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You want to board a ship at sea for inspection. Currently, you either abseil from a hovering helicopter or drive up to the ship's side with a patrol boat and sc

by T-A 5y ago

You want to board a ship at sea for inspection. Currently, you either abseil from a hovering helicopter or drive up to the ship's side with a patrol boat and scale a rope ladder courteously provided by the ship's crew. Both approaches put your vehicle and everybody on it at risk: one RPG hit and you're out of business. Having smaller, faster targets approach independently, optionally from multiple directions at once, is obviously better.

vkou 5y ago
Unless you are making a habit of inspecting ships that like to surprise you with RPGs fire (And what exactly is their plan after firing that RPG at an inspection crew sent by an incredibly heavily armed warship?), this thing will need an incredibly low accident/crash/technical defect/user error rate in order to be a net positive for adoption. Also, if you are boarding the kind of vessel that makes a habit of surprising naval inspectors with incredibly lethal application of medium-arms fire, what stops them from shooting you while you float in... Or are screwing around with getting your gear off after you land. This seems like a fun toy which is only useful in situations when nobody's looking to pick a fight with you.
- cm2187 5y ago
  Also in this heavy fire environment, my first choice wouldn’t be to send a slow moving guy covered with fuel tanks.
- adolph 5y ago
  Certainly the technology needs maturing but one might imagine that other elements could provide overwatch/supporting fire while the boarding party maneuvers. Additionally, while the video shows relatively long flights actual use might only replace the ladder or fastrope portion of boarding.
  - vkou 5y ago
    Does this sort of thing happen frequently enough in peacetime to even warrant a contract to build this? Again, see my question about "Who in their right mind opens fire on an inspection crew sent by a warship?" And during wartime, I don't see this being at all useful. This isn't the eighteenth century, warships no longer perform boarding actions against opponents that are going to shoot back.
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      Its already built. You can buy one retail: https://gravity.co/ https://gravity.co/ But yes, not really sure of the real world application of this in a military situation. It seems all you can do is fly, any effort to manipulate a weapon wearing these things seems like it would go poorly.
      - zimpenfish 5y ago
        > You can buy one retail Best I can tell from the website, you can commission one via a "contact us with your enquiry" form but you can't buy one retail as such. Which is a shame because they look like fun.
    - soneil 5y ago
      We're over 10 years into dealing with piracy in & around the gulf of Aden. Boarding ships happens more in peacetime than wartime.
      - dnautics 5y ago
        Moreover the us is likely to withdraw naval overwatch over the Arabian sea and the middle east as it no longer needs access to Saudi oil. This sort of thing is very prudent for the UK to develop. Probably china should think about this sort of thing too since 60% of its food supply depends on middle eastern petrochemical input.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      > Does this sort of thing happen frequently enough in peacetime [...] > And during wartime, I don't see this being at all useful. This isn't the eighteenth century, warships no longer perform boarding actions Exactly, this would be more for peacekeeping operations, the RM do a fair amount of anti-piracy, which is often/I suppose always, by the time they're involved, going to mean board & search & whatever else. I don't think this video (on the OEM's YouTube channel no less) should be taken to mean it's the new SOP though! Just R&D/evaluation, not going to find the next best thing without trying any candidates.
- megablast 5y ago
  Yes. They are not perfect. Congratulations on pointing that out. Now evaluate all the alternatives under your perfect lens.
  - curryst 5y ago
    I don't see how this is dramatically better than existing systems that can fire a rope ladder on hooks onto the railing. I suppose there's a failure rate on those attaching, but you can realistically carry several of those on a boarding party. I presume the Royal Marines know far more than me about such matters, but I just can't see the use. It's a soft target strapped to a small jet engine that seems liable to shred itself into shrapnel if it gets hit by small arms fire. I can't imagine it's pleasant to fly in the wind either, especially if the wind isn't constant. Judging by the way they were flying, and that the maneuverability seems to largely come from those bits on their hands, it also doesn't seem particularly agile. You're not going to generate a lot of lateral force without the risk of snapping the operators wrist/forearm. Presuming there are hostiles on board the ship, they seem like they could rather easily take one of these down with some buckshot. Even if you don't get a lethal hit, the impact seems like it would likely make the operator lose control of the jetpack either from rotation or just from the sheer shock of being shot. It seems like they'd either slam into the ship (bad), or fall into the ocean at which point the turbines would disintegrate in the water like helicopter blades flinging shrapnel into the operator (also bad). If I had to rank them from my armchair, I'd take a water-based boarding using launched rope ladders first, air-based boarding via rappelling from a helicopter second (assuming I knew how to do that) and this thing third. It has all the risks of getting shot down that a helicopter does (except that it doesn't even take an RPG to take down the jetpack), combined with still having to make a water-based entry.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      This is just a recruitment stunt, "join the marines - be iron man"

