Sonic Torpedo Defense 567
dylanduck writes "How do you defend a ship against torpedoes? According to the US Navy, you line the hull with loudspeakers and blast the incoming missile with such a devastating blast of sounds that it explodes." When asked about the possible ecological effects on marine life the military had no comment.
It works because.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It works because.... (Score:2)
Re:It works because.... (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe you'd have to pay an extra volume-license fee?
Re:It works because.... (Score:4, Informative)
There are already some torpedoes that can be used as anti-torpedo torpedos, plus they are working on new ones... just google for anti-torpedo torpedo. In any case, something like that may have less relevance with the advent of new supercavitating [wikipedia.org] torpedoes [popsci.com]. They currently exist and have speeds in excess of 200 miles/hour (about 300 kph). Right now, they are only good for straight line running, but the U.S. (and others I'll warrant) are researching how to get them to turn at high speed.
Once one of these is fired at you from 5 miles away, you probably wouldn't have time to launch an anti-torpedo torpedo and have it intercept. That's probably why they want something like this.
Re:It works because.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It works because.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It works because.... (Score:2)
Do the speakers need to be outside the hull? Doesn't the metal hull conduct sound well enough that the speakers can be inside the hull of the vessel - and wouldn't keeping them in a protected environment mitigate some of the worries about corrosion and barnacles?
Re:It works because.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't the U.S. Navy paint all its' hulls with a really nasty paint to kill off/prevent encrustation? If my faded memory serves it was a cost saver - smooth hulls require less power to go the same speed...
Not just for the navy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently some of the Cajuns down south use cayenne pepper, and they claim it works the best, but hey, to a cajun, cayenne pepper's good for damn near anything.
The navy these days has actually been using some pretty wierd coatings for ships, although mainly subs, in order to reduce friction.
Re:Not just for the navy... (Score:3, Interesting)
TBT has largely been replaced by copper-based compounds which are now suspected of being almost as toxic, so future hull coatings are likely to be silicone based and contain no biocide - the hull will be too slippery for the little critters to get a grip.
Re:It works because.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Submarines are a fact and will be for quite some time, keeping them intact is a good thing.
Re:It works because.... (Score:2)
marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
We care... why? My guess is that a large sonic blast is going to be a lot less harmful than a torpedo detonating. But that's just me.
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Interesting)
But, its once again a trade off.. Man or Animal.
War isnt always fair.
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, but when you do get both, what you don't get is a giant ship sinking, spilling fuel oil or nuclear waste, weapons (er, and potentially thousands of lives) into the ocean. An economical, strategic, tactical, and ecological bargain.
Re:marine life? (Score:2)
What if every
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
For every time that particular countermeasure is used in combat, it will have been used thousands upon thousands of times in open water testing and war gaming. That really could have an adverse effect on wild life.
It would be very irresponsible to develop this weapon without clear data on what effect it has on wildlife.
Not even close... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's silly. What if we have data that says that our potential weapon obliterates wildlife? Should we toss the idea and move on? Let's look at what we have now: Nuclear weapons obliterate wildlife. Fair enough, nuclear weapons are grossly indiscriminate; toss 'em. Conventional explosives obliterate wildlife. Ok, toss those too. Artillery isn't very green, either. In fact, machine guns aren't particularly enviro-friendly. Get rid of 'em. And let's just forget about a whole platoon of soldiers tramping through the forest, crushing wildlife, shooting guns, and throwing grenades.
I guess we don't have many options left, do we?
I'm most certainly not a big supporter of war. It's fair to say that I am probably a bit of a peace-nik, and rather left-leaning. I'd say I'm rather environmentally-conscious, too; I hang my clothes to dry, my house is full of compact fluorescents, I try to avoid meat and eat a diet that consists primarily of organically-grown vegetables, fruits, and legumes, etc, etc, etc.
But war is a tradeoff. We survive. We harm the environment.
Don't get me wrong. Environmental damage is regrettable, and hopefully avoidable. But despite the fact that our politicians love to cry wolf, I do believe that malice really exists in the world. Sure, we haven't waged a legitimate (aka, just) war in 50 years. But we need to make sure we're prepared for that. If there's one thing that humans are good it, it's killing each other.
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let us reiterate.
