Russia has SKAVAL, any answer from USN?

Originally posted by COOL HAND

Originally posted by jetsetter
US is developing a supercavitating torpedo right now.

No we are not. There are too many problems and dangers that are associated with a supercavitating propulsion system.

We are going in other directions, that is all that can be said.

We are. I have seen photos and read about it. Just go look.

Originally posted by Apollyon
about producing supercavition by charging the skin of the torpedo to free trapped gasses in the water.

if its using trapped gasses in the water then it isnt cavitation (cold boiling of water due to low pressures). A cavitation bubble can be sustained however by intoducing other gasses into a pre-existing bubble (the russians used exhaust gasses i believe.


WE TALKED ABOUT ALL THIS ONLY A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 24-11-2004 by paperplane_uk]

Originally posted by jetsetter
We are. I have seen photos and read about it. Just go look.

Links?

Source?

I have seen what they had proposed, but that was all it was.

We are looking to other directions, that is all I can or will say.

Supercavitating weapons work in the U.S. is being directed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Arlington, Va. In general, the ONR's efforts are aimed at developing two classes of supercavitating technologies: projectiles and torpedoes.

The first class of weapons is represented by RAMICS (for Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System), a soon-to-be-requisitioned helicopter-borne weapon that destroys surface and near-surface marine mines by firing supercavitating rounds at them. The 20-millimeter flat-nosed projectiles, which are designed to travel stably through both air and water, are shot from a modified rapid-fire gun with advanced targeting assistance. (The fielded RAMICS projectiles are expected to be enlarged to 30-millimeter caliber.) Raytheon Naval & Maritime Integrated Systems in Portsmouth, R.I., is the chief contractor for RAMICS, and engineers at C Tech Defense Corporation in Port Angeles, Wash., developed the projectiles. The U.S. Navy is also considering deploying a surface ship�borne, deck-mounted RAMICS-type close-in weapons system that could destroy deadly wake-following torpedoes.

The next step in supercavitating projectile technology will be an entirely subsurface gun system using Adaptable High-Speed Undersea Munitions (AHSUM). These would take the form of supercavitating "kinetic-kill" bullets that are fired from guns in streamlined turrets fitted to the submerged hulls of submarines, surface ships or towed mine-countermeasure sleds. The sonar-directed AHSUM system is hoped to be the underwater equivalent of the U.S. Navy's Phalanx weapons system, a radar-controlled rapid-fire gun that protects surface vessels from incoming cruise missiles.

The other supercavitating technology of interest to the ONR is a torpedo with a maximum velocity of about 200 knots. Substantial technical and system challenges stand in the way of the desired torpedo in the areas of launching, hydrodynamics, acoustics, guidance and control, and propulsion, to name a few, according to ONR program manager Kam Ng. NUWC Newport is doing the applied research and some of the basic research work as well. The effort is supported by the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University (ARL/Penn State), the University of Florida, Anteon Corporation and Lockheed Martin.
Rest at www.diodon349.com...

We have torpedoes with nuclear warheads on , does that count?

~LCPL R. Camp Lejeune, NC

The Russians too have torpedoes with nuclear warheads..

They can be capable to destroy entire carrier groups.

Some of the Soviet submarines which were playing hide&seek near Cuba in 1962 were actually equipped with these. It�s not a new thing.

If anyone played Red Storm Rising back when computers were DOS based their was a Torpedo in the US arsenal called the MK50 Sealance, I don't know maybe its nothing but Tom Clancy has been right before. Haven't seen it sence though so it either didn't exist or got cancelled in devlopment.

The US is developing a mach 1+ torpedo as we speak. They have tested the speed and have broke the sound barrier already...YES UNDERWATER. They just cant steer it yet. It ejects gasses out the noze creating an ultra low resistance bubble around the torpedo. It literally slips through the water like a gas bubble.

I read about it in print, ill try to find some online documentation.

But imagine the possibilities!! Under water cruise missiles. How about cruise missles that traval underwater for a portion of its trip then rockets up out of the water to strike at the last moment.

The possibilities are endless. Heck, how about craft powered this way?

[edit on 9-12-2004 by skippytjc]

Now that is quite a claim!!!
Mach 1 underwater???
I wish to know more if you can help me....
Links?

Thats really funny. Mach 1 underwater. The Soviets have lead the way in development of speedy underwater engines for years and have a Submarine that goes near 40 knots and a Torpedo that can outrun that Submarine. Meanwhile the USA has no Torpedo that can keep up with Russia's fastest sub and no submarine that can outrun their own Torpedo's. Yet somehow they go from Torpedo's that go at under 40 knots to Mach 1. I find that about as easy to believe as claims that the aircraft in Stealth is real 'coz my dad worked on it at Boeing'. No offence intended but thats a wild and completely unrealistic claim.

Link to the USN's website of Office of Naval Research.

Link

1) The US's Mark 48 heavy torpedo can hit at least 55 knots, considerably faster than any submarine. The UK's Spearfish can do 70 knots, and the Japanese Type 89 at least 72 knots.

2) The US is working on supercavitating weapons. Interestingly though, the first system likely to be deployed is not a torpedo, but RAMICS, a helicopter fired mine-clearing system. The Office Of Naval research is also developing an underwater supercavitating gun (think of a Phalanx system, but for defense against torpedoes instead of missiles), and a 200 knot torpedo similar to Shkval.

