Supercavitating Undersea Weapons

[osage]

Thought some might be interested in this article in Scientific American.

Apparently, by surrounding an underwater projectile with a constantly renewing gas envelope unheard of speeds can be achieved.

No word on perks yet.
 http://www.sciam.com/2001/0501issue/0501ashley.html

[funked]

Hmmm I thought Hispano already designed this device?

[Yoj]

 

Originally posted by osage:
Thought some might be interested in this article in Scientific American.

Apparently, by surrounding an underwater projectile with a constantly renewing gas envelope unheard of speeds can be achieved.

No word on perks yet.
 

http://www.sciam.com/2001/0501issue/0501ashley.html

That was a fascinating article - I was surprised that Russia had had such a weapon for years.  Underwater rockets - what's next?

- Yoj

[miko2d]

 Neither Russia, China or US need this kind of sutff to defeat Iraq, Checnya or other small powers.

  Why would anyone need a high-speed underwater anti-submarine torpedo or advanced anti-aircraft weapon if there are much simpler ways to clear the air/water?

 In case of a conflict between two such powers - say, China and US because of Taiwan, I envision the following scenario:

 Having little chance to resist our technical superiority in submarines and aircraft, China explodes a few of the nuclear warheads in the air and underwater - far enough to make sure that no US personnel is actually killed or irradiated. May be even in their own space.
 So the submarines go belly-up and aircraft lawndart (crews safely bail out). If an occasional satellite gets fried by EMP - all the better.

 Such an act would be frowned upon by international community and environmemtalists but in no way comparable to nuking a city or even a navy task group. In no way would it warrant any kind of nuclear responce directed at the population or ground forces.

 It would definitely be preferable to humiliating defeat of a simirarly - sized force of inferior quality like Iraqi's camaign. In case of Russia or China it may cost the ruling elite it's power - the only consideration for those guys.

 US may resort to this tactics too if we lose some people to conventional warfare - our public expects ous to fight wars without losses and gets pretty upset whan someone gets killed. Imagine having an aircraft carrier sunk by a pesky submarine on a suiside mission. Besides, who could tell who detonated those underwater or air-burss nukes? We cannot even prove which plane rammed which...

 What I am saying, all those nice toys are hardly going to be used when they are really needed.

 miko

[R4M]

NOthing new about that, Russians seem to have torpedoes with this technology.
 http://www.subsim.com/ssr/page33.html

 http://www.subsim.com/ssr/page34.html

[osage]

Yeah, some are pointing to Kursk tragedy as having something to do with supercavitation research.

[mrfish]

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
Having little chance to resist our technical superiority in submarines and aircraft, China explodes a few of the nuclear warheads in the air and underwater - far enough to make sure that no US personnel is actually killed or irradiated. May be even in their own space.
 So the submarines go belly-up and aircraft lawndart (crews safely bail out). If an occasional satellite gets fried by EMP - all the better.

what would that accomplish? e.m.p. isn't selective, it would effect their electronics as well. an h-bomb(which if they have any nuclear capacity they would have figured out the h-bomb by now)was exploded over the johnson atoll in '58 , it put out street lights in hawaii 1,000 miles away and cut off communications with australia for hours.

and then there's the radiation problem with people getting a 10 rad dose 200 miles away off of 2 megatons in about 12 hrs- just from the act of using radiactive isotopes as weapons could justify america's nuclear retalliation in the world community's eyes. the effects of strontium 90, cesium 137, potassium 40 etc are hideous enough to justify striking back. all they'd have to do is put some victim on cnn showing his bones disintigrating and his whole body swollen beyond recognition bleeding from the lungs and the u.s. could villianize them enough to nuke em.

it's not beyond them or unimaginable for sure but it's too risky imo.

[Yoj]

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
Neither Russia, China or US need this kind of sutff to defeat Iraq, Checnya or other small powers.

  Why would anyone need a high-speed underwater anti-submarine torpedo or advanced anti-aircraft weapon if there are much simpler ways to clear the air/water?

 In case of a conflict between two such powers - say, China and US because of Taiwan, I envision the following scenario:

 Having little chance to resist our technical superiority in submarines and aircraft, China explodes a few of the nuclear warheads in the air and underwater - far enough to make sure that no US personnel is actually killed or irradiated. May be even in their own space.
 So the submarines go belly-up and aircraft lawndart (crews safely bail out). If an occasional satellite gets fried by EMP - all the better.

 Such an act would be frowned upon by international community and environmemtalists but in no way comparable to nuking a city or even a navy task group. In no way would it warrant any kind of nuclear responce directed at the population or ground forces.

 It would definitely be preferable to humiliating defeat of a simirarly - sized force of inferior quality like Iraqi's camaign. In case of Russia or China it may cost the ruling elite it's power - the only consideration for those guys.

 US may resort to this tactics too if we lose some people to conventional warfare - our public expects ous to fight wars without losses and gets pretty upset whan someone gets killed. Imagine having an aircraft carrier sunk by a pesky submarine on a suiside mission. Besides, who could tell who detonated those underwater or air-burss nukes? We cannot even prove which plane rammed which...

