Royal Australian Navy Discussions and Updates 2.0
- Thread starter OPSSG
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I wonder if “swappable” batteries might be a capability they are pursuing? Something like using a submarine tender, lift the Ghostshark out, swap batteries and off it goes with it’s full range intact.Yea OK, wrong term to use, however drag will be a problem for a hull of this shape. It's shape is not made to be speedy.
From what I've read they don't have any internal recharging, however that would either be a large fuel tank or a trickle charge solar panel. Neither would be advantageous.
I would have thought however a ghost shark could be picked up by an offshore supply platform near its station, recharged on a flat deck cradle, given a scrub and then plonked back in a few hours later. If it had a payload then this could also be replenished or swapped at the same time.
A small number of such vessels could easily keep a large fleet of ghost sharks permanently on patrol
Don’t even bother trying to make the vessel able to recharge, just the battery module and swap it out when necessary and it recharges on the tender?
Then it is just a logistical exercise of how many battery modules and payloads do you need to support how many Ghostsharks for how long a mission duration you envisage…
Could also work.I wonder if “swappable” batteries might be a capability they are pursuing? Something like using a submarine tender, lift the Ghostshark out, swap batteries and off it goes with it’s full range intact.
Don’t even bother trying to make the vessel able to recharge, just the battery module and swap it out when necessary and it recharges on the tender?
Then it is just a logistical exercise of how many battery modules and payloads do you need to support how many Ghostsharks for how long a mission duration you envisage…
A battery to provide the range stated will be large, something in the order of a MWh (two tesla truck batteries), possibly more. I'm thinking it might extend the length of the payload bay and perhaps the bottom third. This would be heavy, around 6-8 tonnes.
Some truck chargers are able to do around 500kw (which os a medium sized genset), so 2-3 hour turn around time, either charging the drone directly or charging spare batteries to swap out.
A bit of rough calculation based on 2000nm @ 3 knots would give it an endurance of 28 days. If it just sat on the bottom it could last longer than that. Of course there could be other draws on the power so you can take my number with a proverbial grain of salt. You have other mission limiting issues such as biofouling and maintenance. Once in their area of operation, endurance is probably adequate. The challenge could be getting them to where they are needed. Conroy suggested a "Ghost in a Box" but that then depends on either dropping them off a surface ship, or finding allies willing to allow use of their ports. Of course if we do find ourselves dependent on foriegn support it brings into question how soveriegn that capability really is.
It is when you start scaling up the numbers things start to get complex. We will start with dozens, who knows how large that fleet will eventually grow.
It is when you start scaling up the numbers things start to get complex. We will start with dozens, who knows how large that fleet will eventually grow.
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Engine and propellor sounds, and other ship generated noises. These all create unique sound signatures. Modern sonar passive systems already do this with a human then confirming. We would already be able to signature match every Chinese Naval ship, and I suspect they would for us.Re minefield how might Ghost Shark distinguish between civilian and military ship or friendly and hostile
When the Chinese sailed around Australia a while back, I imagine we got some crystal clear sounds from all vessels, including the submarine that came with them.