What ever happened to Stealth Ships? 

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Stealth ships didn't go away, they just got very good at being stealthy.

The James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" features an exact replica Sea Shadow Stealth Ship which the villain uses to launch ridiculous drill head torpedoes at Navy ships in the South China Sea.

The _Zumwalt_ -class failed mostly because it relied on way too many new, untested technologies all at once. Meanwhile other ships, like the Type 45 destroyer of the Royal Navy, have also incorporated stealth lessons from the _Sea Shadow_ quite successfully.

Sweden has had visby class stealth corvettes since the begining of the 2000s,1991 they had the HSwMS Smyge was an experimenta stealtl ship Swedish Navy used to test stealth technology , launched in 1991. was used while planning the Visby-class corvettes.

It still allowed us to learn a lot and factor the knowledge gained into the production of future ships. Even if they aren't quite as stealthy.

Pentagon: Where is our stealth ship? Navy: we can't find it anymore...🤣

It turns out the RCS of the Sea Shadow was "to low" Its RCS was much lower than the sea scatter caused by the waves. So a radar could not detect Sea Shadow but because the waves reflection was much higher than the Sea Shadow. The Sea Shadow appeared as a slow moving hole in the water in the middle of sea clutter! To much of a good thing.

The Sea Shadow was just a technology demonstrator. It was never intended to be a in service ship.

The inspiration for the stealth ship in _Tomorrow Never Dies._

February 2005, I was on a week long field trip to San Diego, and as I was taking a tour of the USS Nimitz we saw the Sea Shadow go past... really cool...

The sea shadow is my favourite ship in the world, shame it was scrapped

I remember seeing this one in the '90s when it first came out. And it seemed like a horrible way to transport troops or equipment. But if you had a target that had to be destroyed and an air attack was out of the question. Well, one of these things with 16 or 18 missiles on it would make up pretty formidable weapon

So cool to see so many shots of the thing in the San Francisco Bay, I grew up there and in those days it was in the "secret" hangar over by Treasure Island. Later after I moved to the Gorge on the Oregon Washington border, they brought a different one up here for "stealth testing," because the Gorge is so deep we often can't even get Sirius radio. This one was semi submergible and super fast. I managed to see the thing from up on Underwood Mountain, on the highway between White Salmon and Willard. It threw up the biggest rooster tail I'd even seen.

The inspiration for the stealth boat from Tomorrow Never Dies

I still remember the Popular Mechanics article about this ship. The paints were fantastic, launching anti-ship missiles vertically. And a few issues later also a very small article about the swedish Smyge with a picture of the craft.

Very cool. I love how its super top secret and the engineer brings his two little boys and takes pictures! 😂

I believe the Swedish Navy got some stealth ships, the Visby-class should be a stealth ship

The barge was originally built for Clementine, the UAV Claw used to covertly rise the Soviet sub. It is now a floating drydock used by a private shipyard

I could imagine them using this as as a landing ship for night raids

The Hughes barge was actually used to transfer the submarine capture vehicle into the moon pool of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. It didn't do any sub capture itself. It was merely used as a secretive transfer barge.

It was so cool to see this ship everyday in the Suisun Bay here in California. Just as cool is that it was in a Howard Hugh's drydock boat. Unfortunately I believe both have been sent off to be scrapped.

There was a Navy prototype just out in the open at a dock in Panama City, Florida. (On the not-good side of the inlet, not in Panama City Beach.) Once in a while it'd have someone in a Naval uniform hanging around, but it wasn't under wraps or anything. It was a prototype for their stealth litoral combat ship.

I took a San Diego harbor tour back '04 and part of the tour was passing by the Sea Shadow's dock. Not sure how it is nowadays but back then they'd leave the front door open so you could get a good look at it. Super cool to see in person.

The new destroyers were all built around a concept of a guided/highly precise ordinance gun (VGAS). A fancy and insanely expensive concept that was still in the planning stages when the ships were proposed and built. When problems with the guided munitions arose, it simply made all the other problems the ships were experiencing unbearable. With each round costing almost 1 million, well... Obviously the idea was scrapped with the munitions cost balloning to ludicrous levels. Basically the ships were built in anticipation of having cost effective guided munitions. Something the contractor promised but couldn't deliver. There are articles everywhere about it. Finger pointing everywhere, too. A real clusterfuck.