 What I am saying, all those nice toys are hardly going to be used when they are really needed.

 miko

Technologies are seldom developed because there is a need for them - need only influences how fast they are developed.  Ideas are had and someone takes them in their natural direction.  Anyway, just because the US and Russia are not adversaries now is no reason not to counter a known technology - especially when that technology (in this case the supercavitating torpedo) is being marketed to anyone with the scratch to buy it.

EMP as a weapon (unless someone knows something big that nobody else knows) is so far from practical as to be nearly useless.  Most everything vital is shielded, so what gets messed up is almost all civilian - leaving you with one intact military structure that is awfully PO'd at you.

- Yoj

[This message has been edited by Yoj (edited 05-07-2001).]

[MrSiD]

MrFish: In what way would the retaliation of the US clear the air of the isotopes? Would that poor man in the news picture be cured?

Or would it only make the catastrophy global instead of local..

Nukes suck. Warmongers suck. I'm not a pasifist but this kind of stuff makes me puke.

[mrfish]

 

Originally posted by MrSiD:
MrFish: In what way would the retaliation of the US clear the air of the isotopes? Would that poor man in the news picture be cured?

i'm not sure i stated that mr sid - the us nukes would do nothing but compound the problem. maybe i was unclear:

miko2d:
"Such an act would be frowned upon by international community and environmemtalists but in no way comparable to nuking a city or even a navy task group"

my point:
it would not be enough to keep the united states from retalliating - they could easily find a moral reason to retalliate and keep world favor.

and if the us retaliated it would only get worse

i agree that nukes should go - all of them no exceptions. if a rogue nation shoots us so be it - it would be their funeral in the end by the time we got done with them. anyway we should be advanced beyond that stage by now and its depressing there are still so many warring egos and simpletons in the world.

no way in favor of nukes or their usage - hope that clears things  




[This message has been edited by mrfish (edited 05-07-2001).]

[miko2d]

 I am not talking about chinese using powerfull nukes and relying on EMP.
 I am talking on using under 200kt weapons in the air and underwater. The radicioactivity would not even be comparable to russians multi-hundred megaton hydrojen bomb tests...

 You do not have to be precise - how far from a 200kt blast can a plane survive? A submarine? Loss of life would be counted in dozens - most of planes and subs would probably be incapacitated but allow the crews to bail out.

 That would not be a reason for US to drop a bomb on a Chinese city. Even if we were not afraid that would not cause them to bomb one of ours.

 So those ships will have to slug it out with 18" main caliber guns - like in the old times (WWI?).

 Shooting an extremely noisy projectile from a submarine sounds like a very expensive way to kill yourself. The couter-measure for such a torpedo will probably be very cheap and effective - just shout a small torpedo homing on enormously loud sound (or radar or whatever), then explode it in the vicinity of the supercavitating torpedo. It would briefly disrupt/distort the cavity and after that a thin-walled missle unintentionally touching the water at 100+ meters/sec will smash itself. Or something.

 Also, the location of the sub will be known exactly.

P.S. Simplicity is the greatest virtue and the most efficient weapons are pretty simple and relying on old tested technology. Cruise missle is a small, low-flying unpiloted plane. Ballistic missle is just thrown up and controlled by gravity. The tank is thick armor and a guy blasting what he sees.
 A lot of very smart ideas never saw the light of day or were pulled out after causing lots of problems for users in the first serious use....

 miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 05-07-2001).]

[fd ski]

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
Shooting an extremely noisy projectile from a submarine sounds like a very expensive way to kill yourself. The couter-measure for such a torpedo will probably be very cheap and effective - just shout a small torpedo homing on enormously loud sound (or radar or whatever), then explode it in the vicinity of the supercavitating torpedo. It would briefly disrupt/distort the cavity and after that a thin-walled missle unintentionally touching the water at 100+ meters/sec will smash itself. Or something.

Wrong. It travels faster then sound under water - at this time there is no way to detect such a missle before it hits you on the bellybutton  

Come on, they ain't that dumb  




------------------
Bartlomiej Rajewski
aka. Wing Commander fd-ski
Northolt Wing
1st Polish Fighter Wing
303 (Polish) Squadron "Kosciuszko" RAF
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
315 (Polish) Squadron "City of Deblin" RAF

Turning 109s and 190s into scrap metal since 1998

Northolt Wing Headquarters

[Gunthr]

All I can say is, "WOW".

I've read submarine novels that tell about subs reaching a critical depth from which they cannot surface, but begin a death dive toward the bottom at an ever-accelerating speed up to a very high terminal speed - not sure how fast - until implosion occurs. As a diver, I've had trouble invisioning something that big moving that fast underwater.

Now this. I just can't imagine what that must look, feel and sound like, being underwater and seeing a 35 foot object go past at better than the speed of sound. That is just inconcievable. It isn't that I doubt the technology - I'm just in shock that, once again, the world is not what I thought it was. Nature's laws are not necessarily what they might appear to be to a casual observer.

Thanks for the link, Osage  

Gunthr

[AKDejaVu]

 

Wrong. It travels faster then sound under water - at this time there is no way to detect such a missle before it hits you on the ass

Anyone know what the speed of sound through water is?

AKDejaVu

[AKDejaVu]

 

So.. you are saying this thing goes 2000 mph under water?