus submarines ARE stealth boats and have been doing a good job at it
@robertw1800 There's also AWACS and other planes with radars.
@@robertw1800 There is also hydro acoustics, unless the stealth ship is traveling relatively slow for a military surface ship, it's propellers moving can be heard for way outside of radar or active sonar range anyway. The US has had a network off it's coast that could detect/track ships/subs near Europe since the 50s. So unless there is a lot of other traffic in the area, kind of hard to not at least give away the general area operating in.
The Sea Shadow was an experimental ship
Have Blue testbeds aren't flying anymore either ...
So they only ever built one? Cause there’s a ship that looks very similar next to the USS Albacore submarine museum that for years was just sitting by itself across the river from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
😂I had a Micro machine or the like of this one. It came with space plane, and a stealth shuttle on the back. There was one of the Strike games series on the SEGA Genesis in the first mission area.
The “twin underwater nacelles” are called “torpedo hills”
Very cool video!
On the SWATH ships I’ve been working on lately, we call them Demi-Hulls. The part attaching them to the cross deck is called strut. The interior structural brackets which take the bending moment are called haunches.
To have come out in 1985, it really does look like brand new tech, at least to the untrained eye. But was it just a proof-of-concept or could do anything besides stealth?
BTW the intro was quite false, it was built for a very reasonable cost, which is what the Skunk Works was noted for.
@@brettbuck7362 Worth noting that prototype cost can be much different (upward or downward) of production cost.
@@MarcosElMalo2 Point being, they didn't have "an unlimited budget", it was very modest for a ship of this size, and would have been even less had the Navy not pestered them to death with nit-picking (Kelly's unwritten rule).
The Skunk Works had almost nothing to do with the Sea Shadow. It was built by Lockheed Sunnyvale at their Redwood City facility. And no - the Skunk Works is absolutely not know for reasonable cost..@@brettbuck7362
I think the model is wrong. There was a boat called "Ghost" built by Inventor Gregory Sancoff who wanted to make a cool boat for the Navy had propellers in the front of the torpedo-looking pods. The propeller in the front design created a supercavitation effect allowing the boat to go much faster. The Sea shadow takes many design elements from Gregory Sancoff's design. Whether or not Sancoff got anything out of the Navy "borrowing" from his concept is probably locked away behind security clearances and NDAs.
As usual it was the high cost and lack of necessity. In a fully fledged war with a neat peer opponent like China or Russia I expect we'd see a lot of stealth ships suddenly pop into existence.
And these ships would be unmanned
Calling Russia "near peer" at this point is just silly, especially in terms of naval power. Actually, in terms of naval power, calling China "near peer" is silly too. China's total fleet has similar combat power to a single US carrier group... the US has 11 carriers.
Russia stinks at war lmaoooo
@@timeshark8727 OK chest-thumper, calm down. Russia's navy has seen better days, but it would be unwise to dismiss China's navy. It doesn't need to be as large or as "powerful" in total, it only has to exert power where it's needed, which currently remains the South China Sea, and in case of a hot war, the Sea of Japan. In terms of technology and applied power within a region, China is comfortably "near-peer", and the USA having to work hard to ensure they stay ahead. Both countries has technologies and advantages the other lacks.
That kind of hubris is the kind that led Russia to lose a modern battlecruiser. Fortunately for the USA, it's top military officers aren't as myopic as you are.
@@timeshark8727 then why Ukraine ain't winning
I love this used the sinking barge for Project Azorian / Glomar Explorer
Surprised you didn't call it the
(US) Sea Shadow
I do remember seeing this ship on the gov auction website pretty cheap. I debated on bidding but I did not know anything about diesel engines and it was all the way in California. Did not know how to bring it to Florida and I figured it would cost me an arm and a leg in fuel to sail it.
Looks like that stealth ship from that James Bond movie.
It is. That boat was based off of if not directly used the Sea Shadow
The one in the movie is shown to be much bigger though. I wonder if they were able to use the real ship or used a miniature. The timing looks right as well since it was just declassified when Tomorrow Never Dies came out and the ship wasn't destroyed yet.
EXCELLENT VIDEO.....Thanks very much from an Old F-4 Phantom 2 Shoe🇺🇸
The original Sea Shadow was likely retired either scrapped or is being held in storage somewhere.
However, see that the idea of a stealth surface ship is bonkers in my mind is being too shortsighted.
Now a lot of people seem to get terms, mixed up or mixed together. For instance, I’ve seen people basically use the phrase stealth to equate to essentially invisibility. Now stealth doesn’t necessarily mean being visually unidentifiable or detectable. Current stealth technology is all about being invisible to sensors. After all, even on a flat featureless ocean , without advanced optics and stuff even trained naval personnel likely will not actually see a ship coming until it is at the point of which we would call on the horizon. And by the way, the average human can only see about I think it’s 10 miles before their brain essentially can’t discern what something is in the distance without enhanced optics.
