A "sharp sword" for U.S. offshore operations
——Analysis of the "Dagger" speedboat Recently, the U.S. military is conducting an investigation on a high-speed stealth speedboat with a unique design and strange appearance. The water test is scheduled to be used for the first time in exercises starting in May 2006. This speedboat is called the "Stiletto" and is a combat test boat built by the United States to transform its military. According to the U.S. Navy, the "Stiletto" fully meets the requirements of being "faster, stronger and lighter" for covert missions. The "dagger" will become a "sharp sword" for the U.S. military in offshore operations, which is a cause for concern. The product of the transformation of the US military. After the end of the Cold War, the United States took the lead in making strategic adjustments in response to the changed world structure and proposed a series of new strategic ideas such as "from sea to land". In recent years, the United States has proposed the transformation of its military, that is, to build the US military into an armed force that is "moderate in size," "well-equipped," "well-trained," and "strong in mobile combat capabilities." In order to realize the transformation of the military, the U.S. Department of Defense has also established a military transformation office. The "M80 Stiletto" speedboat is a project led by this transformation office.
During the Cold War, the U.S. Navy was bent on competing with the then Soviet Navy in the deep ocean and focused on building ocean power. Nowadays, the times have changed and the times have changed. The era of decisive battles in the oceans is no longer coming, and the U.S. Navy has turned its attention to the construction of offshore combat capabilities. How to improve offshore combat capabilities has become one of the most important topics in the U.S. Navy's transformation plan. In order to achieve transformation as soon as possible, the U.S. Navy has launched a number of new concept equipment such as offshore support ships, littoral combat ships, and special speedboats in recent years, and gradually transformed them into actual combat effectiveness.
With the gradual unfolding of strategic adjustments of the US military in recent years, the tactical thinking focusing on offshore operations has become increasingly clear. The U.S. Special Operations Command has also proposed its own transformation plan in response to this change. An important point is how to improve the ability to transport special forces in complex terrain environments in offshore waters. According to the requirements of the U.S. Special Operations Command, future transport speedboats must be able to rapidly deploy networks in offshore waters with complex terrain and perform tasks autonomously or semi-autonomously to deal with possible threats in the future. Navy Vice Admiral Arthur 61 Kbrowski, then director of the Military Transformation Office of the U.S. Department of Defense, had always advocated the introduction of new technologies to create a "smaller, more combat-effective" force. In response to the requirements of the Special Operations Command, Specific to the navy's offshore operations, it is to increase the number and performance of small ships, conduct network deployment during offshore operations, and spend less money to obtain higher combat effectiveness than deploying conventional ships. In this context, the "Dagger" high-speed stealth speedboat came into being.
In response to the requirements of the U.S. Special Operations Command, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Military Transformation Office assigned the task of designing and manufacturing a new speedboat to M Ship Design Company in San Diego, USA. The company then took out the "Dagger" high-speed stealth speedboat. The speedboat was completed in the factory workshop and officially launched in early February 2006, and began to undergo verification and trial by the US military special forces. As a new concept equipment dedicated to transporting special forces, the "Dagger" will greatly improve the US military's special warfare offshore transport and combat capabilities. The modified "Dagger" high-speed stealth speedboat of "Water Taxi" adopts the double M ship design of M Ship Design Company in San Diego, USA. Its appearance looks angular and flat, resembling a dagger, quite a bit like those in 007 or Batman movies. design style. It is said that the "Dagger" is not only fast, but also difficult to be detected by radar and has excellent stealth performance. In fact, this type of ship was not originally developed specifically for military ships, but was derived from the "water taxi" used for tourism in Venice, Italy. The current "dagger" is actually an improved version of the "water taxi".
Perhaps people are familiar with the water city of Venice in Italy. Venice is located on the Adriatic Sea. It is both a tourist destination and an important port in Italy. Venice has a main canal that is 4,000 meters long and 30 to 60 meters wide, connected to 177 tributaries. The city is composed of 118 small islands, and there are more than 2,300 water lanes in the city. The houses in Venice are uniquely built, with their foundations submerged in the water, as if emerging from the water.
Cars, motorcycles, and even bicycles are prohibited in this floating city. There is a TAXI sign on the roadside, which refers to a motorboat. The public transportation in Venice is a motorboat.
