Mysterious 'stealth' boat plying Columbia River

This is a pretty cool looking ship!

A stealth "PT" boat is what I think it going to be.

Who is the purchaser? The story really does not say.

I bet its for Israel, and or the US Navy / Marines

There is a video story on this topic on the site below.

PORTLAND, Ore. - People who are used to seeing a variety of boats moving up and down the calm waters of the Columbia River have recently reported seeing a UFO- of sorts.

www.katu.com...

I have to ask.......do they need to be stealth? really?

Originally posted by M6D
I have to ask.......do they need to be stealth? really?

ships use rader to detect ani incoming. at night its hard to see anithing unless u use spotlights but thats only for narrow coverage where the radar sees everything 360 degree view. use this boat and u can sneak on board a ship undetected until its too late.

Hmmm, you got me there, i was thinking in relevance to modern world situations, where to insurgants, or terrorists, your boat been stealth wont really matter much.

Originally posted by deltaboy
ships use rader to detect ani incoming. at night its hard to see anithing unless u use spotlights but thats only for narrow coverage where the radar sees everything 360 degree view. use this boat and u can sneak on board a ship undetected until its too late.

They already have something like that....its called a rigid raider...
Radiers and ribs (high speed boats) get lost in the clutter....
Unless your telling me radar works well going through water?

Been done already:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This boat is for duck hunting. Do a search for duck boats and you will see that they are built low to the water just like this.

I see no armaments or position for armaments unless this is some sort of torpedo boat what are they going to use it for other than ship infiltration.

I see, i see, well maybe theres no armament positions because as a stealth boat..they need to be concealed in opening bays? that may be a real consideration, a 50 cal sticking out of a stealthy surface must be a real eye opener.

u know... i really dont think that this is something big... cuz i dont think that it was on fox 12 (local news for Portland OR) i live here and i didnt hear about it so it cant be something big cause i didnt hear about it

russian cut down on the "dont"s its hard to understand you when you have more than 5 donts in one sentence.

I like this part of the article:

"The U.S. Navy does have a $9 million contract with Oregon Ironworks to build two boats, but a spokesman for the company says that despite "looking similar to the naked eye", the boat being tested on the river and the boats destined for the Navy are "not similar at all.""

Portland during ww2 build a lot of liberity ships in the Kaiser yards, so this boats doesnt really suprise me, the hisory is there.

WOW! That boat sure will look stealthy - especially at night with a huge phosphorescent wake and bow wave!

the boats that the company are builting for the US are not the same as the one in the picture of the arctile that one is for testing only.

Sorry Char but it is a physical law that something propelled through water - by conventional propellor or ram jet or forced air propolsion, will emit a bow wave and a wake.

In WWII, many of the great sea battles that took place, were the result of ariel recce (surveillance) looking for multiple wakes of ships.

Today, with modern surveillance devices (some of which I have used) you could spot a ship from high ground, the air or from space at night from the phosphorescent bow wave and wake.

It's something to do with disturbing the plankton and lots of science. You can't do anything to try and hide it.

So stealthy? I don't think so. No!

you have no idea what the boat is able to do

ww2? 60 years of tech improvement plus you are forgetting that the boat shown doesnt look like or act like the boats they are making for the governement, that boats is a research prototype.

That boat rides way too low to even be able to take a small wave...Unless it's designed to work as a sub, too. If it's a sub, it could just be a personal luxury craft:

ussubs.com...

They're pricey, but if they stayed low in the water, some of the designs from ussubs look kind of similar.

It seems odd that if it were a government craft they would take it in day light through populated areas. Stealth is anti-radar technology. It sits low and keeps a low visual profile, but that low visual profile also draws the eye as something unusual at the same time.

Hit the nail on the head Jungle Jake. If this is a prototype of a US naval vessal, why show it in broad daylight?

However, I must disagree with your assumption that if it rides so low in the water it will not produce a bow wave or a wake. Of course not - but only if it moves so slowly and, looking at the shape of the boat, it ain't designed to go that slow!

I was actually referencing this part of the article:

It rides very low on the water, so low it looks like even a not-so-large wave could swamp it.

Forgot the words they used, paraphrased, and poorly. Sorry!

This boat is designed to let SEALs come in without being seen. They have used this kind of craft for years. This is just a slightly newer design. Stealth does work on ships. Have you noticed the design trend in newer ships?

