This One's For Yipster...

[tspeer]

Hmmmm 60 kt? With those pods, maybe on a flatbed truck...


JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY - MARCH 03, 2004
CHARC attack concept armed to the teeth

Covert High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft (CHARC - pronounced 'shark') (Source: Lockheed Martin)



The CHARC features a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull or 'SWATH' design that Lockheed Martin says gives the craft extreme stability, even in high sea states (Source: Lockheed Martin)



Lockheed Martin says the folding-hull design of the CHARC would allow for several of them to be carried on the Littoral Combat Ship or other large surface ships (Source: Lockheed Martin)



The CHARC features a rear-access hatch to allow a SEAL team to enter and exit the craft easily (Source: Lockheed Martin)



MICHAEL SIRAK JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC

Lockheed Martin's new stealthy, fast attack craft concept for the US Navy will carry a powerful array of weapons and perform missions ranging from countering small, swarming boats to shallow-water anti-submarine warfare, mineclearing and inserting special operation forces into hot spots, say company officials.

JDW was the first publication to report on the Covert High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft (CHARC - pronounced 'shark'), which the company unveiled last year (JDW 25 June 2003). In February, company officials discussed the concept in more detail.

CHARC features a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) design. It carries a crew of two in a forward cockpit that borrows much from the layout and technologies used in modern attack helicopters, said company spokesman Tom Greer. Later configurations could be unmanned.

At the nose of the fuselage is a slewable 20mm rapid-fire gun. On each side of the forward fuselage are four internal weapons bays, each of which could hold one canisterised AGM-114 Hellfire missile or Joint Common Missile for line-of-sight engagements. The company says its nascent NetFires system could be incorporated for a beyond-line-of-sight attack capability. It could also mount 40mm grenade launchers.

The company is marketing an 11m-long variant and a 12m-long version of the CHARC to the navy and US Special Operations Command, said George Root, director of advanced programmes at the company's Maritime Systems & Sensors division. Although the craft could operate from a number of larger surface vessels, the company says its design is geared with the nascent Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) in mind. Several CHARCs could fit on the latter, according to the company.

The navy declined to address the CHARC specifically. However, navy spokeswoman Lt Amy Gilliland said the service is "very interested in exploring any new technologies and concepts that will enhance our force-protection capabilities". Focal areas include countering small boats and aircraft and swimmers as well as improving situational awareness and command and control, she noted.

Lockheed Martin would like to build, with funding support, a 1/4-scale model to validate the CHARC's stability in water. To date the company says it has invested about $2 million of its own funds. Root said the company believes that a prototype unit could be available in 2008 for experiments with LCS.

The SWATH configuration gives the craft extreme stability even in high sea states, said Root. The diesel-powered vessel is fast and agile, even in unfavourable conditions, and has a top speed approaching 60kt. Its directional waterjets make it "extremely manoeuvrable", he noted.

The vessel's design gives off only low infra-red, radar and visual signatures, said Greer. It can operate at varying heights above the water line, and has a retractable sensor mast. In addition to internal weapons carriage, its engine exhaust empties below the water line. The craft has a minimum draft of 1.5m to allow for operations in shallow water.

The mast will provide a "great field of view" to locate, identify and track targets, says the company. The vessel's sensor suite, located both in the mast and its nose, is to be determined, but will probably include a targeting forward-looking infra-red system, said the officials.

Both variants of the CHARC incorporate a folding SWATH design, for which a patent is pending. This allows the vessels to collapse into a box 3.6m wide by 3.6m high for storage - a footprint only slightly larger than that of the existing 11m rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) used by Sea, Air and Land (SEAL) commando teams, said the officials. The craft has steerable wheels to manoeuvre when in compressed mode on the host ship.

The fuselage's modular midsection and aft can be configured for various missions. There are modules that house additional crew to monitor anti-submarine sensors or control unmanned air, surface or underwater vehicles. Other modules hold auxiliary crew-served guns or carry additional missiles.

They could also accommodate a SEAL team. The 11m variant could carry six SEALS, while the 12m model could accommodate eight - half a SEAL platoon - with an access door at the rear of the craft. The vessel could also carry a RHIB underneath the fuselage for the team, said Greer.

There are also two modules in the forward section of each hull, each of which could carry one Mk 50 or Mk 54 torpedo. They could also house sonobuoys or hold equipment for the SEALs, said Root.

The CHARC's maintainers could install and exchange the modules in a matter of hours while the vessel is aboard its host platform, he noted.

[yipster]

Hmmmm 60 kt? With those pods, maybe on a flatbed truck...

On the way to the star wars studio maybe?

Hi Tom
What to say? Do they also come in white as sportfisher with tower

I do still believe the whole SWATH concept is viable but here armament seems way more important than vehicle. You did remember i like those folding legs didnt you? Thanks for letting me know, good to see i'm not the only nutcake.

[tspeer]

Yeah I figured the armament would be a put-off, but think of what you'd be able to do with it once you got rid of the weight!

With its built-in wheels, maybe you could make a road-able version. Talk about an SUV!

[yipster]

there is a lot to be said for wheels build in. just learned that most waterplanes crash becouse the wheels are still out while landing on water. having steerable wheels makes it way more complicated than many people think, not talking about the DMV...