In the late 1990s, in order to reduce the erosion and damage caused by waves generated by high-speed ships on the waterways to Venetian water buildings, especially ancient buildings, the Venice Municipal Government asked the American M Ship Design Company for help, hoping to find A way to reduce the impact of ship waves. M Company partners Chuck Robinson and Bill Bones, who were once naval ship design engineers, used their experience in ship design to launch the unique design of the M ship after accepting the design task. , and applied for a patent. Knight & Carver, a subsidiary of M Ship Design Company, quickly built a commercial passenger ship about 7 meters long and tried it as a "water taxi" in Venice. During actual use, it was found that this type of ship reduced the impact of ship waves. The effect was so obvious that Venice immediately ordered another commercial ship about 20 meters long. Since then, M Company decided to use this technology to manufacture more ships of different sizes, mainly for fast passenger transportation and water city sightseeing tours.
As partners of M Ship Design Company, Chuck Robinson and Bill Bones quickly realized that the advantages of M ship in speed and stability were very suitable for military purposes. . So they introduced this new technology to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Military Transformation.
The office's naval commander, U.S. Naval Strategy Researcher George Glass and his colleagues were very interested in the design after seeing it. At the time, U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command was looking to build a new, low-cost, high-performance shallow-sea vessel, and officials were attracted to the ship's simple design. Later, M Ship Design Company built a nearly 12-meter-long prototype ship at the request of naval officials. After the prototype ship was built, the results not only met the requirements of the Navy, but the overall performance was 15% higher than the design data. Therefore, a contract was obtained to build a larger verification ship. This verification ship was named "M Ship 80”, now known as the “Dagger”. The advanced and unique performance "Dagger" high-speed stealth speedboat is a combat test boat responsible for the Office of Military Transformation of the U.S. Department of Defense. It is designed by M Ship Design Company in San Diego, USA, and manufactured by Knight 6?1 Carver Company. The cost is about for $6 million. It is said that the advanced and unique performance of the "dagger" is quite eye-catching and has attracted a lot of people's attention.
As a transport speedboat used by US military special forces to perform missions, it is not big. The boat is 24.4 meters long, 12.1 meters wide, has a rated crew of 3, and can deploy and recover 11-meter-long rigid inflatable boats. The boat can also carry drones and can carry 12 "SEAL" commandos. The speedboat is powered by four Caterpillar diesel engines, with a speed of over 50 knots and a range of 500 nautical miles. It is worth mentioning that the "Dagger" has a very shallow draft of only 0.91 meters, which is shallower than the 11-meter-long rigid inflatable speedboat used by the U.S. Navy's special forces for assault and retreat. Especially in the elevated state of high-speed navigation, the draft of the "Dagger" is only 0.15 meters. In addition, the speedboat uses four water-cutting propellers, making it very suitable for maneuvering in coastal waters.
The "Dagger" speedboat is made of carbon fiber materials, which is similar to the material of the F-35 and Boeing 787 passenger aircraft. It is the largest naval ship ever made of carbon fiber materials in the history of the United States. This material is characterized by high strength and light weight. Compared with ships built of aluminum alloy and steel, it can increase the ship's payload and ability to carry combat supplies, improve fuel efficiency and reduce ship maintenance workload. In addition, the carbon fiber material is filled with composite foam material, which greatly reduces the infrared and magnetic signal characteristics of the ship.
From the appearance point of view, the freeboard of the entire "Dagger" is low, and except for the exposed integrated mast, there is basically no other exposed equipment on the surface of the ship, and the bridge and weapons and equipment are integrated into the hull. , making the visual signal characteristics of the entire speedboat smaller.
At the junction of the hull's trihedral angles, a plane transition is used to reduce the probability of enemy radar incident waves being reflected back to the enemy radar. The "Dagger" speedboat has good stealth performance.
"Dagger" is a fully information-based ship. An "electronic keel" is laid on the ship. The so-called "electronic keel" is a local area network with a bandwidth of 1G and some data storage devices, making the ship compatible with different sensors, communication equipment and weapon systems, and also supports the information of the entire ship. Fusion. Utilizing this advanced "electronic keel", the "Dagger" speedboat can serve as a node in the network when approaching the enemy's coast, providing timely information to secretly infiltrated special operations forces.
The biggest highlight among the many performance factors of the "Dagger" is the new ship type it adopts called the "M ship type". The reason why it is called M ship type is that the letter M vividly represents the hull structure of this new ship type. It mainly consists of three parts. The middle part of the letter M is the main hull part, which is mainly used to displace water and provide buoyancy for the hull. The two legs of the letter M are the two walls of the hull. Their main function is similar to the apron of the air-cushion landing craft, which plays a sealing role. The blank part in the middle of the letter M is the air channel.
