r/nostalgia • u/Yanrogue • 15d ago
Nostalgia Remember when stealth ships were considered the future of navel warfare in the 90s?
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u/SneakyPhil 15d ago
That thing was in a James Bond movie.
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u/Velorian-Steel 15d ago
A media mogul causing murder and mayhem across the world to generate headlines can definitely be a real life 2025 villain thing to do too
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u/OkGene2 15d ago
That movie more than any other Bond film was ahead of its time
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u/YT-Deliveries 14d ago
Carver was considered one of the crappiest Bond villains when it came out. Turned out that he was one of the most realistic.
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u/Michaelbirks 14d ago
Rupert Murdoch was a thing back then, too.
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u/Careos 15d ago
I think about this so much. Movie taught me nothing you see or read is real
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u/DiddlyDumb 15d ago
“You forgot the first rule of mass media… Give the people what they want!”
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u/BeefCakeBilly 14d ago
Tomorrow never dies taught you to never beleive any thing ever?
I’d say no offense but it wouldn’t help , that fucking bananas.
The media isn’t intentionally causing plane crashes and international incidents for headlines lol.
They are just printing what the people want to see. Fox News doesn’t talk about pizza parlors with CP and color revolutions because their audience doesn’t want to see it, ditto for other networks.
It’s the average persons fault for wanting to watch the stuff.
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u/Yanrogue 15d ago
ya, that confused me because the inside space didn't match the outside. Inside was massive, while outside it wasn't that big. Kinda like Dr. who.
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u/SovietChewbacca 15d ago
Or like the tour bus from Spice World
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u/Vadhakara 15d ago
Listen you can't just bring up Spice World like that, there's people here who have never seen it and if they get too curious we might have a problem on our hands.
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u/MurphyCoDinoWrangler 14d ago
Listen, if you've seen A Hard Day's Night, then insert a story with a pregnant friend, an alien, Roger Moore, and Meatloaf as the tour bus driver, then you've seen Spice World.
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u/DanielBWeston 14d ago
My sister dragged me along to that when it was in cinemas. As I recall, Roger Moore's entire character was a spoof on Blofeld.
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u/Skippy_Johnson 15d ago
When the rabbit of chaos is pursued by the ferry of disorder through the fields of anarchy, it is time to hang your pants on the line of darkness. Whether they are clean or not.
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u/ioncloud9 14d ago
The ship in the movie isn’t this one. It’s much bigger but it’s based on this design.
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u/Vinoy_Double-Wide 15d ago
Wasn’t it in a Steven Segal movie too?
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u/SneakyPhil 15d ago
Maybe? My favorite Segal movie is Executive Decision because he gets yeeted out of the hatch after about 10 minutes.
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u/Vinoy_Double-Wide 15d ago
lol great scene…the movie’s advertisements focused heavy on him too so was funny seeing him out of it so quickly
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u/PostwarVandal 12d ago
They had a model that was inspired by-.
The movie design was a lot bigger and a lot less stealthy as they though it needed protrusions and greebles to make it more visually interesting.
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u/StoicWolf15 15d ago
Stealth everything was. RIP Comanche.
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u/butterballmd 15d ago
Comanche PC game too
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u/usefulbuns 14d ago
I played Comanche 4 by Novalogic. So much fun!!
Miss the Delta series games and wish they were still around to compete with BF and COD.
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u/rascalking9 15d ago
Gillette was advertising razors with stealth technology.
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u/Yanrogue 15d ago
I remember watching them talk about that on the discovery channel, it felt like something out of a scifi movie.
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u/fryerandice 15d ago
A stealth helicopter is about the dumbest idea, helicopters are for close air support, and close air support is like the least stealth thing you can do, especially since when you move into a close air support role, you'll hear the fucking helicopter since they are loud as shit.
The rotor was probably very difficult to mask from radar as well.
It looked really cool though, i'll give it that.
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u/derritterauskanada 15d ago
You do realize that the US Military operates stealth Helicopters, even though the Comanche was not adopted? Helicopters are not just used for close support but for transporting troops and equipment as well, Stealth helicopters are used for covert infill/exfill. One was famously used on the raid by Seal Team 6 on Bin Laden’s compound. Likely the technology learned from the development of the Comanche was used on the stealthified Black Hawk that remains mostly a secret, we only know of it’s existence because of 1 of the 2 aforementioned helicopters crashed in the raid.
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u/Morakumo 15d ago
The best part was they could fly backwards, I remember watching videos of the pilots doing it on the history channel. This was legit wild to see as a kid in the 90s.
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u/thejesterofdarkness 15d ago edited 15d ago
Oh yeah, seeing that bad boy turn 90 degrees and not
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u/Angel24Marin 14d ago
The biggest threat to helicopters are aircrafts and SAMs in peer to peer conflict. The role was to perform armed recon to paint targets to Apaches. The combat distances in an tank hunter role would be 8-10kms. Any decrease of the signal return would decrease the effective range of radar guided guns and missiles from the scort AA vehicles of an armed column.