On one side we have "Oh no, what about the whales?! It's bad enough the military(hereafter to be referred to a baby-killers) exists in the first place, but now you are harming natures own creatures! There must be some way to make the death of every dolphin and whale the fault of Bush, his cronies, and all his baby-killers."
And on the side where the common sense resides we have this; "Hmm, while it may be harmful to aquatic life, there is no way it is more harmful than sin
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a former ICBM launch officer. I've participated in numerous exercises and tests. Did I ever actually launch an ICBM? No. Have we ever actually launched active nuclear ICBMs? No. Does that mean they aren't tested or are unreliable? No.
War games, tests and simulations are just that, simulations. Equipment is tested without actually using it in an offensive manner. Critical environment equipment, military or civilian, is not tested "thousands upon thousands" of times in an active situation to prove it works.
Were "thousands upon thousands" of artificial hears and pacemakers "tested" inside people to see if they would function properly? Nope.
In my 3 years as a launch officer I never launched an actual missile but I sure ran a lot of test and simulations, multiple times per month. So did every other launch officer I knew, probably 150 people over that period. None of the solid-fuel ICBMs have been launched other than those from Vandenberg AFB in California which is a test facility. None of the nuclear warheads in use have been detonated "thousands upon thousands of times." Not a one, not once. Nor, for that matter, have nuce torpedos, backpacks, artillery shells, missiles or bombs.
If you're going to FUD, at least make it plausible.
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Given that there's thousands of men and women on this planet for every whale and no shortage of replacements, who knows?
b) If the people of this world really thought that each man and woman is so damned important, they wouldn't routinely put them in situations where they're ordered to try slaughter each other. Duh. Throughout human history, those men and women's lives have never been as important as the egos and hubris of their leaders, which is to say, not very important at all.
Re:marine life? (Score:4, Insightful)
settle down there sparky, so let me get this straight, when given the option to:
A) Use technology to save the lives of men on ships, along with dumping tons of oil that'll kill marine life for years to come from the ship and the BILLIONS of dollars it costs to replace the ship.
to...
B) MAYBE saving whales, with no absolute proof these shockwaves are going to travel hundreds of whatever to injure the whales, not to mention they'll be running along either side of the hull below the waterline , not at the very bottom of the ship mind you, just right below the waterline where torpedos travel, and most whales dont hang out on the surface too often.
you'd chose option A, killing all the men, spilling all the oil and blowing the billions of dollars to save the whales that MIGHT be killed?
you are short-sighted (Score:3, Interesting)
Next time I'm on a submarine under fire though, I won't be wishing a torpedo away based on some ideals of pacifism.
I will satisfy your request by calling you short-sighted. Humans on submarines are an expensive luxury. Humans have sailed these subsurface warships for over a hundred years, but it is unlikely they will sail them for a hundred more. I think we all hope that whales will be around for at least the next hundred and more years. Technology that threatens their existence while preserving somethi
Re:you are short-sighted (Score:3, Interesting)
I understand your position here. I am countering it by saying that we won't need humans in t
RPGs (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right. I air-to-surface torpedos are kind of over these days. It's all about air to surface missles now.
My big complaint on this is it's an example of the military's tendency to spend where there isn't a real-world problem. This problem climbs all the way up into the executive branch. In his first term, George W. Bush decided to pull the US out of the ABM treaty. This was because our government wanted the freedom to develop technology to destroy ICBMs. Even after Sept. 11th, the US government wasn't
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Insightful)
You might want to read that Bible some day, instead of just toting it. You may be a religious nut, but you are definitely not a Christian, since Jesus Christ was exactly the kind of wuss who advocated absolute pacifism. You know, "love your enemy", "turn the other cheek", "do not meet evil with evil" and "thou shalt NOT kill". No if, whe
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Informative)
If the hot material from a reactor somehow escapes the sub and falls to the ocean floor, the worst that can happen is you get a tiny area of radioactive sea bed. You won't get enough fish swimming close enough to carry off much radiation. And thanks to the slow activity of plate tectonics,
Re:Nuclear vs. gas (Score:3, Informative)
Re:marine life? (Score:5, Informative)
Currently the only modern US navy ships with reactors are the Carriers and the Subs. The last of the non-carrier surface ships to have a reactor was a destroyer or cruiser (whichever is larger) and either has been or is being decomisioned. However, carriers still cary fuel for other ships in the carrier group. As for the warheads, they probably will withstand the torpedo blast, assuming it is not too close to them. They can generally withstand a good impact, such as has been demonstrated when a few have hit the ground/water due to mid air accidents.
