New sub Navy’s ‘most lethal warship’ USS John Warner

Remember those old war movies with a captain looking through a periscope and calling out coordinates for a torpedo attack? Well, this ain’t that sub.

For one, it doesn’t even have a periscope. Instead, the John Warner will go about its business using a photonic mast, a piece of electronic wizardry that includes high-definition and infrared video to enable the Warner, the 12th in the Virginia class of attack submarines, to see and to not been seen like nothing else under the seas.

The video information is displayed on large screens in the command center. A joystick, much like the kind you might use to play video games, controls the whole show.

In front of that is where two sailors drive the sub, like a pilot and co-pilot seated before a curved wall of video screens. Driving a sub used to take a crew of four, Caldwell said, but technology has cut that number in half.

More complicated than the Space Shuttle.

#HeavyMachina