The sea shadow itself I like to think it was more of a proof of concept. Rather than an outright idea for a ship. Now the kind of technology that it used to float, and all that stuff is a well understood technology. In fact, there are private companies that are developing Both pleasurecraft, and even potential rescue vehicles that have a similar design in terms of how they go through their locomotion. One of which is very interesting, where the screws actually aren’t on the rear of the vessel they’re actually at the front. And they act like the propellers on an airplane, pulling the vessel through the water instead of pushing.
But again, I’m more than willing to bet that the technology that was used for the development of the sea. Shadow is probably still highly classified and newer versions are likely on the drawing board, if not in small scale, prototyping tests. Vessels like this would be ideal for the deployment of special forces units, or even to be used as scouting vessels. Hell, another idea would be use the overall design, but shrink it and turn it into an un spy device or something.
Honestly, the overall idea of a vessel like the sea shadow at least I personally feel is scientifically and tactically sound.
Think about it this way. The Comanche. The space age looking stealth helicopter that would’ve probably supported and then maybe it some point replaced the attack helicopters such as the Apache and cobra. Allegedly that program was also shelved, but we also need to take any consideration. The fact of the alleged stealth Blackhawk helicopters that were used during operation Neptune spear. Something tells me that the stealth attack chopper idea didn’t pan out at least as much as we know they likely use the data for the development of these stealth versions of the Blackhawks.
They say that the project has been canceled likely does not mean that the project truly has been canceled. It may simply be stated that way to pull it out of the public eye. Perhaps something was discovered that required more in-depth and secretive testing.
Sea Shadow was scrapped. Its hangar, after sitting in the Suisun Bay mothball fleet for a number of years, was sold to a ship repair company for use as a floating dry dock; Bay Ship & Yacht Co, Alameda CA USA. (Right next to the Main Street Ferry terminal. You can see it any day you take the ferry. :) )
My brother (who was in the Canadian navy) claims he was on the bridge of his ship (City class DDE) when the Sea Shadow passed within less than a mile of them, but the radar screen was showing it 20+ miles away.
Imagine using these stealth ships today as drone carriers. 👽
There was a Micro Machines model of this ship. I have one. It has a door along the top that flips open to reveal round missiles of some kind, ready to launch.
Frankly, stealth ships are redundant. Being able to find, and more importantly hit, a ship in the open ocean with long range guns or missiles is already incredibly difficult. When attacking fleets with planes you are often within visual range, which there is no stealth for. Then there are submarines, which are an entire class of stealth ships.
You can see a ship of any decent size at hundreds of miles with radar, basically to the horizon, which can be extended with aircraft. If you can't see it on radar you would need to visually acquire it, which fair weather is about 30 miles or so.
Not to mention the fact that stealthly ships DO exist. There are many full stealth, and reduced radar cross section ships, the new Gerald R Ford carriers being one, as well as the San Antonio class amphibious dock ships.
"When attacking fleets with planes you are often within visual range" 🤣Yeah, sure, is not like we have radars, and airborne radar, who can "see" ships at hundreds of KMs, or sonars, who can "hear" ships at THOUSANDS of KMs !
Or satellites / drones, who can see a ship trails from space !
Just about all newly constructed warships have some degree of stealth measures, like angling the sides, hiding anchors ,lifeboats, fittings, behind screens or inside the superstructure, cutting off corners, weird shaped stanchions, less black paint, ...
@@Wannes_ - true, but only an idiot ( or mafia and corrupted DoD, like the US ) will invest zillions ( zillions like in Zumwalt, the murican failed withe elephant ! ) only an idiot will invest millions in a full stealth ship - is just impossible to "hide" a big surface ship. Is NOT just the Radar - is the visual acquisition from Space, the IR signature, and, crucial, the NOISE. You simply CANNOT move FAST ( over 20 knots) and remain silent. Especially on the surface.
Modern satellites can spot the trails of medium/big ships from thousands of KM, then extrapolate instantly the position of the ship.
Any decent navy who want stealth ships will build subs. Corrupted idiots will build Zumwalt.
@@Demonslayer20111 Being able to find the general area of a ship and being able to hit a ship are very different things.
you missed the most important reason why it was canceled and became a pur research vesal, Because 'clue' it shows up on radar like a 60 foot hole in the middle of your lawn. 'have you got it yet' it's problem was it was to good and showed up as a dark ship shaped patch on the radar screen
It was a classified project that we were not supposed to know about, so we called it the Sea Bat. Sailing SOCAL between 87-93 I had to dodge it too often.
You saw it firsthand?
What was your reaction to seeing that thing in real time???
