Naval Group Blue Shark

[GTX]

Naval Group presents Blue Shark, a high-tech and environmentally responsible concept ship at Euronaval 2022 | Naval Group

Naval Group is a partner to its customers' maritime sovereignty. An international player in naval defence and heir to French naval know-how, Naval Group develops innovative solutions to meet the needs of navies. Present throughout the entire life cycle of the ships, the group designs, builds...

www.naval-group.com

 

[GTX]

View: https://youtu.be/Xf6LCwh441o

 

[TomS]

I'm more curious about the hydrofoil corvette (?) there than the trimaran frigate. Any details on that one?

 

[GTX]

I'm more curious about the hydrofoil corvette (?) there than the trimaran frigate. Any details on that one?

Not really - I think it is just a concept within a concept if that makes sense.

I am not seeing anything here for instance:

Unifying focuses | Naval Group

Progress made thanks to technological advances and breakthrough innovations open up new perspectives but also reshuffle the cards in terms of corporate strategy and culture.

www.naval-group.com

 

[GTX]

View: https://youtu.be/jAPOdWgsvwQ

 

[H_K]

I'm more curious about the hydrofoil corvette (?) there than the trimaran frigate. Any details on that one?

That’s the Sea Striker concept. Not a lot of info except a few paragraphs… the rest is in a conference paper that I don’t have access to.

The Sea Striker: Foilers are back in the game

Sea Striker: Foilers are back in the game

This paper presents how the recent evolutions of naval missions, threats and operation theatres have led to the need for a new kind of surface players in the modern warfare. Then, an innovative surface combatant, the Sea Striker, is introduced and her various assets and advantages explained and...

onepetro.org

This paper presents how the recent evolutions of naval missions, threats and operation theatres have led to the need for a new kind of surface players in the modern warfare. Then, an innovative surface combatant, the Sea Striker, is introduced and her various assets and advantages explained and detailed, along with her limitations. Finally, some example of computation of Measure of Performance in different scenario are exposed, followed by a brief analysis and contextualization in order to justify the relevance of using ships like the Sea Striker in various naval operations.

Euronaval R&D: measuring performance to legitimise our choices

[Euronaval] R&D: measuring performance to legitimise our choices | Naval Group

www.naval-group.com

Concept Lab 2020: four operational scenarios

Anti-aircraft warfare, anti-submarine warfare, evacuating nationals and protecting oil platforms in exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are the four scenarios of the Concept Lab. All involve calculations to objectify the technological choices made.

The fourth multi-threat scenario serves to compare two types of response: two patrolling Sea Strikers on the one hand (distributed model), and one corvette and its helicopter on the other (centralised model). Both configurations boil down to a surveillance mission. The threats retained are a Sea Skimmer-type missile, two pirate boats and a swarm of suicide mini-drones. The calculations made give level-2 indicators (these are NATO-type operational effectiveness measurements). The distributed model solution (Sea Strikers) clearly demonstrated its superiority.

 

[publiusr]

“Now first we give the Somali pirates the location of this ship here…and then we knock on the door and offer protection.”

 

[Hood]

I wonder if hydrofoils ever will make a comeback?
Western navies seemed reluctant to adopt them, they offered a lot of punch and speed on small displacements but at the expense of operating cost. I'd like to think with modern systems that the ride would be much better for larger wave conditions in open waters.

 

[TomS]

I wonder if hydrofoils ever will make a comeback?
Western navies seemed reluctant to adopt them, they offered a lot of punch and speed on small displacements but at the expense of operating cost. I'd like to think with modern systems that the ride would be much better for larger wave conditions in open waters.

In an era of nearly ubiquitous helicopters and increasingly of large naval UAS, I'm not sure surface vessel speed is as valuable as it once was. And I'm not sure that it's gotten much easier to keep foils from ventilating in high sea states, which was the killer for open-water hydrofoils.

 

[H_K]

In an era of nearly ubiquitous helicopters and increasingly of large naval UAS, I'm not sure surface vessel speed is as valuable as it once was.

I would tend to agree, though that didn’t seem to stop the USN from building LCS… which admittedly was also a victim of poor execution!

As for Naval Group’s Sea Striker, its design heritage probably goes back to the Fastwind proposal to the Saudi navy from the mid 2000s. Fastwind was a Gowind derivative with a forward foil and gas turbine for 43 knot speed… looked similar to the Gowind 120 corvette described here:

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/dcns-gowind.10991/post-462570

Fastwind

 

[TomS]

I would tend to agree, though that didn’t seem to stop the USN from building LCS… which admittedly was also a victim of poor execution!

I'd argue LCS was also a victim of poor concept formulation. The high sprint speed was never fully justified in the first place.

 

[H_K]

That’s the Sea Striker concept. Not a lot of info except a few paragraphs… the rest is in a conference paper that I don’t have access to.

@TomS More info on the Sea Striker from the paper cited above:

Sea Striker
Displacement.....................................≈ 250t
Length................................................≈ 40m
Crew ..................................................20p
Autonomy...........................................5 days
Maximum speed ...............................> 60kts
Foilborne operational speed............. > 40kts
Hulborne economical speed ............ 12kts
Max Sea state for foil operation ........SS 4/5
Range foil borne / hull borne..............600/1800 Nq
Foils system: fully submerged sub cavitating foils
Gas turbine & waterjet propulsion

Combat system:
- Integrated missile launchers aft
- Gatling 30mm gun forward
- Integrated flat plane radar
- Integrated and innovative antenna system on her superstructure
- Foldable mast integrating various sensors, especially a passive radar, C-ESM, optronic sensor, R-ESM
- PSIM-X: an aerial captive drone able to receive several kinds of sensors: radar, radio communications, optronic, electronic warfare equipment
- Stealth (fully integrated) decoy launchers
- Anti UAV small weapon (jammer)
- Mission deck able to receive various mission packages: light weight torpedoes, ASW kit integrating active and passive buoys, Special Forces kit
- Flush deck to launch small Special Forces RHIBs
- 2 small calibre guns, hidden behind the side hull

 

[Scott Kenny]

I wonder if hydrofoils ever will make a comeback?
Western navies seemed reluctant to adopt them, they offered a lot of punch and speed on small displacements but at the expense of operating cost. I'd like to think with modern systems that the ride would be much better for larger wave conditions in open waters.

The problem was that they have aircraft maintenance requirements, but a naval crew. You'd need to have a shore-side maintenance team waiting for the foils to come into port, to keep the work load on the boat crew down to a reasonable level.

I should note that the USN did this in WW2 with subs. Sub comes back from a War Patrol, crew goes into a month's R&R to decompress while a shipyard team does a lot of the refit work on their boat. Sub crew comes back from R&R, finishes off the refit and testing work, then goes back out to sea for another patrol.

The challenge with this is making your shore side workers care about their quality of work. "I don't care, I'm not going out to sea on it" is something I heard from a shipyard worker on an Ohio-class. We threw his ass off the boat and informed the shipyard that he was no longer allowed onboard. And frankly, he's lucky to have survived.