[yipster]

what i like to see in such a "boat" would be forexample a clean H2O engine. a gallon of H&O, both flammable gasses with only water as waiste holds 4 times the energy of gas but since nobody seems interested in it i'm now looking into making gold

[Polarity]

you mean this:
http://tinyurl.com/2k677 (Hot cell stationary use)

http://tinyurl.com/34gul (cool cell for boats...)

[yipster]

MTU and IPF demonstrated a fuel cell powered sailing boat on the Lake of Constance on Wednesday. The boat “No.1” is equipped with a 20kW PEM fuel cell which replaces conventional diesel or gasoline engines.

pitty the article is not going into more detail but eureka: the first boat using this technology!
funding and hydrogen infrastructure may not be completely ready but for ships (and boats) that travel on water (hydrogen fuel) I had not heard of applications using it before. check the PEM fuel cells demo. yet other way's to produce and use water energy are possible as well.

from trouty's wormhole propulsion thread:
If both hydrogen and oxygen are flammable, then why doesn't water burn?
Hydrogen and oxygen will burn to form water if in an appropriate mixture. Pure hydrogen by itself and pure oxygen by itself will not burn (hydrogen needs an oxidizer and oxygen needs a reductant). Water (H2O) is a stable chemical compound that does not have the characteristics of the elements that make up its composition (hydrogen and oxygen). This is true of most chemical compounds. Hydrogen has the highest energy content per unit weight of any known fuel-52,000 Btu/lb (120.7 kJ/g). It burns cleanly. When hydrogen is burned with oxygen, the only byproducts are heat and water. When burned with air, which is about 68% nitrogen, some oxides of nitrogen are formed. The ultimate source of hydrogen is water. when producing hydrogen, we would also produce oxygen, which would both be consumed in the same ratio as produced. So there would be no depletion of oxygen from the atmosphere. Electrolysis does not require significant amounts of water. The hydrogen extracted from a gallon of water using a hydrogen generator could drive a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle as far as gasoline vehicles travel today on a gallon of gasoline. The energy required to produce hydrogen via electrolysis (assuming 1.23 V) is about 32.9 kW-hr/kg. For 1 mole (2 g) of hydrogen the energy is about 0.0660 kW-hr/mole. Because a Watt is Voltage x Current, this is equivalent to Power x Rate x Time. The power in this case is the voltage required to split water into hydrogen and oxygen (1.23 V at 25°C). The rate is the current flow and relates directly to how fast hydrogen is produced. Time, of course, is how long the reaction runs. It turns out that voltage and current flow are interrelated. To run the water splitting reaction at a higher rate (generating more hydrogen in a given time), more voltage must be applied similar to pushing down on the accelerator of a car; more gas is used to make the car go faster. Lowering the voltage for electrolysis, which will increase the energy efficiency of the process, is an important area for research.

[yipster]

what i like to see in such a "boat" would be forexample a clean H2O engine. a gallon of H&O, both flammable gasses with only water as waiste holds 4 times the energy of gas but since nobody seems interested in it i'm now looking into making gold

Gold was made by bombardment of Helium on lead. It was done by Glenn Seaborg.

H2O energy we are still working on

[Corpus Skipper]

Being in the power industry, I can tell you from various trade publications that producing hydrogen fuel from water is not economically feasible. I wish it were, just suck up fuel from what your floating in, how great would that be? Currently hydrogen is produced from natural gas, and isn't really viable as a fuel because it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than what could have been extracted from the natural gas to begin with. If someone would only figure out a way to efficiently split hydrogen and oxygen from water, we'd have it made, but Exxon/Mobile probably wouldn't appreciate it....

[yipster]

Thanks for the interest and yes, that’s the picture skipper.

Hydrogen is a big thing; I read in 10 to 20 year we will have an H economy? I knew Oil Company’s already make H as byproduct in regular gas refineries. That H at this day is only little more expensive than gas but i understand it has a big overhead in transport, storage etc. Isn’t it a bit odd that current hydrogen energy seem to focus on cars? There is talk if Hydrogen fuel stations should produce the Hydrogen themselves with solar cells and other means but nothing –exept polarity’s sailboat- about H for boats that are indeed floating in it (were also the extra O energy can be utilized). Offcourse this would ask for different techniques in production and consumption but there are premiums in that. electrolyzing is simple and i’m intrigued in more modern way’s. as you said: just find the rite economic split.
And that looks like quantum mechanics. A quick search however learned Hydrogen combusted with pure oxygen results in pure steam at 3000 Celsius, i.e. 2H2 + O2 ® 2H2O (2). Below that temp steam allready forms Hydrogen and Oxygen thermicly (like powerplants offer to do). Vicieus circle again? Maybe its time to start calculating, chances are those man in black are playing a hoax on us.

Some good reading:
http://www.iahe.org/h2convrt.htm
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/water/chemis...ctrolysis.html
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumeri...iefs/a109.html
http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogena...en/basics.html

Popeye knew where the energy was at (spinach is full of Hydrogen) elsewhere someone said, “If Hydrogen is such a great fuel than why is it used to distinguish fire?” I’m off checking the boats cathodes!

[Corpus Skipper]

“If Hydrogen is such a great fuel than why is it used to distinguish fire?”

Remind me never to board THAT boat!!!! Good info. you found there Yip! Time to slip out to the shop and start tinkering. Just listen for the BOOM!