Air-Sea Missile/Torpedo

Just read Jacks post and agree with pretty much everything he said.

Would add that these are basically anti sub weapons simply because modern ships are not heavily armoured like the ships of WWII. Many modern Anti Ship missiles reduce the HE in their warheads and replace it with incendiary material. The old saying of “it is better to let water in the bottom of a ship (with a torpedo) than to let air in the top (with an anti ship missile)”. However the reality is that anti ship missiles let in fire, which can be just as devastating as letting in water.

Apart from the obvious Sea Lance, Ikara, ASROC, SS-N-14/16, Medvedka…

They are all missiles that carry a torpedo, but are generally anti sub weapons. The exception is the SS-N-14 which has a HE warhead for Anti Ship use, though when used against ships the torpedo is not released and its warhead adds to the effect of the anti ship warhead.
They are becoming obsolete due to the difficulty in detecting and tracking modern subs at a range to warrant firing them on a rocket to get them to the target area. Sea Lance was cancelled because of improvements in Soviet/Russian submarine silencing techniques making detecting and tracking the target at ranges long enough to warrant using such a long range weapon. So the US navy continues to use ASROC and SUBROC.

Hiye,

I’ve asked this before I think,

anyway, out of interest, has their been any sort of R&D / Studies on say a missile that cruises above water and then goes under-water to hit the sea target.

It’s certainly a difficult thing to make and a high kill ratio cannot be guaranteed…

Just wanted to know…

Thank You.

Dear Member,

Yes. Various nations have developed anti-submarine weapons where a winged vehicle takes a torpedo near the submarine and parachutes a torpedo into the water to attack the submarine. The French with the Malafon (being replaced by the MILAS which is an OTOMAT antishipping missile fitted with a anti-submarine torpedo). Australia though developed the best wing ASW system called the Ikara which was adopted by not only Australia but also the UK and Brazil.

The Russians went a step further and designed ASW wing vehicle that has not only a primary anti-submarine role but a secondary anti-shipping role (ie this being because the torpedo carried is much larger than those carried by NATO wing ASW or even the rocket ASW weapons). The first was the SS-N-14 SILEX which armed the KRIVAK class and had everyone concerned. That has been replaced by the SS-N-16 Stallion which is extremely capable carrying a huge 21 inch torpedo that can use wake homing and has a range of 54 nm. When ever a warship is attacked by both a standard ASM (Exocet, Harpoon, OTOMAT) and an ASM that uses a torpedo the problems for the warship being attacked is serious. Like in WW2 when both dive-bombers and torpedo planes attacked at the same time.

Jack E. Hammond

NOTE. While the physics of it is hard to explain, the larger the diameter of a naval torpedo using rear propellers the higher its speed can be. Makes no sense but every naval weapons engineer will tell you the same thing. That is why the Russians opt for larger ASW torpedoes — ie not because they carry larger warheads, but because their great speeds drastically reduce the engagement time.

Does ASROC and other similar systems count ? 🙂