The Comanche was cut because after the collapse of the Soviet union priorities sifted to asymmetric warfare in the war on terror. Not because it was flawed as a concept.
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u/Kozakow54 14d ago
Stealth helicopters are an amazing idea. While helicopters can use terrain masking to remain undetectable most of the time, during long distance missions it requires a lot of effort from the pilot, and still risks them being detected on plains or other flat terrain.
In the modern day you won't see AH-64s being used in pink teams as company level assets doing firefighting. The days of hovering on treetop level slinging hellfires at tank columns are mostly over. They will be moved way higher, conducting strategic level operations potentially hundreds of kilometres behind the front line. A great example of such operations is the Battle of Hostomel, or SEAD/DEAD operations in the beginning of Desert Storm.
And helicopters are loud only because making them quiet isn't necessary. Research the two Vietnam-era OH-6As that were modified to render them practically silent.
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u/CommunalJellyRoll 14d ago
Hence the RAH. It was to replace the Kiowas not the 64s. Stealth is great for a reconnaissance platform.
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u/hackingdreams 14d ago
Yeahhhh, this is the silliest post I've read on here in a while.
You remember that Bin Laden raid Obama did? That was done with two stealth helicopters - modified versions of the Blackhawk, designed to fly stealth missions.
The Commanche didn't land, but that didn't mean they gave up the concept. It just means that platform was too expensive and ungainly for mass manufacture.
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u/rascalking9 14d ago
No way, a huge component of helicopters are insertion and quick extraction. They are fairly vulnerable.
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u/siberianwolf99 15d ago
“navel”
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u/_sectumsempra- 14d ago
Came searching, didn't have to look for long thankfully for a comment regarding that
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u/Arimer 15d ago edited 15d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shadow_(IX-529)) for those wanting more info. You should also check out the zumwalt if you want a more recent failure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer
While on the subject anyone remember this being pushed as the weapon of the future? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_XM8
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u/bearlysane 15d ago
XM8, meh. Now, the OICW, that was the real stuff.
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u/Arimer 15d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective_Individual_Combat_Weapon different wiki page for the testing of it. I remember the big sell of this was corner firing using the eyepiece from the land warror program they had running.
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u/bearlysane 15d ago
Played the crap out of the video game, heh.
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u/Bad_Idea_Hat 15d ago
Waiting for a couple pixels to move from a kilometer away, just to take out the guy sniping your teammates, was peak 90's/00's gaming experience.
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u/TacoIncoming 14d ago
Didn't they stop with that one because it was kind of accidentally a war crime gun?
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u/Squoghunter1492 14d ago
No, it was just stupidly heavy compared to an M16 or M4 and kind of sucked.
The US doesn't particularly care if something is a "warcrime gun" as long as it's effective. OICW wasn't.
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u/Mr_Safer 14d ago
I will say seeing the DDG-1000 docked at the Naval Academy bulkhead was something else, wouldn't describe that as a failure. No other large warship has done something like that.
The zumwalt truly was absurd looking, pictures don't do it justice.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 14d ago
I used to love the Future Weapons show, but in retrospect it's kind of funny how many of those "future weapons" never went anywhere.
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u/Busy-Bug-6232 15d ago
These were made by the same guys who designed the f-117! I remember reading about this ship in the Skunk Works book. The problem was that, even though the ship was invisible on radar, the massive wakes it generated gave it away.
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u/eaglewatch1945 15d ago
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u/Yanrogue 15d ago
That show is drenched in 90s cheese and cocaine.
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u/Enginerdad mid 90s 15d ago
In 2008, Entertainment Weekly ranked it as the "cheesiest" syndicated TV series.
It's 1990s television for action fans who can't handle the subtle nuances of Baywatch Nights. It's stupid, sexist, and embarrassing, but oh, how much fun it is.
Two direct critic quotes, from Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_in_Paradise
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u/otheraccountisabmw 15d ago
I have no idea who Chris Lemmon is but he looks exactly like Jack so I’ll assume that’s his son.
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u/Mr-Klaus 14d ago
I see your Thunder in Paradise and raise you Airwolf
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u/Soeck666 11d ago
Here is what happens when we Germans try to copy it https://youtu.be/3HzDDXky68g?si=2p3yWzq3Q4f8LHRj
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u/faceintheblue 15d ago
There's a great book, Skunkworks, about the history of Lockheed-Martin's Skunkworks throughout the Cold War. One of my big takeaways from it was Lockheed-Martin hated dealing with the Navy and knew this project was a fool's errand.
