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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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 Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: Is Iran preparing for preemptive First Blood ? |
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reuters link
Iran test fires new torpedo in shipping zone
url converted/kate
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baldeagle
PO2
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Posts: 362
Location: Grand Saline, Texas
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:29 am Post subject: |
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I'd have to say that your guess is as good as mine, Jack............on the one hand, middle easterners seem to be big on the brave talk/saber-rattling/bluff, till the big guy comes in guns blazing, a la Saddam, and then you find them hiding in a hole in the ground...guess Osama is still in his hole.
OTOH, if they can con some young ignorant goatherd (or even some young ignorant college grad from a rich family) to go out and get himself killed by a car bomb/suicide belt/or hijacked airplane, they are likely to strike first.
On the 3rd hand, I also think it highly probable that the Israelis may be the ones that end up with first blood.
One thing is sure, the situation will not continue much longer without someone doing something.
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"In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington |
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:53 am Post subject: |
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The torpedo they tested today is actually a submersible missile and was clocked at 223 mph submerged, and has a homing type guidance system. CNN showed video of the tests. That's pretty fast as waterborne stuff goes. I'm no torpedoman, but I'll bet that's 3 or 4 times as fast as most NATO torpedos. No ship would be able to outrun that critter, but then again they do have defenses and countermeasures against torpedos.
Makes you wonder how much saber rattling they're doing just for show.
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dusty
Admiral
Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 1264
Location: East Texas
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:43 am Post subject: |
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Way I understand this new torpedo is it has a very short range and terrible accuracy. The Russians have a very similar torpedo and this is probably a copied design from their VA-111 Shkval which was developed in 1995.
I hear it's not much of a worry to our Navy. They don't plan on letting any of the craft that can launch this thing get close enough to get off a shot I imagine.
Here's what a spoksman for the U.S. 5th fleet had to say about it.
| Quote: | Commander Jeff Breslau, spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said no special measures were taken in reaction to the Iranian war games, even after the latest missile test.
He would not comment on whether the new torpedo represents a threat to American forces in the region.
''In general terms, no matter where we operate in the world, we're aware of other capabilities that exist and of other countries that aren't as friendly to the US, and we pay attention to those capabilities," he said. |
Source:
Dusty[/code]
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rparrott21
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 760
Location: Mckinney, Texas
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:42 am Post subject: |
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| I say it is mine is bigger that yours and are hoping to US will stand down.. |
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Snipe
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 03 Jun 2004
Posts: 574
Location: Peoria, Illinois
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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I wouldn't think that this torpedo is much of a danger to our naval
ships, however, something like a supertanker might be a sitting duck.
That would put a damper on the oil shipments out of the gulf. After
all, the whole point of this stuff is to cause as much confusion as is
possible. I think that Iran is biting off more than it can swallow.
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AMOS
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 558
Location: IOWA
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| Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:37 pm Post subject: Confidence. |
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| Huffing and puffing. If the dummies had confidence in their military systems they wouldn't have to show off. Remember the big, bad Republican Guard? Oh, buddy. |
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baldeagle
PO2
Joined: 27 Oct 2004
Posts: 362
Location: Grand Saline, Texas
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 3:07 am Post subject: |
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From what I have been able to gather on this torpedo, it is something the Russians developed a decade ago, short range and highly inaccurate.
It emits high pressure air from the nose and basically travels in a bubble of air to get around the hydraulic limitations of traveling through the water, but, in spite of being "so-called" homing, it is not very manueverable due to losing its "bubble" when it tries to turn.
Impressive to watch filmed tests, but, apparently the U.S. Navy is not very impressed with its effectiveness.
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"In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." --George Washington |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:22 am Post subject: |
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This torpedo is nothing against one of our aegis class cruisers. The days of playing politically correct and allowing people to bomb our boats ie the USS Cole are over. I hope at least.
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"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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GenrXr said:
| Quote: | | This torpedo is nothing against one of our aegis class cruisers. The days of playing politically correct and allowing people to bomb our boats ie the USS Cole are over. I hope at least. |
I hope you all are right not to worry about this. You guys are far more knowledgeable about weaponry than I am. But when I read this article this morning, I think its pretty scary!
| Quote: | Supercavitatingtorpsaretotallyhellacious
By Jed Babbin
Published 4/10/2002 12:04:00 AM
No, I haven’t gotten drunk while watching Mary Poppins. But I have been reading up on a technology that will revolutionize naval warfare to a degree unseen in our lifetimes. It’s called "supercavitation."
Navies move slowly, and changes in naval warfare don’t come quickly, either. The Egyptians and Romans rowed even after the Phoenicians set sail. Thousands of years later, steam gradually replaced sail when the navies grudgingly admitted that it enabled ships to move against the wind. Revolutions came more rapidly after that. Steel replaced wood one day in Hampton Roads when Monitor and Merrimac dueled. At Pearl Harbor, and again at Midway, aircraft carriers proved the decisive weapon. In the Cold War, nuclear missile submarines -- slow, quiet and powerful -- were a cornerstone of deterrence. Today deterrence is a thing of the past. And progress hasn’t stopped.
Since the Gipper left office, our navy has atrophied by half, to about 300 ships. Our shipbuilding program is so small that we will not even be able to maintain that level for long. Ever since the Evil Empire went broke, we’ve heard that the Russians were so hard-up they couldn’t even sortie their ships for training. But as broke as they were, they managed to scrape together a few billion rubles and launch a half-dozen new classes of ships. The Russians went ahead with faster naval weapons -- ships, torpedoes, and aircraft. Somebody never told them that the Cold War arms race is over, so they just keep running. And they have hit a jackpot in supercavitation.
