Navy Sails High-Tech High Seas

It's a Sunday night, 50 miles off the Connecticut coast aboard the 2-year-old Navy destroyer, which is slicing its way up the coast's dark waters. Petty Officer Leggon (pictured at left) is reading e-mail from his wife Trisha back home in Norfolk, Virginia. She sent a message about her new job and their three children.

"I e-mail my wife twice a day," he says. During long tours of duty at sea, e-mail makes all the difference. "The last ship I was on, we got e-mail once a month."

The Internet is making huge waves for sailors at sea. Now, 350 crewmembers of the USS McFaul stay connected to the rest of the world through e-mail and the Web. But that's only one example of how technology is reshaping the Navy and the lives of sailors.

The 500-foot, 8900-ton USS McFaul preceded the historic Tall Ships parade up the Eastern seaboard this week, to Boston from New York City. The destroyer is part of Operation Sail 2000 and its presence is meant to show off the U.S. Navy's military might.

Say Goodbye to Popeye

Navy information technology these days is much more than Popeye counting cans of spinach. Swabbies today do everything from operate local area networks to point Tomahawk cruise missiles using sophisticated weapon systems.

While computers aboard the McFaul seem less than state of the art, the Navy's capability to tie together dozens of subsystems is an impressive feat. The result is technology that controls one of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world.

For example, the brains of the McFaul's advanced Aegis radar-and-weapons system are five hulking circa-1980s Lockheed Martin computer servers. However, Aegis culls data from dozens of newer radar and weapons subsystems onboard. After compiling that data, it can scan a 500-mile region and track hundreds of targets simultaneously.