"When the U.S. Navy Had Tiny Hot Rods That Flew Over the Sea" Topic
9 Posts
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Tango01 | 28 Dec 2015 9:49 p.m. PST |
"The Pegasus class hydrofoils were a ship in search of a mission. In the early 1970s, with the Vietnam War winding down, the U.S. Navy worried about how to keep its fleet effective during the inevitable budget drawdown at war's end. Their innovative solution: build small, fast ships that could, thanks to new technologies of the time, tackle the missions once performed by much larger ships. The Navy had studied hydrofoil ship concepts for two decades. Hydrofoils were large joined wings that lifted the ship into the air, above the water, at high speeds. Mostly free of the drag imposed by sitting in liquid, a hydrofoil ship could go much faster than an ordinary vessel. (They're used today in boat races like the America's Cup.)…" Full text here link Amicalement Armand |
Editor in Chief Bill | 29 Dec 2015 1:15 p.m. PST |
Years ago, I knew the commanding officer of the hydrofoil stationed in Key West. Cool vessel! |
recon35 | 29 Dec 2015 2:13 p.m. PST |
My brother in law was XO of PHM 5 (Aries) in the late 80s. Cool little ships. Did a LOT of drug interdiction. |
Lion in the Stars | 29 Dec 2015 7:23 p.m. PST |
Pretty crazy little things. Friend of mine saw a lot of them while he was in Guam, sometimes they'd come flying into the harbor and have it timed so well that they'd basically come off the foils at the end of the pier and pretty much stop dead in the water. Or light all the engines on an emergency scramble, blow the tarp off the turbine exhaust stack, and be on the foils at 50+ knots less than 500 yards from the pier. |
wardog | 03 Jan 2016 12:51 p.m. PST |
how effective would they have been in combat |
carne68 | 03 Jan 2016 3:53 p.m. PST |
They are the reason I chose the 76mm over the 5" when given the choice coming out of Great Lakes. …of course they were all decommissioned shortly thereafter. |
Lion in the Stars | 04 Jan 2016 9:05 p.m. PST |
how effective would they have been in combat? Just about immune to torpedoes, fast enough to possibly out-run turret traverse for guns, and possibly fast enough to get gated out of early radar-guided anti-ship missiles ("moving too fast, can't be a ship"). pretty well armed, too. |
Mako11 | 04 Jan 2016 11:27 p.m. PST |
Quite effective vs. surface opponents. Much less so vs. enemy aircraft, so they need top cover, or air superiority to survive. |
StarCruiser | 06 Jan 2016 9:31 a.m. PST |
Those were fast-ish but expensive to service… I suspect with modern materials (composite construction etc.) that we could probably build something at least as effective and it would probably be more cost-effective now. |
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