Engineering news
Royal Navy ships of the future will be shaped as trimarans, be powered by nuclear fusion reactors and have holographic command tables, an industry study has predicted.
A group of British naval electronic systems companies, working alongside Defence Equipment & Support and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, has developed a series of futuristic concept images on what a new surface ships could look like in 2050.
The images of the operations room are developed around a 3-D holographic command table to give the crew greatly improved situational awareness. The command table could be rotated and zoomed, to allow crew to focus on specific aspects of the battlefield be it in the air, on the surface both at sea and on land, or underwater. Additional, smaller holographic pods would allow the crew to manage those specific environments in greater detail.
The type of ship was also subject to discussion in terms of construction materials, power source, shape, sensors and weapons.
The ship would be a trimaran, made of ultra-strong acrylic composites which could be turned translucent to give commanders a view of close-in operations.
The power would either be a fusion reactor or highly efficient turbines driving silent electric motors to waterjets. The hull would be coated with graphene to cut down drag and could be ballasted down to present a lower profile which would make the ship more stealthy.
The ship would not have a conventional mast but a tethered quad-copter which could be flown above the ship. This tether would be made of carbon nanotubes, cryogenically cooled, in order to transmit significant power to the quad-copter for multi-spectral sensors and act as a high-power weapon to knock down enemy missiles or aircraft.
There would be an electro-magnetic railgun at the bow, capable of firing projectiles the same distance as today’s long-range cruise missiles. At the stern there would be a “moon pool” or floodable dock area to deploy Royal Marines and other troops on amphibious raiding missions, or unmanned underwater vehicles to detect mines.
Above the floodable dock would be a large, extendable flight deck and hangar for multiple remotely piloted air systems, many equipped with weapons, which could target the enemy without putting the crew in harm’s way. Along the ship’s sides would be missile tubes for defensive hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons to stop small enemy craft loaded with explosives; and in the outrigger hulls would be torpedo tubes to fire super-cavitating torpedoes capable of more than 300 knots.
The study said that the manning of this sort of ship could be brought down significantly. Where today’s modern warships have around 200 crew, a future crew could be brought down to as little as 50-100.
Steve Prest, the Royal Navy’s fleet robotics officer, said: “In 2013 the Royal Navy challenged the defence industry to innovate, and to generate new opportunities to give it an operational edge.
We therefore welcome a project that allows some of Britain’s best and brightest young engineers to come up with ideas on what a warship might look like or be equipped with in 2050. We want to attract the best new talent to sea to operate, maintain and develop systems with this level of ambition.”