The biggest threat to a surface ship is a missile. Hydrofoil isn’t going to help you there at all.
The Navy really should deploy hydrofoils. That way, as the SEAL Team zips away after a successful mission, the bad guys would exclaim Curses, foiled again!
I guess the real question is why doesn’t the Coast Guard use hydrofoils? Seems like they would be ideal for the interdiction of high speed smugglers boats.
A bit of googling doesn’t seem to bring up any countries coast guard as using hydrofoils?
I once talked to the chief engineer on a Pegasus hydrofoil. To put it politely, they are not operationally viable. The high power engines needed are simply too difficult to control effectively in actual maneuvers. Think about operating a hydrofoil next to a conventional ship for at-sea resupply. Obviously the hydrofoil isn’t up on the foils, but the foils are still sticking out like knives. That one cost the captains of both ships their careers. The only reason the chief avoided trouble is he had his objection logged before the maneuver started (seas were too rough and the ships collided. The hydrofoils almost sank the much larger cargo ship). These were jet engines. They have a very narrow range of acceptable operating temperatures. A range that was way too easy to get out of. When you have a small ship covered in large Harpoon missiles, a backfire is very bad…
They look really cool in the publicity pictures. Some ports considered them so dangerous they weren’t allowed in.
Demurral. Small and fast is always harder to hit.
Yes, but even the hydrofoil ships are slow as a snail compared to a missile.
The bigger, slower snail will get hit.
This doesn’t remotely follow. If one ship is evading at 30 knots, and another at 50 knots, and the missile is incoming at 1200-1800 knots, from the missile’s perspective, if it’s control hardware is good enough to hit the slower ship, it can hit the larger ship.
From the missile’s perspective, the angular rates of change are comparable.
This isn’t that hard.
For a missile incoming at Mach 2.5 (about 1,900 miles per hour) a ship traveling at 48 knots vice 24 knots doesn’t make any difference at all.
Do you get that?
Like we used to say during the war:
“How can you strafe women & children?”
“Easy: just don’t lead 'em as much.”
From the POV of a tactical aircraft or missile a ship, any ship, is almost but not quite stationary. Ditto land vehicles. Only trivial adjustments are needed to offset their pitiful attempts at running away.