Cavitation -- for those who don’t remember The Hunt for Red October -- is the sound created by the air bubbles that form around a propeller spinning underwater. It’s the submarine equivalent of a radar signature, and just as stealthy aircraft are designed to reduce their radar return, submarines are designed to be quiet. Sound is detectable, and when you’re the one making the noise, the enemy can find you. If you’re quieter than the other guy, you are the hunter rather than the hunted.
America spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing propellers that would create less cavitation. Then the Walker family spy ring gave most of our top-secret information about anti-cavitation technology to the Russians, which pretty well eliminated our advantage. The Russians are still working hard to make their new submarines even faster and quieter. The technical problems are enormous because going fast under water is a real drag, or at least is up against one.
Water is about 1,000 times denser than air, and an object moving through it has to work that much harder to move the same distance at the same speed. Submarines, on a good day, can hit perhaps forty miles per hour. Standard Russian torpedoes can do as much as sixty, and can catch everything we have. Our torpedoes are slower, simply because we haven’t chosen to spend the money to develop something faster, far less something like a supercavitating weapon. But the Russians now have the advantage of a torpedo that can travel almost five times faster than ours. It’s the world’s first supercavitating weapon. It will take us years to catch up.
Supercavitation is what happens when something underwater reaches the speed of about 100 miles per hour. At that speed, water can’t move out of the way fast enough, and it literally comes apart into gas molecules. Think of it as the underwater equivalent of breaking the sound barrier. At about 100 miles an hour, a bubble of air forms around the speeding object. This barrier of air is a "supercavity" and the phenomenon creating it is called "supercavitation."
The Russians have taken supercavitation out of the lab and put it to sea in the rocket-powered torpedo they call "Shkval" (squall). It’s huge -- about 27 feet long -- and has a range of over four miles. The Shkval reportedly can reach speeds of more than 250 miles an hour. It goes so fast that it doesn’t need its warhead to destroy most targets. The equation is now much simpler for any new fast Russian sub fitted to launch the Shkval. If an American sub shoots a torpedo at you, you fire a Shkval right back at him. And then you can outmaneuver -- or even outrun -- the relatively slow American torpedo. If you can get within range of an American aircraft carrier, you can be sure of a kill, because there’s no way the big ship is going to dodge so fast a torpedo, and it has no other defense. We won’t have subs protecting other ships with our own supercavitating torpedoes for the simple reason that we don’t have any.
In August 2000 the Kursk -- a new Russian nuclear submarine -- sank after two explosions on board. Underwater cameras showed that the Kursk was missing most of its bow. In all probability, the Kursk was sunk testing the Shkval. The first explosion was most likely an accidental ignition of the Shkval’s rocket motor. The second one could have been the rocket bursting the torpedo tube and the hull, or detonation of the warhead, either one powerful enough to blow the bow off the Kursk.
Russia is selling Shkval torpedoes to other nice folks such as the Chicoms, who are buying them as an offset to our naval protection of Taiwan. If Chinese submarines or aircraft can launch supercavitating torpedoes at our ships, our choices are defeat or retreat.
We will soon reach a crisis in our diminishing naval strength. Our fleet is stretched thin fighting the war on terror, and meeting our other commitments at the same time. The shipbuilding budget won’t even maintain what we have now, far less rebuild the fleet. Dubya, Dick and Don need to stop kidding themselves -- and us -- about the need to invest more in defense. The navy needs strength and speed, and we need to redo the budget to give both to them before a couple of dozen Shkvals give us a high-speed Pearl Harbor.
Jed Babbin was a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense in the first Bush administration and now appears occasionally as a talking warhead on the Fox News Channel.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=4001[ |
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“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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LimaCharlie
PO2
Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 386
Location: Oregon
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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Just as a member of Congress has the first and only priority of getting reelected, a talking head’s first and only priority is getting more airtime. Creating fear or controversy is how they get more airtime. Would anyone ever watch again if they just said don’t worry about Iran’s military might, they are just blowing smoke.
Just as in Iraq, the war would last a few days. Settting up a safe and stable democracy would take generations.
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Anker-Klanker
Admiral
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1033
Location: Richardson, TX
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Supercavitation is what happens when something underwater reaches the speed of about 100 miles per hour. At that speed, water can’t move out of the way fast enough, and it literally comes apart into gas molecules. |
I'm no expert on supercavitation (as desribed above), but I am a physicist by training. And my first thought is that it would be H*** to get an acoustic homing signal across that air/gas - water interface with which to steer such a torpedo. Thus, it would seem to me that such a weapon may be fast (as torpedoes go), but would essentially be no more than an unguided underwater missle.
Or said another way: the USS Iowa can deliver as big, if not significantly bigger, explosive payload much faster, and much more accurately, through one of her 16" guns. -- to put such a weapon in context...
A surface-to-surface guided missle makes an even more effective weapon.
I'm not impressed. I tend to think that these announcements are aimed more at local persons who might be doubting Iran's belligerent rantings of late. |
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I B Squidly
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 879
Location: Cactus Patch
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | has a range of over four miles. |
Now, if the Iranis can get one of their 4 50s era Kilo subs or 5 60s era frigates that close to a US target...
It's the end of the world!
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Anker-Klanker
Admiral
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1033
Location: Richardson, TX
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| Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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| This whole subject does make one wonder what is going on, i.e., what the message really is, and to whom it is addressed. If the purpose of Iran's naval exercises and propoganda is to show how they might be able to disrupt commercial shipping, then all one has to do is to look at a map of the Straits of Hormuz to see that they can play a whole lot more havoc with weapons based on and launched from their own shoreline. That is, until that shoreline has been "sanitized" of all such threat. And such an act of "sanitization" would also remove all threat of seaborne torpedo launchers. |
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