@@S0RELOSER Yes, I saw it, while sailing on Southern California OpAreas. While Navigator of the USS Racine home ported out of Naval Station Long Beach, I preferred to night time steam a racetrack between Santa Catalina and San Nicholas Islands. I thought it was cool. I loved the Swath design and the Navy was testing it for sea keeping and loading abilities. It was a pain, because I wanted everyone to have a quiet night, so I avoided known operating areas & since they kept that one secret, I never knew if she would pop up in the early morning.
Sea Shadow operated out of NASNI while I was stationed at Deep Submergence Unit. It was in and out a lot, but it didn't go out when the weather was sloppy, so it might not have done well in higher sea states. Cool ass ship for sure
Never operated out of North Island; was at Naval Station SD and briefly at the sub base.
@@richardpaquette8352 Did Subbase Point Loma two tours also. Traffic sucked at both😉
I have heard that a downside of these stealth ships is that they are to stealthy, meaning that while you can't see the ship, your radar also can't see the water the ship is displacing, so it looks like a hole in the ocean.
You mean it “can” see the water displacement?
@@keirfarnum6811pedant 😜
@@keirfarnum6811 it sees the surface of the water. Stealth ships don't reflect anything, so it sees a hole.
I've read that too.
An aircraft with surface search radar flying high enough, can indirectly detect the Sea Shadow, as the return signal from the ocean surface will be absent where the ship is, so its detected because it dosn't reflect enough of the radar beams back, to mimic what that the ocean surface does.
🤔🤔🤔
@@ronansmith9148 It does reflect things back, but it will be too small and be filtered out by the computer as ground clutter.
I originally watched your channel to help me fall asleep, but now I am watching it even on my free time.
No matter how stealth a surface ship can be, it's no match for submarine's Stealth ability, and the fact that submarine can launch torpedo and missile while diving and being protected from air-strike makes us wonder why do we even need a stealth surface ship in the first place.
An order of magnitude cheaper...thats why.
@@marcalvarez4890 Dude, even the least expensive submarine is cheaper than average surface Stealth ship, and yet it still stealthier than them.
Damn i used too much stealth
Subs don't have "stealth" an undetectable sub does not exist, nor a "stealthy" one, good reason why subs spent the entire cold war tracking each other.
Subs only have "Stealth" with in X distance of destroyers, it's why modern sonar systems are such a heavily protected state secret.
They are just hard to surface detect because modern ones can just stay underwater for their whole patrol, surface ships can and do detect subs with hydroacoustic systems of various flavors, and after a torpedo or missile launch they pretty much instantly die from return fire in the form of surface ship launched torpedoes or helicopter anti-sub torpedoes/depth charges
Also on the surface or at launch depth they are pretty easily detected, the destroyer is still the natural hunter of subs, subs have not displaced surface ships, hell even an entire class of aircraft exist to kill subs, not to mention aircraft dropped submarine detection systems.
So no, Subs are not protected against air strikes, if anything they are the least protected, they cannot really defend themselves and any hit will in most cases sink a sub.
@@deepbludreams Turn off the subs power. There. Stealth sub.
During construction. Everyone in the HMB-1 referred to them as Nacelles. As my old man used that word so many times after that project and kept his word and never talked about it until his contract was up.
Got to see this ship in its covered floating dock at MARAD in Benicia CA. Impressive.
Easy answer is. The sun comes up every day. Stealth goes away. Kinda lame.
Then explain stealth aircraft🤔
Flat black dot on a already dark colored north sea ocean in a shape to readily recognized as a ship
@@mirthenarysimple, stealth aircraft have the speed advantage and could outrun and outmanuever missiles and other aircraft, while a stealth ship has the disadvantage of not being able to hide in the clouds like a jet fighter does, also Stealth Submarines have the advantage of outmanuevering and counter enemy fire by diving or deploying dummy submersible's to confuse enemy torpedoes. Generally Stealth Ships have the disadvantage of not being able to hide their radar cross section efficiently and not being able to outrun their enemies without depleting their weapons and other assets, once that ship is spotted enemy aircraft will be sent for support and destroy it, all in all stealth technology is only highly feasable on submersibles and aircraft.
@mirthenary Three words, sky high clouds.
Eh, the daylight visibility thing can be solved with the right paint job. Maybe an updated Dazzle design so the angles don't stand out so much. That's all I can think of... Not much better than current designs.🤷
I remember looking over and seeing this thing while driving on base at Norfolk Naval base. Looked so cool. Would have been fun if they gave us a tour or told us about it. It was out in the open no hanger or anything they just didn't give it any press like it was a dying ship no one wanted to talk about. Like fast and the furious Tokyo drift.
8:18 Pontoon?
Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜 and Merry Christmas 🎁🎄🎅
Sharkbite looking ass ship
I love these videos of tanks and ships. Keep it up. Love your work
The thing is we already invented Stealth ships over a century ago, they are called Submarines.
