When the U.K.'s Royal Navy built HMS Dreadnought in 1906, it effectively rendered previous battleships obsolete. Now, British naval engineers are poised to do the same once again after they unveiled the plan to build its next version.
The public first heard of the Dreadnought 2050 last year as part of the announced project called Startpoint, according to The Telegraph. Now, the ship is in development, and it will feature core technologies critical in dominating naval conflicts. These include robotics, drones and stealth systems. The idea is to produce a Dreadnought successor that can move swiftly in the battle zone and adapt quickly to any type of mission, said Mark Steel, a representative of a naval design firm working on the project, Popular Science reported.
The Dreadnought's technologies are best highlighted in its components. For instance, there is the case of the moon pool, which is a dock area located at the stern. It is flooded to launch underwater rovers or human divers. A drone launcher will also be built through an extendable flight deck to launch 3D-printed and possibly on-demand unmanned aerial vehicles.
The warship will also be outfitted with advanced sensors and mechanisms for scanning and monitoring enemy ships. An interesting element of this component is a quadcopter that permanently hovers in order to provide the ship with 360-degree visibility. Its tether, which is made of cryogenically cooled carbon nanotubes, can also transmit energy.
The new Dreadnought ship is also made of ultra-strong acrylic material coated with graphene and will have a futuristic 3D holographic command table, BBC News reported. It will have a silent propulsion system, which - together with a ballast system that lowers parts of the ship underwater - makes the new Dreadnought difficult to detect on radar.
