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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

#121

Post by razzmataz »

chipsa wrote: post #84
redis_mlc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well. The Vietnamese pilots were using Soviet tactics, mainly Ground Control vectors. Most Vietnamese pilots were rookies, but they did have some aces who would dogfight, like Colonel Toon, who was shot down by Randy Cunningham: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Cunningham But largely the tactics were to surprise the Americans with first MiG-17's, then have a MiG-21 at high speed do an ambush pass from the clouds th…

The no gun thing is over hyped. The Navy never did install guns in their fighters in Vietnam, and still ended up reversing the kill ratio.

They started carrying gunpods at the time. Missiles of the era were inaccurate and finicky.

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

#122

Post by jfoutz »

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 draft, would these tools still be relevant? The US industrial base is mighty, and could certainly retool to meet whatever need arises, but that'll take years.

Really seems neat, but after you've taken your 20 or 50 or whatever shots, how do you resupply? Seems like you'd need special coatings or shelf stable chemicals or a hundred other things to make the super fancy weapon.

it sure _seems_ like (although I have no fucking clue, so I'm asking) the super fancy weapons are available for a few weeks if things get real bad.

_edit_ realized I didn't actually ask a question. Can the US actually build these things from, like, minerals? It's a big country, we have them. The industrial base doesn't seem tuned for actually doing that though.

_further edit_ I'm a very silly person. it seems like the only must have is a plausible second strike capability. It's great to be able to protect the free flow of oil, or defend the Kurds from chemical weapons. Hell, one of the most American things I can think of is protecting yankee clippers for safe trade. It's part of the Marine's Hymn. but clearing pirates from the shores of Tripoli isn't absolutely vital. I'd sort of thought that subs jobs in the modern world was making sure that if the US can't play, no one else can either, with moderately sized nuclear weapons. Again, I'm a very silly person. The question with the further edit is, do subs have an essential job beyond second strike cabability?

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

#123

Post by alanbernstein »

A misconception I had was that submarines fight each other under water.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-864

"It is the only documented instance in the history of naval warfare where one submarine intentionally sank another while both were submerged."

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

#124

Post by exar0815 »

willvarfar wrote: post #107
ckozlowski wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Manpad-type missiles like the British Blowpipe have been mounted on submarine masks. A major threat to a submarine is all the helicopters and patrol aircraft with their dipping sonars etc. There are some really great pics taken from periscopes of opposition helicopters during the cold war. Nothing you'd want to see in a hot war neither. It seems good to throw a little missile at the helicopter you've just spotted app…

There are now wire-guided AA-missiles that are launched from torpedo tubes while the sub is underwater.

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

#125

Post by _8j50 »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #10
_8j50 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I read your comment just as the movie top gun started on my TV. I really wonder what air-to-air unmanned dog fight would look like. Are drone swarms a thing yet? a sky filled with drones would be terrifying. I would hope modern jets deploy drone like missiles manned by ground crew for dogfights,but if I learned anything about F22 and F35, they spend trillions to basically let middle parties steal the money and t…

Missiles are drones that are not supposed to come back.

Missiles have a target and they use a guidance system. What I meant was piloted without a predefined target to make evasion difficult.

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

#126

Post by rjsw »

nostrademons wrote: post #36
_8j50 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are thinking from a technical perspective. You will always need a guy in the cockpit that can refuse an order. Not the same thing if it's a room of drone pilots, a drone pilot will just get fired and replaced on the spot. Imagine being given an order to kill a terrorist, but you notice the place he is at is actually a wedding. A fighter pilot has final authority on the strike, he can make decisions about collater…

This reminds me a lot about the Geneva convention and how the rules of war very quickly got tossed aside during WW2. If you compare say the Battle of River Plate (1939) vs. say the North Atlantic convoy run or the siege of malta (1942), there's a dramatic difference in how war was conducted and the types of weapon systems that were most effective. River Plate was almost gentlemanly: while commerce-raiding, the Graf S…

There is also the Laconia incident [1], the German U-boat that sank the Laconia tried to help rescue survivors but was attacked by Allied aircraft.

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

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

#127

Post by smilespray »

willvarfar wrote: post #103
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…

You are over-analyzing. There is nothing in the sentence you quote that says if the torpedo was launched or swam out etc. Nothing in the sentence you quote even qualified how long "near instant" was. Etc. You are also saying you know more about this subject than the sub vet who wrote the article...?

Author is known as Jive Turkey on YouTube, and he knows his stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9bMgCQyFNaMPsK9GtzM5dQ

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

#128

Post by smilespray »

magicsmoke wrote: post #89
dylan604 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long gone are the days of the British soldiers taking a knee in formations to shoot their muskets. Essentially expecting to take turns with the enemy trading shots. Never did understand that mentality at all.

Well, that was when individual muskets were inaccurate and the coordination issues with commanding thousands of men using drums and flags meant a large mass of soldiers firing in sync could scare the opposing side into fleeing and allow calvary to mop up. And before that, you had knights with plate armor that could could shrug off most bladed weapons on a battlefield that would have destroyed peasant conscript withou…

You're obviously right about this, but I still think of WW1 as "The Stupid War".

In terms of defence gaining an edge over defense; I don't really think so. Offence is always cheaper. Think nukes.

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

#129

Post by londons_explore »

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…

> 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 by using below-noise-floor gold codes, so without the coding key, nobody can even tell a transmission is going on.

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

Spooky23 wrote: post #105
goatinaboat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top Gun was created in response to heavy losses in Vietnam That in itself is a crucial piece of historical context. The MiGs of the day were better than contemporary American fighters such as the F-86. They operated at altitudes the Americans couldn’t reach and shot downwards. One reason America was in Vietnam in the first place was a genuine fear that the Soviet system was actually better! It was the Sidewinder miss…

US strategy in the 50s when this stuff was designed or ordered was oriented around our friend the atom... nuke everyone. At one point there was serious discussion about the need for a Navy. Vietnam was a crucible where a lot of entrenched thinking had to be burned away, unfortunately those lessons were taught in the context of that awful conflict.

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