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saltcuredlast Monday at 4:26 PM1 replyview on HN

As I recall, the faceted look of the early stealth aircraft was said to be a practical matter. It reduced the complexity of modeling the reflections during the design process. So with additional computational complexity, they could go back to smooth surfaces in later designs.

I imagine there are similar issues with ship design. Since these things are wavelength specific, you probably have a bigger computational problem for a bigger vessel. You can't just solve for the design on a miniature and scale it up to build it.


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Animatslast Wednesday at 6:32 PM

> I imagine there are similar issues with ship design.

The U.S. Navy built some stealthy ships.[1][2] But they were very expensive. It seems to have been a dead end not worth the trouble. There are so many sensors, shipborne, airborne, spaceborne, and onshore, that trying to hide a slow moving warship isn't likely to work against a peer opponent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shadow_(IX-529)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Zumwalt

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