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Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

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Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#131

Post by orclev »

jfoutz wrote: post #122
sandworm101 wrote: post #72

Take EVERYTHING in that article with a giant tub of salt. The specifics of torpedo combat are some of the most closely guarded military secrets. Take the following: "These high-torque, permanent magnet electric motor torpedoes ramp up to speed in under a second. They go from sitting in a torpedo tube to 50 knots in a near-instant because they don’t have the mechanical lag and inertia thermal torpedoes must overcome d…

Very tangential question. I can think of only a handful of targets that the US might want to shoot at. (I realize there might be a ton, and this is my lack of imagination). The handful I can think of, almost all of them seem like they're in the supply chain to actually build the torpedos. I'm pretty skeptical of the depth of the US stockpile. To put it another way, if there was a war so bad, the US reinstituted the d…

The US industrial base was mighty, but these days it's a very pale shadow of what it was. Rampant cost cutting, outsourcing, and lack of protecting domestic production has absolutely devastated US manufacturing. There's still lots of design work that goes on, but almost all the actual manufacturing takes place elsewhere. What little is actually "made" in the US is almost entirely assembled from raw components that are themselves manufactured outside the US.

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#132

Post by amelius »

sandworm101 wrote: post #95
sandworm101 wrote: post #72

Take EVERYTHING in that article with a giant tub of salt. The specifics of torpedo combat are some of the most closely guarded military secrets. Take the following: "These high-torque, permanent magnet electric motor torpedoes ramp up to speed in under a second. They go from sitting in a torpedo tube to 50 knots in a near-instant because they don’t have the mechanical lag and inertia thermal torpedoes must overcome d…

More wrong stuff... "It is best if the weapon detonates within a meter of the hull, but a contact detonation can have devastating effects against even the largest warships." Torpedoes targeting ships definitely do not want to hit anywhere near the hull. They explode well beneath the target, tens of meters below. They don't try to directly damage the target. Their explosives create a large void of gas, a hole, under t…

But this would mean the ship also breaks when hit by two normal sea waves with the right spacing between them.

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#133

Post by el_nino »

umvi wrote: post #51
neurobashing wrote: post #3

Somewhat related, my uncle was a “Phantom driver” (F4 Phantom II) in Vietnam. Flew a bunch of missions of varying types. So Top Gun comes out, and my mom points out he had graduated Fighter Weapons School - my uncle is a real Top Gun! So I asked him for tales of dogfights, war stories. He had exactly one: “they’d send us out to fight some MiGs, and as soon as we got in range and turned our radar on to start shooting,…

My grandfather flew F-86s in Korea, and his experience was similar - the MiGs always ran most of the time. From his personal history: "In September 1952, I was made an instructor pilot in the F-86 and, in early November, I was made a flight commander and an engineering test pilot. It was also in November that we had one of our most frustrating experiences while I was at Kimpo. One day we were called into a hush hush…

I've seen so many such events unfold under my own eyes in real time. But thinking back on my stories about them and the stories of others that were there... if it wasn't filmed it was probably 80% more "docile" than described.

And I'm not talking just campfire stories for the friends and family. Superiors would constantly bolster the official account of the events because that was a "medal" on all of our chests, whether we were there or not.

Funnily enough hearing stories from the "other side", again about events that unfolded under my own eyes, left the exact same impression about them. It wasn't just a matter of perspective. If I didn't know better I could swear Rambo started off based on some of my stories...

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#134

Post by tuxxy »

londons_explore wrote: post #129
jfoutz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very tangential question. I can think of only a handful of targets that the US might want to shoot at. (I realize there might be a ton, and this is my lack of imagination). The handful I can think of, almost all of them seem like they're in the supply chain to actually build the torpedos. I'm pretty skeptical of the depth of the US stockpile. To put it another way, if there was a war so bad, the US reinstituted the d…

> To put it another way, if there was a war so bad, the US reinstituted the draft, would these tools still be relevant? The drafted people would all go to factories and boatyards to build thousands of new submarines. Each submarine would likely have no people on board, and be fully remote control. The age old problem of "you can't hide while sending and receiving data, so you can't make a drone sub" has been solved b…

I'm a cryptographer, so I'm inherently curious about secret communication. It just so happens that I'm also very curious about radios, satellite communications, etc.

Do you have a link that provides more information on these "below-noise-floor gold codes"? I tried googling, but I haven't found much technical information that I trust is entirely truthful or relevant.

