Sure, we all know about the soft-kill AN/SLQ-25A Nixie decoy/countermeasure, but what sort of hard kill measures does the US deploy? It seems that the Russians are the only ones? to have any sort of layered hard-kill torpedo defense in place on their ships.
A hard kill anti-torpedo torpedo was tested in 1992, and the Navy is developing a new AN/WSQ-11 Torpedo Defense System (TDS), which in part has its own anti-torpedo torpedo (ATT). It’s believed to be a 6.75″ diameter torpedo (about 1/2 the diameter of a Mk 46), in its own ‘All up Round’ canister for shipboard installation, powered by a Lithium boiler, retractable fins, advanced propulsors, and the ability to communicate with other ATTs.
Like I said, info is, for obvious reasons, sketchy. Can anyone paint a clearer picture?
By: Jonesy - 24th August 2004 at 15:17
Yep thats it Garry, it did come out of the US equivalent to our Sonar 2087 LFA program.
Love the way that the treehuggers whinge about it utterly ignorant of the effects on marine mammals that we had in the Falklands, precisely because we didnt have such a system to track discrete SSK’s, and had to drop ordnance on ‘suspected’ contacts lest one of them turned around and fired torpedoes at us. LFA may not be so great for a whale’s navigation and communication faculties, but, its nowhere near as bad as the effects a pair of Mk11 depth charges has on ’em!.
By: Arabella-Cox - 24th August 2004 at 09:38
A pulse of that magnitude is expected to be able to disrupt mines and would, obviously, knock an inbound fish back bloody hard!.
Sounds like that new active sonar whale killing technology the Brits are developing to p!ss off greenpeace… or is this in addition to that little gem?
By: Jonesy - 20th August 2004 at 14:44
Not heard much about an encapsulated anti-torpedo torpedo, sounds a bit bizarre to me. The Russian UDAV system utilising rapid-deployment barrier minefields and offboard seduction decoys sounds infinitely more efficient, simple and sensible to me.
An interesting project, with applications for littoral anti-torpedo work, being examined in the US is DARPA’s Water Hammer program. This is an evolution of the work done on LFAS (Low Frequency Active Sonar) in the US and can, probaby, trace its lineage all the way back to the old Julie/Jezebel explosive sounding charge ASW system from the S-2’s.
It uses an explosive mixture to generate an low-frequency sound pulse in a sequence of shock-tubes. These tubes focus, amplify and direct the accoustic pulse into the water over a narrow bearing and, effectively, create a high-pressure (circa 2000psi) directional shock pulse. A pulse of that magnitude is expected to be able to disrupt mines and would, obviously, knock an inbound fish back bloody hard!.
By: wd1 - 20th August 2004 at 13:49
great article dude! has anyone read michael dimercurio’s books about future submarine warfare? among other innovations he wrote about rocket-powered superfast underwater missiles that had supplanted torpedoes. i’d thought it was BS, but now this!
By: google - 19th August 2004 at 21:08
I read that the US is also developing their own version of the Shkval.
By: SteveO - 19th August 2004 at 20:58
Take a look at this Scientific American article.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CA29B-0EA6-1C70-84A9809EC588EF21&pageNumber=1&catID=2
By: google - 19th August 2004 at 13:20
super-cavitating rounds? that sounds like sci-fi!
By: SteveO - 18th August 2004 at 20:45
wd1
I’ve read about “supercavitating” rounds too. As well as a anti-torpedo role, they are considering it for mine warfare.
A helicopter would detect mines with a laser system (called Magic Lantern?) and then destroy them with “supercavitating” rounds.
By: wd1 - 17th August 2004 at 13:59
i remember reading something about using a rapid-firing gun, perhaps a modified Phalanx CIWS, firing “supercavitating” rounds that could penetrate water to quite a significant depth while keepting enough velocity to kill a torpedo. nothing concrete that i can recall though…
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August 16, 2004 at 10:48 pm