In principle, the principle of the M-type ship is somewhat similar to that of the side-wall hovercraft. However, the M ship type makes full use of the energy generated by the bow of the ship when sailing at high speed to form an air cushion to lift the hull, reducing the air cushion fan system required by the side-wall hovercraft, thereby reducing the ship's dead weight and increasing the payload of the ship. , allowing its payload to account for 43% of the displacement. At the same time, the M-type ship uses the ship-shaped structure to naturally form a sealed air cushion, which reduces the need for aprons for the hovercraft, thus eliminating the trouble of frequently replacing the aprons for the hovercraft.
The "Dagger" adopts a double M ship-shaped design. The bottom of the boat looks like two English letters "M" next to each other. There is a drainage area in the center, and the two sides are concave upwards to form tunnels, which are used to reflect and absorb the wave impulse during high-speed driving, converting it into upward lifting force, reducing the contact area between the hull and the water body, and is suitable for driving in shoals full of reefs. At the same time, the double-M design can also reduce the waves generated externally when the hull is traveling at high speed, reducing the intensity of sonar signals, thereby achieving an acoustic stealth effect. The future use of the "Dagger" Regarding the use of the "Dagger", there are accurate reports that it will be used as a special transport speedboat to transport special warfare personnel and special warfare equipment in offshore shoals with complex environments. However, some analysts believe that the "Dagger" speedboat is an advanced technology demonstration boat. The purpose is to test the M ship technology, verify the high speed, seaworthiness and stealth performance of this ship type, and explore the advantages of this new ship type. Operational concepts, etc. Judging from the performance and characteristics of the M ship type, the "Dagger" will likely be used for the following purposes:
Small high-speed combat ships. Small high-speed combat ships require high speed, strong maneuverability and good stealth performance in order to destroy enemy ships by surprise and be able to evacuate quickly. From these aspects, the "Dagger" speedboat has the potential to be used as a small high-speed combat ship.
In terms of speed, the "Dagger" can exceed 50 knots, while the speed of traditional displacement small high-speed combat ships is generally around 35 knots. In terms of maneuverability, the double-M ship type used by the "Dagger" speedboat has improved the stability and seaworthiness of the ship. The speedboat uses four Caterpillar diesel engines as the main engine, which has good acceleration performance. In particular, the "Dagger" has a shallow draft of only 0.91 meters, which is shallower than the 11-meter-long rigid inflatable speedboat used by the U.S. Navy's special forces for assault and retreat. Especially in the elevated state of high-speed navigation, the draft of the "Dagger" is only 0.15 meters. In addition, the ship uses four water-cutting propellers, making it very suitable for maneuvering in coastal waters. In terms of stealth performance, the freeboard of the "Dagger" is low. Except for the exposed integrated mast, there is basically nothing else on the surface of the ship. The bridge and weapons and equipment are integrated into the hull, and the visual signal of the ship is small. At the junction of the trihedral angles of the hull, a plane transition is adopted, which greatly reduces the radar signal characteristics. Because the hull is made of carbon fiber material, the ship's infrared and magnetic signal characteristics are smaller.
Mine warfare ship. As an auxiliary combat ship, the role of mine warfare ships in modern warfare cannot be underestimated. During the Iraq War, the U.S. Navy's mine warfare vessels played an important role in clearing the way for U.S. Marines to land in Iraqi ports. Since the United States put into service nearly 30 "Avenger" and "Oscilla" class mine warfare ships in the 1990s, it has not developed any more mine warfare ships and has instead focused on researching new mine warfare ships.
As a new ship type, the M ship type has many advantages. The U.S. Navy will naturally not give up the opportunity to use the M ship type as a mine warfare ship, and the "Dagger" speedboat does have the ability to serve as a mine warfare ship. potential.
First of all, the "Dagger" is a ship made of carbon fiber material. The advantages of this material are light weight and high strength. Therefore, compared with steel ships of the same level, the "Dagger" speedboat has a shallower draft. At the same time, the magnetic signal signature is also very small, making it difficult to trigger mines.
Secondly, the "Dagger" speedboat takes advantage of the unique advantages of the M ship type. It can not only suppress the generation of bow waves, but also use its own structure to generate an air cushion effect, lift the hull, and further reduce the draft of the ship. It also reduces the generation of wake waves when the ship sails at high speed, reducing the chance of triggering mines.