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This is a pretty cool looking ship!
>>

If you say so. I could say that topfuel dragsters are 'pretty cool' too but as they can't turn a corner, in lane, at a stoplight, they're worthless for street. Similarly, this boat either has one /monster/ of a deployable keel and active stabilization system, or it's only use is going to be for the Annapolis rowing competition. It just doesn't have the beam or the draught to be a littoral, let alone blue water asset.

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A stealth "PT" boat is what I think it going to be.
>>

ELCO _Patrol Torpedo_ boats were 70-80ft long and deployed 2 to 4 Mk.VII/VIII or XIII torps, each weighing in excess of 1,000lbs and themselves 21"X15' long.

As such, though really only a 'terrible nuissance' in archipelago type conditions of immediate basing support, they qualify as full combatants because they trade size for useful range and warload and can be tracked and engaged by either their own or their basing mode facilities association.

These boats remind me more of the Japanese and German suicide systems intended to defeat major landing operations by burying the system in the chop so that direct fire mostly passed over and, inside 500yds, the guns could not depress enough to be brought to bear. All for a 1-way assassination profile that required no 'come back home' compromises in it's hull volume.

All Teeth. No Tail. (No Commitment to ashore-signatured logistical support.)

Similar skiffs have a ram-explosive-on-pole history going back to at least the Civil war and while these were indeed 'torpedo' boats in the original sense, they were not systems that a major navy would want to invest in because they were easier for an insurgent force to build than a blue water force to employ.

Indeed, WHY you would want to (proliferate the tech) test such a 'better by U.S.' version of the craft which put a 36ft hole in the Cole?

As a commando delivery vehicle I also have my doubts. It doesn't look like it has the rigid keelboard needed to run it up past the surfzone or indeed onto a _reef_.

Putting visible light apertures into the hull invites all kinds of ballistic /and/ signature (both IR and RF) compromise. Even as it may effect watertight safeties should the ship take a heavy wave and roll past the gunnels. Put a fixed camera in the pilot house and perhaps a (beyond Sea State 2-3) 'backup' on an elevateable mast. Make them as weather proof as you can. Fit a solid unicover on the troop compartment/deckhouse with a fast erect ballistic/spray screen for firing a popup pintel from the sides and rear in a hostile extract.

And for all other, 'undercover', stealth ops, let the snakeeaters watch a camera relay while puking in a bag like everyone else.

While wake tracking is a valid means of separating the goats from the fish (and the flotsam) it's persistence is what really gets you and here the ship actually looks like it has some useful features in that the raised and heavily raked bowline should cut a fairly narrow vee (especially if it has a bullet underneath to preseparate the hydrodynamic air:sea interface) at low planing angles and presented area pressure levels.

Meanwhile, the low above deck silouhette and the generally small hull size of the craft /could/ imply a fairly hefty power to weight ratio. Though a lot will depend on how far you expect to come, stay and go or if indeed, the thing is supposed to be recovered by running up a corvette wetramp or even via helo using covered hooks.

I've been in (non-air) swamp boats with a hullform more or less like a Higgins landing craft and a long, elevateable, shaft outboard. Doing forty-sixty knots, with only the back 1/3rd of the hull 'seated', in-plane, the rooster tail was about 4ft tall while the (deep) separation of the prop and hull terminus interaction reduced overall wake length to about ten feet and 20 seconds of persistence.

All on about 20 horses.

These are relatively manageable signatures vs. passage interval if your only concern is defeating a standoff coastal surveillance radar or civillian marine collision avoidance/harbor traffic systems looking for enhancers atop masts.

Of course, Lake Country Lousiana is not apt to throw a six foot swell and twenty foot surf roll either. Which is why I find it particularly ironic that this ship /looks like/ somebodies Jules Verne disinformation ploy with a Nautilus styled deck layout.

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Who is the purchaser? The story really does not say.

I bet its for Israel, and or the US Navy / Marines
>>

I wouldn't want to come ashore in that thing. Too few people for the risk of a contested landing, too many basic seaworthiness and stealth mistakes for extended penetration of a layered defensive barrier from over the horizon. No ability to fight back from within a 'nominal' LO enclosure.

SDV gives you 100% medium caliber ballistic protection to within about 100yds offshore and can pig a wet insert team to multiple landing points to at least diffuse the welcoming committee threat without broadsiding the vessel to multiple in-out loops of RF exposure.

If need be, you can even leave it inshore without direct optical/walkon tracking risk.


KPl.