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#135

Post by dmos62 »

missedthecue wrote: post #102
sandworm101 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More wrong stuff... "It is best if the weapon detonates within a meter of the hull, but a contact detonation can have devastating effects against even the largest warships." Torpedoes targeting ships definitely do not want to hit anywhere near the hull. They explode well beneath the target, tens of meters below. They don't try to directly damage the target. Their explosives create a large void of gas, a hole, under t…

The Russian VA-111 Shkval torpedo explodes on impact, but then again, it's traveling underwater at 370km/h

Trivia: I'm pretty sure that shkval in Russian means heavy, stormy rain.

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#136

Post by janekm »

user5994461 wrote: post #69
jdjrirkfkfk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From linked reference: Silver oxide-aluminium (AgO-Al) Silver oxide-zinc (AgO-Zn) Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) Lithium-polymer Lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO4) 1,040 Wh/kg 490 Wh/kg 600 Wh/kg 600 Wh/kg 520 Wh/kg The F21 is powered by a new generation of silver oxide-aluminium (AgO-Al) sea-water primary battery using dissolved sodium dioxide powder as electrolyte and incorporating a new electronic closed loop electrolyte circ…

And here we are on Hacker News with other threads on how battery density is peaking with Lithium and there is nothing better in sight. Turns out there are silver based battery that can do almost double. So what's the catch as to why it's not being adopted by phones?

Non rechargeable phones aren't very popular, and these batteries need air so can't be easily water-proofed. Also they swell during discharge.

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#138

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

dmos62 wrote: post #135
missedthecue wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian VA-111 Shkval torpedo explodes on impact, but then again, it's traveling underwater at 370km/h

Trivia: I'm pretty sure that shkval in Russian means heavy, stormy rain.

"squall"

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#139

Post by dmos62 »

jfoutz wrote: post #122
sandworm101 wrote: post #72

Take EVERYTHING in that article with a giant tub of salt. The specifics of torpedo combat are some of the most closely guarded military secrets. Take the following: "These high-torque, permanent magnet electric motor torpedoes ramp up to speed in under a second. They go from sitting in a torpedo tube to 50 knots in a near-instant because they don’t have the mechanical lag and inertia thermal torpedoes must overcome d…

Very tangential question. I can think of only a handful of targets that the US might want to shoot at. (I realize there might be a ton, and this is my lack of imagination). The handful I can think of, almost all of them seem like they're in the supply chain to actually build the torpedos. I'm pretty skeptical of the depth of the US stockpile. To put it another way, if there was a war so bad, the US reinstituted the d…

> if there was a war so bad, the US reinstituted the draft

US has something better than the draft: poverty. As long as there's a large enough pool of young people without options, there's no problem. A draft generally can only be minimally discriminatory for PR reasons, so poverty as enlistment incentive works much better.

Though, talking about US military running out of manpower is a far, far fetch, isn't? It surpasses or is extremely competitive with any other military by any measure [0][1].

According to Blind Man's Bluff, which covers submarine warfare during the cold war from the US perspective, right up to the nineties, atomic subs had 3 main roles: espionage and intelligence gathering, preserving second strike ability, shadowing enemy subs to have a chance of thwarting their strikes in case of crisis. What submarine warfare was during the cold war, right up to the end, was largely defined by the technical superiority of US subs, especially their ability to remain undetected. By the collapse of USSR, Soviet subs were about to catch up in terms of essential technology. I would be intrigued to learn what sub warfare is like now.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

Re: Modern submarine torpedo attacks are not like in the movies

#140

Post by close04 »

sien wrote: post #54
lainga wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6th-Gen fighter concepts include drone "wingmen" under partial control of fighter pilots in their own fighters. e.g. Japan's I3 Fighter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I3_fighter ed.: and yes, the F-22 and F-35 are 5th generation and decade-old tech. There is unfortunately a lot of lead time on fighter development. I think the F-15 was relatively speedy at 9 years from selection to roll-out (1967 - 76).

The F14 was even quicker. 1969 selection to 1973 deployment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F-14_Tomcat#VFX It's interesting how things changed from that generation to the next. The introduction of sophisticated computers seems to be part of the issue. The F14's electronics, BTW, were pretty primitive. This episode of the Fighter Pilot Podcast F14 is amazing. The ways people had to keep the systems going were…

> The introduction of sophisticated computers seems to be part of the issue.

Sophisticated technology was always part of the issue no matter how far back in time you go. What changed is the mentality. 50 years ago you had to deliver because the enemy was at your door. Today companies realized that they can make far more money by just dragging it out for decades through the magic of a cost-plus contract and subcontracting. The kind of arrangement that keeps entire subcontracting companies going forever even if they only tread water and never deliver anything.

If anything, sophisticated computers and software just made it easier to drag your feet because unlike building the actual plane, coding is not that capital intensive. You just need your coders constantly writing code and picking up a paycheck while shipping eternal pre-alpha builds.

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