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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

#141

Post by pjc50 »

dmos62 wrote: post #139
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…

> 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 surpas…

People aren't going to sign up to get killed for that kind of money. That's why they had to be drafted in the Vietnam era.

And that's also why minimum-wage restaurant workers are going on strike in the coronavirus era.

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

#142

Post by nabla9 »

amelius wrote: post #132
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…

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

True. The explanation given is wrong.

Proximity detonation breaks the ship from the force the gas bubble directs upwards.

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

#143

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

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 have read the comms channels underwater are low to very low bit rate. If true, a remote controlled sub seems unrealistic.

Also a remote control sub would be continually sending data back which surely is tantamount to continually yelling "I'm here! I'm here!", so I don't really buy the RC sub theory yet. (edit: I don't buy your suggestion that it's possible to hide that. You just need to emit too much power and you can't hide that).

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

#144

Post by evgen »

nabla9 wrote: post #142
amelius wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

True. The explanation given is wrong. Proximity detonation breaks the ship from the force the gas bubble directs upwards.

There are going to be two effects. The first is a very large upward moment directly beneath the ship at the point of explosion, followed soon after by a downward moment when the explosion void is filled by the water and everything around it is pulled inwards to fill the vacuum.

The upward hit should actually be easier for a ship to resist because there is only air above the ship and it is “relatively” easy to lift the ship out of the water and into the air, but the downward pull means the ship is going to be pulled against the water and that will not move out of the way as easily or as quickly as the air. The second effect is what leads to the most damage.

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

#145

Post by nabla9 »

orclev wrote: post #131
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…

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 ar…

> Rampant cost cutting, outsourcing, and lack of protecting domestic production has absolutely devastated US manufacturing.

This is utterly false thing that you learn if only read news articles. The value and quantity of manufacturing is now the highest it has ever been in the US.

What has declined is the number of workers and the share of GDP. This applies to almost all OECD countries. As economies change from industrial to post-industrial, the share of manufacturing declines naturally because manufacturing productivity increases.

Agriculture is something like 3% of the GDP, yet developed countries produce more agricultural products than they did when 90% of the economy was agriculture. The same thing is happening to manufacturing.

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

#146

Post by anilakar »

ckozlowski wrote: post #99
sandworm101 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are sometimes called "stealth" torps. They run quiet, and slow, so they don't want the noisy launch procedure. But they also don't do 50 knots. On the other end of the scale there are the rocket torpedoes, really missiles that fly underwater at speeds over 200 knots. You might hear them coming but won't be able to do much about them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval And there are even anti-aircraft t…

Actually, latter versions of the Mark 48 will do this, running at variable speed. Slow launch, creep towards the target, and dogleg even, then run up to 50+ knots once it's close enough to be heard. With wire guidance, the sub could essentially drive the torpedo to where they wanted it before violent speed and maneuvering would likely cut the wires. This was depicted somewhat famously in the book Red Storm Rising. By…

Come on, everyone who has played Dangerous Waters enough knows that the best defence against maritime patrol aircraft is for the captain to boldly surface the boat and take the pesky plane down with a shoulder-launched missile ;)

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

#147

Post by dmos62 »

pjc50 wrote: post #141
dmos62 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 surpas…

People aren't going to sign up to get killed for that kind of money. That's why they had to be drafted in the Vietnam era. And that's also why minimum-wage restaurant workers are going on strike in the coronavirus era.

I don't (off the top of my head) remember my sources for claims about poverty being a mechanism for manning the US military, so I won't push the point. I'll leave it at saying that I wish you were right.

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

#148

Post by 2rsf »

tzs wrote: post #77

> The batteries are connected in series allowing each weapon to have 2, 3, or 4 batteries. More batteries give the weapon more range. Fewer batteries make the weapon much lighter and more agile, but at the cost of range. This sounds wrong. Shouldn't they be connected in parallel?

Not necessarily (answering as an Electrical Engineer with zero submarine knowledge), batteries in series give more voltage while batteries in parallel allow more current drawn. Now it depends on what and how your propulsion is.

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

#149

Post by nabla9 »

When you store unguided torpedo inside capsule in the bottom of the ocean, or allow it to float in some predetermined depth, you have Torpedo mine, like CAPTOR.

You don't need expensive submarines, if you want to protect narrow points or specific areas. You just drop torpedo mines underwater.

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

#150

Post by contingencies »

magicsmoke wrote: post #57
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #39

I rip on surface fleets as being floating reef fodder that would be sunk almost immediately against any modern power, either because of the sophistication of submarines, the rise of cheap drones winning the economic exchange, or death-from-above missles and ICBMs that are basically undefendable. But against subs I'm surprised there aren't plans for a drone-net that surrounds a fleet or high value ship that can detect…

Smaller drones have weaker propulsion and can't keep up with the ship its supposed to provide a detection bubble around. Being underwater and having to deal with additional drag also doesn't help. The large size of an aircraft carrier belies the fact that it is the fastest ship in the carrier group and can outrun all of its escorts. Larger ship = more space to pack powerful engines. That's also a major issue for a lo…

There were networks of deployable remote surveillance buoys being developed by the 1990s. Source: Public research reports of military research organizations. Presumably removing the propulsion expectation simplifies the problem domain.
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