Now thats a torpedo!

[MigBuster 2,884]

Enjoy

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7523147.stm

[Rambler 1-1 9]

wow! The ship almost buckled in the middle! What kinda warhead did that thing have?

[+SkippyBing 8]

It'll be a load of conventional explosive, probably Torpex. As I remember it's caused by creating a big bubble beneath the ship, then for reasons I don't really understand it contracts onto the hull and then re-expands, the absence of water beneath the centre of the hull causes it to buckle and snap in two.

Sub launched torpedoes are normally 21" in diameter so you can get a lot of explosive in there, as opposed to air dropped ones which are generally a lot smaller and use shaped charges to make holes in stuff.

[JediMaster 451]

I think the ship/sub launched kind have 1000lb or kg (I forget which) warheads.

[Syrinx 13]

Crikey.

 

Had that have been for real I think we'd have seen a complete crew loss on the ship. It went down so fast.

[+pcpilot 181]

Damn...another Spruance goes down...hope it wasnt the David Ray...

[rovert97 1]

most german torpedos in ww2 had about 650 lbs of explosive. id assume this one has a hell of a lot more. it about broke the ship in two. and it was a perfectly aimed shot, right at the middle.

[+streakeagle 867]

The Mk48 should still use a 650lb warhead.

It is the precise location of the detonation that makes it so effective:

Create a pocket of no water (vacuum? or gas?) under the hull and allow the weight of the ship to break itself in two.

[+drdoyo 2]

Streakeagle is correct. The Germans developed the technique in WWII. They discovered more damage can be caused by detonating a torpedo just under a ships keel, thereby breaking its (reinforced spine structure) and most likely causing a cascading structural failure of the weaker remaining structures. It proved to be a very effective tactic reducing the number of shots required to make the kill, as well as reducing the vulnerability of the attacker considering the vastly increasing danger to German U-Boat crews from 1943 to the end of the war.

[+Tailspin 3]

The damage is actually due to the very low compressibility factor of water. It transfers nearly all of the explosive force of the warhead to the ship's hull, breaking the keel.

[Gr.Viper 131]

And let's not forget that armour plating doesn't go all whe way down to the keel - it ends some meters below the waterline. The belly is less protected.

[+Typhoid 231]

yup.

 

MK-48 with a 650lb torpex warhead, detonated beneath the keel of the unarmored Spruance to create a bubble which breaks the back of the ship.

 

The video skipped so it looks like the ship went down much faster than it probably did.

 

I did hear that it was the old David Ray, don't know for sure.

 

 

they did the same thing to one of my old ships too.....

 

Edited July 25, 2008 by Typhoid

[+SkippyBing 8]

I don't think armour plating of the keel would make much of a difference, actually some plans I have of a WW2 carrier indicate it had plating down to the keel so it was certainly an option then, the problem is it's not in the correct plane to resist the buckling of the keel. There are videos (probably on the net somewhere) demonstrating the effect of underwater explosions and the way they move around.

The USSR did develop nuclear torpedoes to create a big enough explosion to break the back of a Nimitz class carrier, however for anything smaller than that you'd probably only need two conventional heavyweight.

At Dartmouth they taught us something along the lines of 'Missiles will hurt you, torpedoes will kill you'.

Edited July 25, 2008 by SkippyBing

[+Typhoid 231]

I don't think armour plating of the keel would make much of a difference, actually some plans I have of a WW2 carrier indicate it had plating down to the keel so it was certainly an option then, the problem is it's not in the correct plane to resist the buckling of the keel. There are videos (probably on the net somewhere) demonstrating the effect of underwater explosions and the way they move around.

The USSR did develop nuclear torpedoes to create a big enough explosion to break the back of a Nimitz class carrier, however for anything smaller than that you'd probably only need two conventional heavyweight.

At Dartmouth they taught us something along the lines of 'Missiles will hurt you, torpedoes will kill you'.

 

yup. for antiship work at the Task Force or Fleet level we would use airplanes to hit the guys and "mission kill" an enemy surface combattant, but the SSN was the preferred platform if we could get him into the area. The saying is "you don't sink ships by letting air into the top, you sink ships by letting water in the bottom" with MK-48's.

 

:yes:

[Syrinx 13]

The damage is actually due to the very low compressibility factor of water. It transfers nearly all of the explosive force of the warhead to the ship's hull, breaking the keel.

 

Yes, the same method employed by Barnes Wallace when designing the bouncing bomb. When it rolled down the dam front a hydrostatic charge exploded the torpex at a predetermined depth. The shockwave was enhanced considerably due to the above.

 

Kaboom. Mother nature helps out!

[Silverbolt 104]

.....and it did a huge "boom".

Edited July 25, 2008 by Silverbolt

[Gr.Viper 131]

The USSR did develop nuclear torpedoes to create a big enough explosion to break the back of a Nimitz class carrier

There were also plans for torpedo nuke capable of leveling a shore city.

[+Typhoid 231]

There were also plans for torpedo nuke capable of leveling a shore city.

 

really?

 

I knew they had nuclear cruise missiles for that purpose, but torpedoes?

 

seems odd. (I don't know they didn't, just seems odd)

[Silverbolt 104]

i could say s**t, but.... i wasnt a "2 stage torpedo"?

one under water, than when it aproximated from the target it jump off out of the water?

[+Typhoid 231]

i could say s**t, but.... i wasnt a "2 stage torpedo"?

one under water, than when it aproximated from the target it jump off out of the water?

 

oh, that. Other way around.

 

I think you might be referring to the SSN-14 which was a rocket assisted torpedo. It left as a rocket and when near the target (submerged sub) it dropped a torpedo which could, but not always, be nuclear.

 

they also had one (I forget the designation) that was launched through a torpedo tube from a submerged sub.

 

We called ours Subroc

Edited July 25, 2008 by Typhoid

[Gr.Viper 131]

I knew they had nuclear cruise missiles for that purpose, but torpedoes?

It is possible to stuff that much punch in a torpedo but they say the navy rejected the idea as being dishonorable.

[+Tailspin 3]

The US Mk 45 torpedo (anti-submarine) had a warhead with an 11kt. yield. Close to that of the 13-16kt. yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The nuclear torpedo was later abandoned when the Mk. 48 proved to be fast and accurate enough to do the job with conventional explosives.

[+SkippyBing 8]

It left as a rocket and when near the target (submerged sub) it dropped a torpedo

 

We had a similar thing called Ikara (think it was Australian in origin), actually saw one in the FAA Museum reserve collection took myself and a mate about a minute to figure out what it was, the torpedo shaped bottom half was the eventual giveaway! I'm guessing we ditched it as the system took up a lot of room on the ship and if you've got a helicopter anyway you might as well use that, works for me I don't want to be on the ship if there's a sub that close anyway!

[+Tailspin 3]

ASROC and Nuke Torpedos.....Anybody remember the movie The Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark and Sidney Portier?

[Alexander51 3]

ASROC and Nuke Torpedos.....Anybody remember the movie The Bedford Incident with Richard Widmark and Sidney Portier?

 

Yup sure do! I remember watching that one when I was a little

kiddo.