3) The Russians continue to improve theirs, adding homing abilities and much greater range. While they've proven to be dangerous to handle, they deserve a lot of credit for concieving and deploying such an innovative weapons system first - IIRC Shkval first entered service in 1977.

Really, we should try to look at these things realistically, without all the childish nationalistic poo-flinging. It's amazing how people's sense of self worth somehow gets all tangled up with the performance of their country's weapons systems. It makes discussions in here very frustrating.

[edit on 12/28/05 by xmotex]

Russia has SKAVAL, any answer from USN?

Yes, there is a US response: stay out of range.
The Shkval has a range of approxly. 7500 yards, which equates to 4.26 miles or 3.7 nautical miles at max and optimal conditions. One inherent pitfall of submarines that uses the Shkval: detection, because the Shkval is designed specifically for close-range submarine encounters.

The US answer/response/best defense: stay more than 5 miles or 4 nm away. BTW, the US Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo range is well over 10 miles.

And to reinforce what NWguy83 linked, further information can be had here:
Supercavitation Research and Development.

And to back the mention by skippytjc--IIRC "childish nationalistic poo-flinging":

"...a fully submerged launch of a supercavitating projectile (with air injected in its nose) with a muzzle velocity of 5082 feet per second was possible and became the first underwater weapon to break the sound barrier."

Page Six: Supercavitation

"...the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), in Newport, Rhode Island. ... established its own supercavitation programme ... In 1997 ... NUWC researchers announced they had gone supersonic. An unpowered projectile, with a carefully designed flat nose and fired from an underwater gun, broke the sound barrier in water. That's nearly 5400 kilometres per hour--or 1.5 kilometres per second. ... Already they aren't very far off the 2.5 kilometre-per-second speed record for conventional munitions in air..."

supercavitation torpedoes

Other past ATS topics that have discussed Russia and the US supercavitation programs:
New kind of torpedoes
VA-111 Shkval underwater rocket

modern submarines can launch torpedos quietly. This is not new..it could be done in older boats too. This technique has only impoved in todays boats.

Also If I am given to understand what I am reading modern torpedos are in fact stealthy. They can be launched quietly and programmed to run slowly to closes the gap quietly and undetected and then quickly accelerate when it doesnt matter anymore if they are loud or not. This leaves thier prey time enough for a " Awe...Sh**.

Unlike "The Hunt for Red October" in modern boats you would be very hard pressed to know if they have even opened thier outer torpedo doors for the shot. Hollywood!!! LOL LOL.

Thanks,
Orangetom

Dont get all excited over Tom Clancy. I like reading some of his books. I just know that he has certain misinformation in them. Not that he doesnt know what he is talking about but much of what he knows he cannot speak of to the pubic.
This means that on certain topics ..Tom has handlers. To be expected in this type of techno thriller.

Thanks,
Orangetom

And to back the mention by skippytjc--IIRC "childish nationalistic poo-flinging":

I wasn't referring to skippy, he seems to have managed to avoid any poo-flinging in this thread actually

There are a bunch of posters whose posts in these threads can be summed up as "everything Russian sucks" or "everything American sucks" or the like (substitute Chinese, Indian, whatever) and it doesn't contribute anything useful to the discussion.

I believe ther was an article in popular science about the gas bubble torps

Originally posted by skippytjc
The US is developing a mach 1+ torpedo as we speak. They have tested the speed and have broke the sound barrier already...YES UNDERWATER. They just cant steer it yet. It ejects gasses out the noze creating an ultra low resistance bubble around the torpedo. It literally slips through the water like a gas bubble.

I read about it in print, ill try to find some online documentation.

But imagine the possibilities!! Under water cruise missiles. How about cruise missles that traval underwater for a portion of its trip then rockets up out of the water to strike at the last moment.

The possibilities are endless. Heck, how about craft powered this way?

[edit on 9-12-2004 by skippytjc]

why pop up out of the water? underwater damage can be FAR more devastating. after all, given a choice of where you can have a hole in your ship, where would you NOT put it?

As someone already mentioned, it's a lot more important to be quiet with a good idea of what's going on. That's US boats all the way.

The Mk48 ADCAP is a powerful torpedo which again, can run quiet. More importantly, it can also be programmed to take an indirect course.

Sub war is slow. Impatient captains usually lose.

The stalk can often take HOURS if not days to properly fix a contact, and in littoral ops you need to have a good sense of wtf is going on with the background noise as well.

So you quietly release two torps, run em out to the enemy's flanks, cut the wires after you program them to converge, then listen. In the endgame, the enemy sees two torps headed from two directions, neither of them along your bearing to the target. Supercavitating whatchamhoozits don't matter there.

This is what I call whiz-bang gadget syndrome, and it's a symptom of those unaware of operational considerations. It's quiet, and high stress stuff. US subs REGULARLY will hide themselves off the coasts of different nations, with ELINT gear out and sniffing. These would cause an international incident if we got caught, but we don't. And it's not just Third World nations either...

Great post. Tell it like it is.

Strategy, Patience, and Tactics

Longbow you posted:

"Maybe they found solution also for this. I don't know much about the current torpedoes, are they still ejected by air pressure?
Also the submarine will probably not go faster than is it's tactical operating speed (20knots by Seawolf, Virginia)

Think this through ..carefully. With patience Grasshopper!!

Thanks,
Orangetom