re: #123 Kragar

I remember when the first stealth ship came out of the shadows, so to speak (or should that be from the Shadows?) It sailed into SD harbor and generated some news.

However, in the Navy’s case “stealth” is kind of tricky to define. The problem is that a water-borne craft generates sounds and magnetic fields, not just photon emissions/reflections. So while a ship can be made “stealth” as far as being detected by RADAR, it will always, if it moves, cause a disturbance in the water, and a noisy one at that if it uses blades and/or engines to power its movements.

Non-metallic ships can get around the magnetic problem (important for mine warfare), but even they make sounds.

And, another problem is that a ship tends to be a different temperature than the surrounding sea (due to all the heat emitters on the ship), which makes it detectable by IR from space.

Etc., etc.