Geee, wasn't that the ship in "Tomorrow Never Dies?"

I believe the part with the nacelles would be more called pontoons

Galoob made all sorts of real and concept Micro Machines toys, including the Sea Shadow, the Aurora hypersonic plane, and the Sanger spaceplane.

So they only ever built one? Cause there’s a ship that looks very similar next to the USS Albacore submarine museum that for years was just sitting by itself across the river from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

I have a friend who did helicopter testing with this ship out of San Diego. It so long ago I don't recall much other than he said his SH-60B flew missions with it for a week or so and then it was hard to find on radar, but the bravo radar was not great to begin with so...

I have been watching your videos for 2 years, I am happy to see how much your channel has grown, I hope you soon reach a million.

The zumwalt was also made of aluminum in such a way that they are facing issues with corrosion, and the main weapon they were designed to use was to expensive to fire. It's one thing to have custom ammo for 30 ships, it's entirely another thing to have custom ammo made for two or three ships.

The problem with the Zumwalt Class Destroyer (most expensive Destroyer in the world) is that the West needs Destroyers as the minimal class to launch Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. Russia on the other hand, can fire their equally devastating Kh-101 Kalibr Cruise Missile from Corvettes, which the Russian's claim to have "Stealth Features". I don't know about those claims, but I know a Corvette is harder to spot than a Destroyer. I think the main issue is Cost for the Zumwalt class, same as why we're not going to be building any more Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier's (also most expensive in the world plus maintenance). Despite our US Military budget being higher than the world combined, a big chunk of that actually goes missing, and into projects that get costlier and delayed (such as the US Hypersonic Dark Eagle Project which again just got delayed).

Surprisingly, the stealth bomber made it through till to today while the stealth ship doesn't.

😂I had a Micro machine or the like of this one. It came with space plane, and a stealth shuttle on the back. There was one of the Strike games series on the SEGA Genesis in the first mission area.

HMB-1 was built to service the Gloma Explorer's claw. This was also built at LMS at the Port of Redwood City. Believe me I was on it at the dock at Treasure Island why Bay Ship and Yacht when the were about finished with the salvage work.

Merry Christmas Nick!!!

Imagine using these stealth ships today as drone carriers. 👽

The WW2 Germans used an anti sonar coating on their submarines called “Albrecht”. Tested on 1942 it suffered from poor adhesion but this was fixed in 1944. A u-boat called the “black panther” caused the allies problems but it hit a mine. The Germans also used an anti radar coating called schornsteinfehger on their mast heads. Late 1944 tech so too late to make a difference.

You just brought a memory I had forgotten back to the surface, these were so cool to me when I was younger.

Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜 and Merry Christmas 🎁🎄🎅

To have come out in 1985, it really does look like brand new tech, at least to the untrained eye. But was it just a proof-of-concept or could do anything besides stealth?

One of the main uses for the navy is intimidation. Openly sending an aircraft carrier task force to someone's back yard tends to make negotiating go smoother. A stealth navy kind of defeats the purpose. The large number of warships travelling together and their overwhelming amount of firepower makes hiding unnecessary.

Maybe they got so stealthy we can't find them anymore.

I love these videos of tanks and ships. Keep it up. Love your work

Looks like that stealth ship from that James Bond movie.

Loved it then and still do. A wonderful ship.

I do remember seeing this ship on the gov auction website pretty cheap. I debated on bidding but I did not know anything about diesel engines and it was all the way in California. Did not know how to bring it to Florida and I figured it would cost me an arm and a leg in fuel to sail it.

Sea Shadow operated out of NASNI while I was stationed at Deep Submergence Unit. It was in and out a lot, but it didn't go out when the weather was sloppy, so it might not have done well in higher sea states. Cool ass ship for sure

Surprised you didn't call it the (US) Sea Shadow

It was a classified project that we were not supposed to know about, so we called it the Sea Bat. Sailing SOCAL between 87-93 I had to dodge it too often.

There was a Micro Machines model of this ship. I have one. It has a door along the top that flips open to reveal round missiles of some kind, ready to launch.

Got to see this ship in its covered floating dock at MARAD in Benicia CA. Impressive.