The big question is whether the reactors (yes, plural) could take the hit. Although, in modern warfare the goal is generally not to hit the ship with the torpedo directly, but to explode it underneath the keel. This causes a vacuum/air bubble underneath the keel causing it to break and cracking the ship in two. The ship sinks quicker this way and with fewer "hits".
Mind you, I'm a bit biased in this due to the number of military personel I know. I'm all for this defense system if it helps keep ships from being hit.
[OT] Nuclear powered surface ships (Score:5, Insightful)
I was about to post that there were only two nuclear powered non-carrier surface ships in the Navy (the two my father helped build), but my favorite source [fas.org] indicates there were nine nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers (CGN's), the last of which were decommissioned in 1998.
IIRC, the US built one proof-of-concept nuclear-powered merchant ship (the Savannah) in the 60's, and the Soviet Union built at least one nuclear-powered ice-breaker.
Slashdot: a convenient dumping ground for the trivia that clutters our minds...
P.S. I have to add that pausing to contemplate environmentally safe warfare is laughable; this is a classic case of wanting to treat the symptom instead of the disease.
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Large torpedoes... say, the Mk-48 variety as opposed to Mk-46, are not really designed to explode on a target. They explode near the target, displacing a lot of water. The ship then gets drawn into the void, possibly breaking in half in the process. So there's not really an issue of the reactor withstanding a large torpedo explosion: it won't.
2) The radiation is more or less irrelevant. Even if the rods were not dropped and the reactor was not stopped, deep ocean is about the best p
Re:marine life? (Score:2)
Re:marine life? (Score:2)
Kidney stones and sound waves.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kidney stones and sound waves.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let the libs absorb the torpedos! (Score:2, Funny)
Never mind that the torpedo exploding would make a lot of noi
Re:marine life? (Score:3, Insightful)
The possibility of Marine effect is quite real. Past Navy experiments [defenders.org] have had serious deleterious effects on marine life.
As to why, because whales, dolphins et al. are intelligent, endangered creatures. It doesn't mean you give up everything (or even that you give up this technology) to protect them, but it sure as hell means you consider the ramifications and at least look for alternative methods that don't kill some of the most advanced creatures on this planet.
Consider the consequences... (Score:5, Funny)
Hold on... (Score:2)
...ONLY the oceanic ecosystem?
"Oops, I Did It Again" could hurt the ears of foreign spies for months!
Good call, America!
Torpedo explodes due to sound? (Score:2, Funny)
as if ... (Score:3, Funny)
what do they play? (Score:2)
I'll comment (Score:5, Funny)
Bonus if you get some giant squid.
Re:I'll comment (Score:5, Insightful)
the principle behind this tech is the same as most when it comes to military planning: It's better to have it and not need it, than it is to need it and not have it.
Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who cares? Fish vs. people, and not in an abstract, "this could hurt the environment long term, for mere economic benefit" way. Either a few fish will die, or a ship full of hundreds or thousands of sailors could be damaged or destroyed.
And then theres the ecological damage from a sunken ship (petrol fuel, nuclear reactors possibly) that would also harm the environment long term, plus the explosion itself will be pre
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading TFA, the concern is not over the effects of sonic blast vs. sinking ship.
The concern is the effect of open-water testing of the sonic blast against simulated or dummy threats in the ocean.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Funny)
Wide-Area effects, not just local (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, as you say, the Navy would rather avoid having lots of sailors killed also, and sunken ships are a toxic mess, but the amount of sound it takes to trash a torpedo is a lot more than the amount you get from the torpedo's explosion.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Just a hunch, but I'd imagine that if your ship has a torpedo coming for it, your location is no longer entirely secret.
And in response to countless posts that assume this is on a submarine, I saw no evidence in the article that this is actually for a submarine. I'd picture this more on a larger battleship or carrier.
To the environmetalists: I'm sure that the pressure wave of the torpedo detonating and then brin
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
I suppose this [wikipedia.org] is a starship then?
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)
Wires (Score:5, Funny)
Prediction (Score:2, Funny)
1. "Won't someone please think of the Whales!!??"
2. "I bet they'll be playing *insert flavour of the month popstar here* LOLS!!"
