One of "my" boats out playing
- Thread starter Gilligan
- Start date
Cute little buggers, those WP-18s. Skjold is massive by comparison, of course. Comfy quarters..nice mess deck..for the crew of 16.
Be fun to have a drag race...I know what the Skjold-class top speed is. ;-)
Of more import, as far as combat effectiveness, is platform stability and speed in a real seaway. Those little modified offshore racers lose out badly compared to something like the Skjold class, when trying to operate in 4-5' seas (which are, of course, quite common in the littorals)
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Clem72
Well-Known Member
I was just teasing anyways. Despite being in sea scouts for several years the sum total of knowledge I retain about boats is which side is port and the bathroom is called the head.
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
The fun stuff is what you can't see.Needs more guns! And cowbell!
So what is the poop-deck for?
Sneakers
Just sneakin' around....
Of course it is sitting quietly. The crew hates replacing broken light bulbs.
BOP
Well-Known Member
Where are you at in the life cycle? Are you in OT, or have you reached LRIP?
As SGI noted...we're just getting the first of them SLEPed right at this moment..I'm headed to Norway in 2 weeks, in fact. . Five of them were produced and commissioned in the early 2000s and then the prototype was reworked to incorporate the changes to match the series production vessels. So they are all at between 19-21 years of service.
They were literally built specifically to carry 8 of the Norwegian NSM anti-ship missile that were under development at the same time we were designing and building the first vessel. The entire aft section of the vessel is a sophisticated missile carriage and launching system. The NSM is a fine piece of ordnance and the USN, at long last, is buying them too.
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One of my favorite pictures...the prototype Skjold running alongside our hydrofoil testcraft, summer 2002. I'm skipper on our testcraft and we're communicating with the Chief Engineer on Skjold (who, along with other officers, had become a friend over the trials period) to coordinate that photo op. In the Potomac River, just out from St. George's Island. They stopped by for a "visit" while on their way to Wash DC to give the CNO a tour and a boat ride.