As usual it was the high cost and lack of necessity. In a fully fledged war with a neat peer opponent like China or Russia I expect we'd see a lot of stealth ships suddenly pop into existence.

Easy answer is. The sun comes up every day. Stealth goes away. Kinda lame.

Back in the early 2000s my ship was moored on the same pier as this ship at the San Diego Naval Base 32nd St. wet side.

I love this used the sinking barge for Project Azorian / Glomar Explorer

The thing is we already invented Stealth ships over a century ago, they are called Submarines.

Sharkbite looking ass ship

My brother (who was in the Canadian navy) claims he was on the bridge of his ship (City class DDE) when the Sea Shadow passed within less than a mile of them, but the radar screen was showing it 20+ miles away.

During construction. Everyone in the HMB-1 referred to them as Nacelles. As my old man used that word so many times after that project and kept his word and never talked about it until his contract was up.

I have heard that a downside of these stealth ships is that they are to stealthy, meaning that while you can't see the ship, your radar also can't see the water the ship is displacing, so it looks like a hole in the ocean.

No matter how stealth a surface ship can be, it's no match for submarine's Stealth ability, and the fact that submarine can launch torpedo and missile while diving and being protected from air-strike makes us wonder why do we even need a stealth surface ship in the first place.

the Villain in the James bond film “Die another Day” used that ship as his flagship. It was neat

I’ve seen this ship before, it was docked in Yokosuka for a few days when I was a kid, good times

Frankly, stealth ships are redundant. Being able to find, and more importantly hit, a ship in the open ocean with long range guns or missiles is already incredibly difficult. When attacking fleets with planes you are often within visual range, which there is no stealth for. Then there are submarines, which are an entire class of stealth ships.

What would happen if the ship was made into a stealth aircraft carrier with stealth planes?

I remember looking over and seeing this thing while driving on base at Norfolk Naval base. Looked so cool. Would have been fun if they gave us a tour or told us about it. It was out in the open no hanger or anything they just didn't give it any press like it was a dying ship no one wanted to talk about. Like fast and the furious Tokyo drift.

I actually got to see this ship in person on the SF Bay. It was like a black shadow crossing the water.

The original Sea Shadow was likely retired either scrapped or is being held in storage somewhere. However, see that the idea of a stealth surface ship is bonkers in my mind is being too shortsighted. Now a lot of people seem to get terms, mixed up or mixed together. For instance, I’ve seen people basically use the phrase stealth to equate to essentially invisibility. Now stealth doesn’t necessarily mean being visually unidentifiable or detectable. Current stealth technology is all about being invisible to sensors. After all, even on a flat featureless ocean , without advanced optics and stuff even trained naval personnel likely will not actually see a ship coming until it is at the point of which we would call on the horizon. And by the way, the average human can only see about I think it’s 10 miles before their brain essentially can’t discern what something is in the distance without enhanced optics. The sea shadow itself I like to think it was more of a proof of concept. Rather than an outright idea for a ship. Now the kind of technology that it used to float, and all that stuff is a well understood technology. In fact, there are private companies that are developing Both pleasurecraft, and even potential rescue vehicles that have a similar design in terms of how they go through their locomotion. One of which is very interesting, where the screws actually aren’t on the rear of the vessel they’re actually at the front. And they act like the propellers on an airplane, pulling the vessel through the water instead of pushing. But again, I’m more than willing to bet that the technology that was used for the development of the sea. Shadow is probably still highly classified and newer versions are likely on the drawing board, if not in small scale, prototyping tests. Vessels like this would be ideal for the deployment of special forces units, or even to be used as scouting vessels. Hell, another idea would be use the overall design, but shrink it and turn it into an un spy device or something. Honestly, the overall idea of a vessel like the sea shadow at least I personally feel is scientifically and tactically sound. Think about it this way. The Comanche. The space age looking stealth helicopter that would’ve probably supported and then maybe it some point replaced the attack helicopters such as the Apache and cobra. Allegedly that program was also shelved, but we also need to take any consideration. The fact of the alleged stealth Blackhawk helicopters that were used during operation Neptune spear. Something tells me that the stealth attack chopper idea didn’t pan out at least as much as we know they likely use the data for the development of these stealth versions of the Blackhawks. They say that the project has been canceled likely does not mean that the project truly has been canceled. It may simply be stated that way to pull it out of the public eye. Perhaps something was discovered that required more in-depth and secretive testing.