3. "REPOST!!!" (Regardless of whether this is a repost or not).
Ecowhat? (Score:2)
Uh, yeah. Good point. Because a sinking ship (full of people no less) has no environmental impact. If you don't care about the dead people, at least the diesel fuel? That works for you?
Re:Ecowhat? (Score:2)
The USS Arizona sitting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor is still leaking diesel to this day. One of these days the rust is going to get to the metal enough to release a couple thousand (tens of thousands?) gallons all at once. Should be a study in what can happen when a ship does get hit with a torpedo.
Re:Ecowhat? (Score:2)
Loud noises (Score:2, Funny)
Cus there's no way that a torpedo exploding against the side of an Aegis cruiser might be a tad on the loud side too.
A better way? (Score:2, Funny)
No Comment = (Score:3, Funny)
Active defenses (Score:2)
It may help to think about it this way: Automobile air bags cost a lot of money to install and repack
Works for squirrels, too. (Score:2)
Marine Life (Score:3, Funny)
I think the whole point is to protect the lives of the marines on the ships.
Dolphins (Score:2, Funny)
Sonar systems? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sonarman (Score:3, Interesting)
To say nothing of the sonarman's eardrums.
USS Cole (Score:2)
Not for submarines (Score:2, Informative)
Also, the impact of high energy sound waves is significantly greater than most people here seem to think. They carry for miles underwater, and can cause severe problems in all manner of marine life. It's something to consider.
Six of one (Score:2, Redundant)
As much as I dislike the military's utter disdain for animal^H^H^H^H^H^H life, I have to admit that the ecological effects of the torpedo hitting the hull and sinking the (nuclear) submarine are probably at least as bad.
Counter measures (Score:2)
And this covers all the variations, ear muffs, fingers in ears, scarfs, saying "na na na na na na", etc.
So how much does this system cost per ship vs. some simple counter measure? Really think this will see wide spread deployment?
Torpedos? (Score:2)
Though, as mentioned already on this page, torpedos and subs aren't our #1 threat - it's the single suicidal pe
So this is what they were testing... (Score:2)
How long (Score:2)
when asked about possible ecological effects, (Score:2)
Would hate to be a sonar operator (Score:2)
Re:Would hate to be a sonar operator (Score:2)
Tranducers (Score:2)
On the other hand (Score:5, Insightful)
I love animals, I'm all for ecology and protecting wildlife, etc etc. I own a big chunk of land, and I don't cut a bush or move a bolder without thinking about what it might do to the animals...and 99 percent of the time, I let the animals win. But when the choices are limited to 'humans live but animals die' and 'humans die but animals live', I'll take choice number one every time, and with no regrets what so ever.
My cousin is in the navy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My cousin is in the navy (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
As a former naval submarine lieutenant, this is pretty interesting... Indeed, our modern torpedoes (ADCAPs) travel at high speed, track on both passive and active acoustics, and rely on active ranging to detonate at an ideal distance under the ship. That's right, under -- torpedoes do the most damage by detonating a small distance (on the order of a couple dozen feet) below the center of a hull. The void formed from the detonation causes the target's hull to buckle/crack/shatter inward due to its own weight. A single ADCAP can in theory sink an entire carrier, but sub captains typically shoot two b/c the carrier is typically the primary objective. The kind of acoustics described in the article would be tough for even an ADCAP to work around, not to mention it takes our contractors many years to turn around software upgrades to the weapons that would filtering to increases its chances. Then again, good this is a DARPA project, meaning it'd take 5+ years to see any deployment in the fleet anyway.
The most cost effective anti-torpedo weapon a surface ship can have is the nixie. It's a towed (inflated, I believe) thing that trails the ship with ship-signature acoustics running on it, sucking up any torps on the ship's trail. Given their low lost, low maintenance, and (extremely!) high effectiveness they're the best deal in town.
My father was a submariner. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is brilliant. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is brilliant. (Score:5, Insightful)
When asked a second time... (Score:3, Funny)
When asked the question a second time the military man looked up and said loudly "what, did you say something?"
Environmental Impact? Please... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, right. Because we would *hate* to have a loud noise in the ocean instead of thousands of gallons of fuel oil or a ruptured nuclear reactor from a sunk ship.