Which are significantly slower and vulnerable while surfacing. The sea shadow was for quick insertion of special forces.
@@grimmlinn lol
The FREMM, Visby, and pretty much most of every new frigate and destroyer built today are based on LO. Just look the PLAN ships, look at the type 055, it's the culmination of stealth tech in ships.
What would happen if the ship was made into a stealth aircraft carrier with stealth planes?
Its still kinda hard to make a carrier stealthy from things like satelites
would be hard unless it does not keep any planes on deck. even stealth planes. if a bunch of them are lined up on a carrier deck would be a beacon
The stealth planes and stealth aircraft carriers would just crash into each other and sink day one.
We built it.
Then we lost it, we forgot where we parked it and now it's gone forever
@@YellowLab-bg3os true that satellites have time windows, but those time windows are very short. But even if you managed to stealth the entire support fleet, the enemy are bound to notice something. Also the sub carrier worked, but it probably couldnt carry enough fighters, ammo, or jet fuel to be effective
It's worth (IMHO) mentioning that part of the reason for no curved surfaces is that they just didn't have the computing power at the time to calculate a stealthy hull or fuselage with curves. Hence the reason modern stealthy aircraft DO have curves is that this isn't a problem now.
That's funny
Ahh yea, the stealth ship, something they had already solved even more comprehensivly with submarines and without the drawback of just being visible..
Wonder why they didn't catch on 😂
I was looking for this comment, it’s so true
If that were true, then there'd be no other warships. There are other warships. They aren't very stealth. Wouldn't it be nice if they were? Let's build a testbed to see what we can learn. To apply to the non-submarine navy that we already have and expect to continue to have.
@@petermgruhn the modern surface fleet is not designed with stealth as the main priority, their roles are completely different. The reason people don’t make stealth ships is that there is no obvious advantages to them over submarines which are inherently better at being inconspicuous. I can’t name one thing a stealth surface ship can do that a submarine can’t do. Wanna sneak up on an enemy ship and sink it with torpedoes? Use a submarine. Wanna conduct reconnaissance on enemy naval activities? Use a submarine. Want to deliver special forces soldiers inconspicuously to an enemy shoreline? Use a submarine. In conclusion stealth ships aren’t a thing because which have submarines which are objectively better
I think they’re working pretty well.
I got to speak to a former member of the DoD (1950s/60s) and they spoke whole heartedly about the technology available to the US military. The stuff you actually have, and HAVEN'T seen. I feel like the secrecy featured in this video is a testament to their information.
The correct term is "Pontoon" not "Nacelle"
That’s from Tomorrow Never Dies 007.
How to make a stealth anything; make a scifi movie and say "its just a prop bro"
the Villain in the James bond film “Die another Day” used that ship as his flagship. It was neat
the ghost stealth ship is the best
During testing they kept it a San Nicolas Island. I'm a scuba diver and when we had a chartered a boat out to there we were told the island was closed for that time.Only later we found out it was Sea Shadow doing test ops out of its barge. I went and saw the ship when it came to San Pedro for the public to check out. I read it was to good and made a blank spot on radar.
We visited San Nicolas once to demo a seal insertion. Never stored there.
Ah yes wacthing a great vid when its 2;20 in the night
I actually got to see this ship in person on the SF Bay. It was like a black shadow crossing the water.
Back in the early 2000s my ship was moored on the same pier as this ship at the San Diego Naval Base 32nd St. wet side.
World of Warships ads are so funny like look how realistic every single detail is also here's Godzilla using a stack like a stripper pole
I’m a masters naval architecture student designing a swath wind farm support vessel and even I don’t fully know quite what to call the “nacelles”. People call them sponsons, pontoons and demihulls from the papers I’ve read.
In 1995 I was stationed at North Island Naval Air Station. Can’t say what I was doing on that base but I did see this ship come in while on duty. It was all hush hush stuff.
Its sad no museum took it in. I would have loved to see it in person some day.
Lockheed in the 80s sure was helluva company building stuff like that
She was moored at NAVSTA Long Beach, CA back in 92-93
I remember having a micro machines model of this back in the early 90s.
Thanks for working on Christmas
Maybe they got so stealthy we can't find them anymore.
They disappeared.
wasn't this in the James Bond movie 'Tomorrow never dies'
the barge was Not "fully submerge-able".
It was indeed fully submersible, as it's original use was to be sunk under the Hughes "mining ship", which had a huge extendable claw to retrieve the soviet sub. The intent was to pick up the sub and bring it up under the ship, sink the barge and move it under the claw, put the sub in the barge, then bring the barge out from under the ship and refloat it. That whole saga has been well documented.
@@martinbose7163 the roof does not submerge, the dock was not water tight.
It is just a normal floating drydock, nothing more. It can Mostly submerge the hull, but that is all.