A cloaked ship with dazzle paint... right....

I didn't know anyone bothered with dazzle paint anymore...

also this isn't a battleship. More like a light cruiser or a really big patrol boat..

Sweet. Looks like the DDX (?) cruiser the U.S. Navy is building. I'm sure our ship will cost 10 X as much. Thanks no bid contracts!

If it's like the ones I'm familiar with it'll be so energy intensive that they won't be able to fire weapons while it's active.

-what?

plans for the stealth ship were scraped when it was discovered that a giant white arrow pointed directly at the stern of the ship and followed it wherever it went...

@PVIII: according to this, closer to 15x more :)

Didn't they use this boat in the Street Fighter movie? Either that, or its the boat that Hulk Hogan tooled around in from the show about Thunbder Bay.

The words "you can't see me" need not apply.

Invisible? HA! I'll believe it when don't I see it...

hmm, invisible boat in the water.

this "invisible to the naked eye" is a dumb idea. remember street fight: the movie? invisible boat in a river...maybe we should aim our giant weapons at the part in the water?

btw, say hi to the boys on the eldridge for us.

say hi to the boys on the eldridge for us.

btw, i hope the enemy doesn't aim for the giant part in the water made by your invisible boat.

It's a large patrol boat, or tiny corvette. Visbys displace 650 tons; some corvettes as much as 2500.

The US Zumwalt(s), if they ever get built, will be in the 10,000 ton range - yeah, I'm pretty sure they'll cost more, for some reason. This is more like the LCS concepts, but even smaller.

I do wish people wouldn't use 'battleship' and 'tank' so freely - if you don't want to be specific, you could always use 'warship' and 'armored vehicle'...
-Kle.

oopsy.

While eyeballs on the open sea aren't as useful anymore, dazzle paint is still useful for ships used in the littoral-- makes spotting ships from shore difficult, not a small concern when confronted with direct-fire land-based anti-ship missiles.

Plus, it looks cool. Never underestimate looking cool.

As for invisibility in visible light, I think it's probably pointless for a naval ship, for the same point made above-- you can still spot *the wake*.

so, who else immediately thought Thunder in Paradise ?

@mitchel_stevens: Haha, I was thinking more M.A.N.T.I.S.

Its a corvette as the article says. Mainly used for anti-submarine patrol. The Swedes did sink at least one nosy Soviet sub. The US Navy is trying to design the next destroyer the same way but boy will it cost. Cost does not increase linearly with size. And invisible is with radar. When do ships and airplanes ever shoot at each other when they can physically see each other anymore?

@PVIII:
sweet christmas, i forgot about that show.
enough to wiki it and find:

"In the series' final installment Miles Hawkins meets his death disposing of an invisible, prehistoric dinosaur."

now really, in the wide open sea from miles away you're going to be able to spot a wake, especially on the choppy open water? Not to mention that you wouldn't see anything on radar so you wouldn't even know to be looking for a wake in the first place.

@mitchel_stevens: Ahahaha. If that one quote doesn't say it all.

"Sir I believe we may be under attack!"

"There is nothing on radar you fool!"

"no, but there is a giant white boat headed straight for us!"

"ensign, if it ain't on radar, it don't exisist. You've got a lot to lea.."
KABLAM!!!

I miss Seaquest . . .

@Annalee Newitz: I miss Roy Scheider... and to a lesser extent Jonathan Brandis.

That's what it reminds me of, The Man From Atlantis!
-who is it...Rodney?

A radar-invisible ship is all fine and dandy. The US built one years ago, that looks a lot like an F-117. They scrapped it because even though radar didn't reveal the ship, it revealed the big arrow of it's wake pointing at the ship just fine.

@CyberKender:

That was Sea Shadow: [en.wikipedia.org] It looks like most or all of the USN ships under development currently have some IR/Radar signature reduction involved, even the next CVN. Makes it harder for weapon seekers.
-Kle.

Who needs those ships nowadays? They are already invincible!

29. ?????
30. Profit!!!!

@DocGratis: I applaud the return of dazzle paint. Those old Q-ships from pre-radar WWII looked like Italian Futurist design. Combining it with the Smart Paint Annalee reported on Tuesday will make for some very stylish death on the high seas.

I thought nuclear-powered submarines were already as stealthy as it gets. The US Navy's arguments for surface ships always seemed a little weak to me.

@corpore-metal:

Actually, AIP submarines are theoretically more stealthy than the nuke-boats.

Subs can't project power like a CV, and other surface ships are for protecting the CVs. Subs also aren't terribly good at a lot of the less-flashy naval missions, like anti-pircay, smuggling protection, rendering assistance at sea, humanitarian work, etc. Surface ships are also a lot cheaper per-capability, so you can have more of them.
-Kle.

@Daveinva: Massive props for using "littoral" in a sentence. I love that word.

More Visby info from the manufacturer:

[www.kockums.se]

Great, just what we need... Another Philadelphia Experiment... The government just can't get enough seamen welded to its walls, can it?
Anyone see what I did there?

~Y