Brought to you by the same retards who nixed nuclear power for environmental reasons, forcing the country to depend on burning coal.
Re:Environmental Impact? Please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Answer these questions:
When was the last time a US ship was hit with a torpedo? Vietnam maybe? Korea?
How often would this system be tested on various vessels, during war games and such? (Answer, a lot. The navy doesn't usually have a lot of work to do, so they practice. A lot.)
What's the impact on marine mammals, and over what range? (they have a long history of being injured by loud noises, sensitive auditory systems and all)
Ok, so if you make half or 2/
the military had no comment (Score:3, Insightful)
It's meant to counter supercavitation torpedoes. (Score:5, Interesting)
In the 1990s, the Russians developed the prototype for what would later be termed the Shkval or Squall supercavitation torpedo. Knowing the Russians, the Chinese probably have them too.
Cavitation [wikipedia.org] is a phenomena where a body moving through the water pushes the water out of the way so fast that it creates bubbles around the object (fast = lower pressure = water vaporization = bubbles). You may have heard of propellers cavitating - that's where small bubbles of water vapor form then burst on the low pressure side of a prop blade, causing lots of noise and even damage to the blade when they implode.
Supercavitation [wikipedia.org], on the other hand, is an intentional phenomena where a blunt-nosed object is shot through the water, creating low pressure vortices on the sides. Air or exhaust gases are injected into these vortices, creating a static "bubble" around the object that drastically reduces friction - perhaps up to an order of magnitude. You have to fire these things at about 50mph or greater to start the supercav effect going, effectively "handing off" the bubble to the torpedo, which then sustains it.
The numbers on these torpedoes are incredible [ucg.com]: we're talking about a 300mph torp carrying a 460lb warhead with a range in excess of 7000 yards. That's the tame version - others carry nukes. In other words, carrier-killers.
Supercavitation torpedoes, as you can imagine, are incredibly noisy and easy to detect - you just can't get away from them because they're so fast. This sonic projector essentially sends a high-energy single pulse through the water directed at an incoming torpedo. That pulse probably wouldn't be able to crack a torpedo - you'd probably need on the order of 250-500PSIG overpressure to do that, (scuba tanks contain 2000PSIG regularly). You wouldn't be able to detonate the high explosive, because you need a wavefront speed above the detonation velocity, which for C4 is about 7000m/s (much slower than the speed of sound in water, 1482m/s).
I don't have the time right now to spin the equations, so I could be wrong.
However, you would be able to disrupt and dissipate that bubble around an incoming supercavitation weapon with a high-energy sonic pulse. Break that bubble, and the torp stops dead in the water because it can't reform the bubble around itself. If it mistakes that sudden stop for a ship hull - boom.
Re:It's meant to counter supercavitation torpedoes (Score:3, Informative)
Also, I thought that particular weapon wasn't suited to non-nuclear use because it can't steer well inside it's bubble and it's so noisy it can't home on a target. Ah, I see from this [ucg.com] article initial versions were unguided, current versions have an autopilot, and future versions will slo
Marine Life: Not as bad as sonar (Score:3, Informative)
When asked about the possible ecological effects on marine life the military had no comment.
They got asked this because of the concern with low frequency sonar. But the comparison is probably not all that relevant. Low frequency goes for ever, hence the humpback whale's use of it for communication. So a low frequency sonar can hurt a whale that's quite some way away.
The anti-torpedo weapon, on the other hand, uses shock waves. Shock waves are mostly made of high frequency components which die out quickly. So probably only those whales in the immediate vicinity are in trouble. Just do all the testing in a "desert" part of the ocean, where there's no life.
1983 (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Against Who's Torpedoes? (Score:2)
Re:Heh. Heheh. (Score:2)
Re:Easy counter measures, not worth killing whales (Score:5, Insightful)
> missile and the light bounces off without damaging it.
Utterly ineffective. At intensities high enough to be useful the electric field of the laser pulse rips electrons out of the surface of the target. This creates a plasma which absorbs more energy from the pulse, explodes, and blows a piece out of the surface. It makes no difference at all what material the target is made of or how it is polished. This effect has been experimentally verified.
It's also how LASIX works.
> You can probably render the sound blast torpedo killer worthless
> just by skinning the torpedos in cheap appropriately sound
> absorbing material. Perhaps a derivative of foam or rubber.
Failed freshman physics, did you?