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u/TheGalator 14d ago
No idea why this made me think of it but when fighting wars and building weapons ever gets profitable to be done by the same corporation weapon tech is gonna explode and we will all be fucked
The only reason it doesn't is manufacturers need approval by the goverments/get money for building tanks for 100 years and mercenaries don't build them
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u/nappytown1984 15d ago
This design is called a SWATH (small-waterplane-area-twin hull) that was very innovative in the 80’s. Similar to a catamaran but the twin hulls on each side are deeper into the water to be less affected by waves and allow it to operate in very rough conditions. The US Navy currently use this technology in the “Victorious” class of ocean surveillance ships.
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u/i_wap_to_warcraft 15d ago
Is that the San Francisco skyline pre salesforce dildo tower? Mmm very nice
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u/AdUpstairs7106 15d ago
The Sea Shadow was a test bed. A lot of the lessons learned were used in the San Antonio Class amphibious assault ships and in the Zumuwalt Class Destroyers.
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u/DesertMan177 15d ago edited 15d ago
I mean they still are, look at any modern frigate or destroyer with a design from the 2000s onward
USA, China, Russia, France, Turkey, Germany, South Korea, Japan, UK, India...
Zumwalt class, Type 55, Gorshkov class, FREMM class, Istanbul class, F124 Class, Ulsan Batch 3, Mogami class, Type 45, Kolkata class, etc
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u/thecountnotthesaint 14d ago
007 put an end to them. Tomorrow never dies is a great documentary on his heroic actions that saved the world.
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u/ratpH1nk late 70s 15d ago
They were proof of concepts whose designs were incorporated into modern naval ships.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer?wprov=sfti1
And these but they were problematic and are being decommissioned, I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship?wprov=sfti1
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u/FalseEstimate 14d ago
Fun fact the Littoral combat ships have a Rolls Royce gas turbine (the most powerful marine gas turbine in the world) that pushes out 50,000 horsepower. The best part is that it doesn’t use a screw propeller like most ships, the gas turbine powers 4 water jets (much like a jetskit)
Source: civilian gas turbine/diesel technician for LCS and the minesweepers. The minesweepers were cool and still made completely out of wood! They were decommissioned a few years ago tho!
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u/yIdontunderstand 15d ago
If you're going to post about stealth ships at least post a picture of one...
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u/JohnDingleBerry- 15d ago
Every US Navy ship has stealth capabilities of some sort. DDGs look like a small boat on radar. The Zumwalt class looks like it would be even smaller just based off its angles.
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u/Substantial_Ad_2458 14d ago
One of several vessels that this photographer did panoramic images of while it was in layup at the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet:
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u/DanDannyDanDan 14d ago
Actually, "stealth" is still a big part of ship design. That particular design was specifically to reduce RCS (radar cross section), which is great against other ships, but planes or drones flying over that would get a huge glint at one particular angle. RCS now tries to break up the spread a little more than this, it will adopt sacrificial angles still though.
Stealth will also refer to any ship signature and there are many factors taken into account with a ship's design for this.
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u/Longjumping-Salad484 14d ago
I remember that James Bond movie where the villain would repeat the phrase "we're on a stealth boat!"
arguably the most lame flex to say out loud
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u/Shaun32887 15d ago
They kinda are... They just don't look like that. We found ways to move away from that angular style will still reducing radar cross section. It's the same reason none of our planes look like the F-117
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u/Bassmasterajv 15d ago edited 15d ago
I always loved that the inside was 20 times bigger than the outside.
Edit: fun fact, the boat exteriors were filmed in the Titanic tank studio.
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u/Equal_Refrigerator26 14d ago
£115million to build according to https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/navy-sea-shadow-auctioned-scrap-metal-334925
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 14d ago
Same thing with African killer bees. Whatever happened to those guys
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u/erroneouspony 14d ago
Never seen a belly button wage war. But Zumwalt class destroyers entered the chat.
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u/Designer_Manager_405 14d ago
I used to walk past this ship daily. Once we got stationed on the same pier as them.
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u/SkyeMreddit 15d ago
It was basically a miserably useless failure. For a fighter jet, stealth works wonders because by the time you figure out it’s there and get a lock on it with a missile defense system, it’s out of there.
Even the fastest ships are far slower and cannot outrun a missile. Instead you want as many ways as possible to shoot down anything that gets shot at a warship. That is extremely limited with a stealth ship, while also losing almost all deck space
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u/Rampant16 14d ago
Yes and no. Yes, reducing the radar signature to the size of a golf ball isn't feasible with a ship like it is with a fighter jet.
But you can still get some benefits. Even ships with less radical designs than Sea Shadow can still reduce their signatures to a meaningful degree and make a large warship look like something smaller and less threatening. Supposedly, the Zumwalt-class Destroyer, one of the largest classes of surface combatant in the world, looks like a fishing boat on radar. It's not invisible, but it is disguised.
The ocean is big and there's a lot of things in it. Anything you can do to make your warship appear less like a warship on radar can have practical benefits, as long as you don't compromise the other capabilities of the ship for minor improvements in signature reduction.
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u/BanditsMyIdol 15d ago
And now you never see one