*** Britain's battleship of the future | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

Britain's battleship of the future

London

Torpedoes that travel at almost 350 mph, an electromagnetic rail gun with the range of cruise missiles, a quad-copter that fires lasers, drones made on board and a holographic control room.

Those are just a few of the things that some of Britain's youngest and brightest scientists and engineers came up with when the country's Ministry of Defense challenged them to envision the battleship of the future.

The scientists and engineers from defense contractors, the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Navy brought their ideas together in what's dubbed "Dreadnought 2050," homage to the HMS Dreadnought, a 20,000-ton, 527-foot-long battleship launched in 1906. The HMS Dreadnought "represented such an advance that all other major warships were rendered obsolete," according to a press release from Startpoint, the Royal Navy organization overseeing the current project.

Startpoint says its mission is to "tackle parallel challenges of providing advanced technology set against the backdrop of funding constraints." Looking at the artist's conceptions of Dreadnought 2050, "cheap" is not a word that comes to mind. Words like "starship" or "battlestar" seem more apt.

Dreadnought 2050 is a tri-hull design and it's not steel as most battle ships are. It's an ultra-strong, see-through acrylic, Startpoint says.

For threats farther off, there's an electomagnetic rail gun on the bow that can fire a projectile hundreds of miles. Tubes in the two outrigger hulls would be armed with "supercavitating" torpedoes, which go so fast that they vaporize the water around them and create an air pocket that lets them fly through the water.

The aft section of Dreadnought 2050 would have a flight deck for drones that could be made onboard using 3-D printing technologies and a "moon pool," a floodable deck from which amphibious troops could be dispatched on missions. 

(Brad Lendon)