How to make a stealth anything; make a scifi movie and say "its just a prop bro"

Talk to the R class battleship about stealth Bombarding a port without the port knowing it was there

Ahh yea, the stealth ship, something they had already solved even more comprehensivly with submarines and without the drawback of just being visible.. Wonder why they didn't catch on 😂

In 1995 I was stationed at North Island Naval Air Station. Can’t say what I was doing on that base but I did see this ship come in while on duty. It was all hush hush stuff.

seems like an interesting concept

Wasn't this particular prototype moored at the "ghost fleet" off San Francisco for a time? I seem to remember a series of photos of the ships with this among them.

It's worth (IMHO) mentioning that part of the reason for no curved surfaces is that they just didn't have the computing power at the time to calculate a stealthy hull or fuselage with curves. Hence the reason modern stealthy aircraft DO have curves is that this isn't a problem now.

I originally watched your channel to help me fall asleep, but now I am watching it even on my free time.

I think the model is wrong. There was a boat called "Ghost" built by Inventor Gregory Sancoff who wanted to make a cool boat for the Navy had propellers in the front of the torpedo-looking pods. The propeller in the front design created a supercavitation effect allowing the boat to go much faster. The Sea shadow takes many design elements from Gregory Sancoff's design. Whether or not Sancoff got anything out of the Navy "borrowing" from his concept is probably locked away behind security clearances and NDAs.

Sea Shadow was being designed while I was assigned as a junior officer to the NAVSEA Preliminary Design Branch. Sea Shadow was one of those programs with a huge "need to know" sticker on it, and the powers that be decided I didn't have that particular need. So, independent of that team's work, I actually designed my own stealth corvette. I had done my post-graduate work on SWATH hullforms (like Sea Shadow), but I based my stealth design on using a single large lower hull on the centerline and a pair of sloped "outrigger" waterplane areas like you see in this video. There are certain minimum dimensions associated with propulsion machinery components, so by packaging them in a single slightly larger diameter centerbody, I was able to make the overall vessel smaller than it would have been otherwise. What comes around goes around and fifteen years later I became part of the DDG 1000 design team.

Saw a stealth ship on the Washington coast when i went salmon fishing in October. Looked cool. Tried looking it up online but i couldn't positively ID it.

Lockheed in the 80s sure was helluva company building stuff like that

The big gold circle on top of those Polaroid cameras was sonar? I had no idea.

"So, how stealthy is our new ship?" "I'll tell you when we've found the damn thing."

Honestly I think this kind of ship makes the most sense as a transport. Drive up to a shore undetected, unload a special forces team, and then back off and let them do their thing, before coming back for them later on.

The “twin underwater nacelles” are called “torpedo hills” Very cool video!

Ah yes wacthing a great vid when its 2;20 in the night

EXCELLENT VIDEO.....Thanks very much from an Old F-4 Phantom 2 Shoe🇺🇸

"The SONAR focusing on my camera isn't working." *"That's the secret. It's not supposed to work."*

She was moored at NAVSTA Long Beach, CA back in 92-93

lmao that build up to the goofy music made my day

The FREMM, Visby, and pretty much most of every new frigate and destroyer built today are based on LO. Just look the PLAN ships, look at the type 055, it's the culmination of stealth tech in ships.

During testing they kept it a San Nicolas Island. I'm a scuba diver and when we had a chartered a boat out to there we were told the island was closed for that time.Only later we found out it was Sea Shadow doing test ops out of its barge. I went and saw the ship when it came to San Pedro for the public to check out. I read it was to good and made a blank spot on radar.

World of Warships ads are so funny like look how realistic every single detail is also here's Godzilla using a stack like a stripper pole

I love how American engineers are like, "wait, camera uses sonar? And can't take a pic? You know who else uses a sonar?" *Evil smile* Proceeds to build a dope ass sealth ship

The fact that at one point this was a real ship is actually crazy

Seems to work for RN SSNs - take a look at the Astute hulls.

Stealth ships exist; theyre called submarines

I had a toy Sea Shadow as a kid and the top part near the stowage bay could open and reveal four missiles.

I remember this ship from 'James Bond' 'Tomorrow never dies'. ^^