Meet the Ghost, next-gen stealth ship that has been created by Juliet Marine Systems for the U.S. Navy. The stealth attack vessel makes use of super-cavitation and has been designed so that it is fast while also sporting a long range. Cavitation is the name given to the phenomenon when a bubble of gas or liquid surrounds an object that is travelling through water and thus reduces the friction of the object, allowing it to travel much faster.
As per U.S. Navy, the Ghost has been designed to address the issues such as the international threat of combatant swarm attacks, piracy and water-borne IEDs. It has been designed so that it is capable of evading detection on sonar and radar systems. This craft will be used for special operations, fleet force protection, mine warfare and detection, command and control, patrol, anti-drug operation and rescue. Ghost, semi-submersible surface craft, has three mains structures; two movable underwater buoyant tubular foil hulls and the command module that stays above water on two thin struts that are connected. The main crew is comprised of the pilot, crew engineer and the weapons officer. It can also operate as an unmanned ship. The 2014-spec Ghost is capable of accommodating a total of 18 persons inside it or it can be loaded up with missile technologies such as the Griffin APKWS and Spike and cannons. These weapons can be fired from the internal weapon space or from the skin of the craft similar to how an attack helicopter works.
It weighs 48,000 pounds and can be disassembled into a total of three main components and then transported via air (on a C17 transport plane with a transport trailer), on rails, on land, on sea barges or even on bigger ships working under the umbrella of U.S. Navy. It has been designed to operate in Straits of Hormuz, the Malacca Straits, Gulf of Aden, South China Sea, Korea and Taiwan. It makes use of aviation-quality gas turbine engines that have allowed it to achieve speeds of over 30 knots while work is being carried out to move this value up to 50 knots and beyond. The Ghost costs more than $15 million per unit.