by T-A 5y ago

vkou 5y ago

Unless you are making a habit of inspecting ships that like to surprise you with RPGs fire (And what exactly is their plan after firing that RPG at an inspection crew sent by an incredibly heavily armed warship?), this thing will need an incredibly low accident/crash/technical defect/user error rate in order to be a net positive for adoption. Also, if you are boarding the kind of vessel that makes a habit of surprising naval inspectors with incredibly lethal application of medium-arms fire, what stops them from shooting you while you float in... Or are screwing around with getting your gear off after you land. This seems like a fun toy which is only useful in situations when nobody's looking to pick a fight with you.

cm2187 5y ago
Also in this heavy fire environment, my first choice wouldn’t be to send a slow moving guy covered with fuel tanks.
adolph 5y ago
Certainly the technology needs maturing but one might imagine that other elements could provide overwatch/supporting fire while the boarding party maneuvers. Additionally, while the video shows relatively long flights actual use might only replace the ladder or fastrope portion of boarding.
- vkou 5y ago
  Does this sort of thing happen frequently enough in peacetime to even warrant a contract to build this? Again, see my question about "Who in their right mind opens fire on an inspection crew sent by a warship?" And during wartime, I don't see this being at all useful. This isn't the eighteenth century, warships no longer perform boarding actions against opponents that are going to shoot back.
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    Its already built. You can buy one retail: https://gravity.co/ https://gravity.co/ But yes, not really sure of the real world application of this in a military situation. It seems all you can do is fly, any effort to manipulate a weapon wearing these things seems like it would go poorly.
    - zimpenfish 5y ago
      > You can buy one retail Best I can tell from the website, you can commission one via a "contact us with your enquiry" form but you can't buy one retail as such. Which is a shame because they look like fun.
  - soneil 5y ago
    We're over 10 years into dealing with piracy in & around the gulf of Aden. Boarding ships happens more in peacetime than wartime.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      Moreover the us is likely to withdraw naval overwatch over the Arabian sea and the middle east as it no longer needs access to Saudi oil. This sort of thing is very prudent for the UK to develop. Probably china should think about this sort of thing too since 60% of its food supply depends on middle eastern petrochemical input.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    > Does this sort of thing happen frequently enough in peacetime [...] > And during wartime, I don't see this being at all useful. This isn't the eighteenth century, warships no longer perform boarding actions Exactly, this would be more for peacekeeping operations, the RM do a fair amount of anti-piracy, which is often/I suppose always, by the time they're involved, going to mean board & search & whatever else. I don't think this video (on the OEM's YouTube channel no less) should be taken to mean it's the new SOP though! Just R&D/evaluation, not going to find the next best thing without trying any candidates.
megablast 5y ago
Yes. They are not perfect. Congratulations on pointing that out. Now evaluate all the alternatives under your perfect lens.
- curryst 5y ago
  I don't see how this is dramatically better than existing systems that can fire a rope ladder on hooks onto the railing. I suppose there's a failure rate on those attaching, but you can realistically carry several of those on a boarding party. I presume the Royal Marines know far more than me about such matters, but I just can't see the use. It's a soft target strapped to a small jet engine that seems liable to shred itself into shrapnel if it gets hit by small arms fire. I can't imagine it's pleasant to fly in the wind either, especially if the wind isn't constant. Judging by the way they were flying, and that the maneuverability seems to largely come from those bits on their hands, it also doesn't seem particularly agile. You're not going to generate a lot of lateral force without the risk of snapping the operators wrist/forearm. Presuming there are hostiles on board the ship, they seem like they could rather easily take one of these down with some buckshot. Even if you don't get a lethal hit, the impact seems like it would likely make the operator lose control of the jetpack either from rotation or just from the sheer shock of being shot. It seems like they'd either slam into the ship (bad), or fall into the ocean at which point the turbines would disintegrate in the water like helicopter blades flinging shrapnel into the operator (also bad). If I had to rank them from my armchair, I'd take a water-based boarding using launched rope ladders first, air-based boarding via rappelling from a helicopter second (assuming I knew how to do that) and this thing third. It has all the risks of getting shot down that a helicopter does (except that it doesn't even take an RPG to take down the jetpack), combined with still having to make a water-based entry.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    This is just a recruitment stunt, "join the marines - be iron man"