“The US navy wants to protect its warships… by firing massive underwater shock waves” at incoming torpedoes,” New Scientist says.
The ships would be equipped with arrays of 360 transducers each 1 metre square — effectively big flat-panel loudspeakers — running along either side of the hull below the waterline. When the ship’s sonar detects an incoming torpedo, the transducers simultaneously fire an acoustic shock wave of such intensity that the torpedo either detonates early or is disabled by the pulse’s crushing force, according to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is funding the project.
But these are no ordinary loudspeakers: instead of having a membranous diaphragm that can vibrate in response to a range of audio frequencies, each of the devices has a ram-like cylindrical metal armature at its centre. This is projected outwards by electromagnets at very high speed, producing a shock wave. The array can be fired as many times as needed.
When the six rows of 60 transducers on each side of the ship fire at once, the cumulative action should generate a “destructive pressure pulse capable of disabling an enemy’s torpedo”, according to DARPA.
(Big ups: AR)
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And you thought the enviros went whacko over superloud sonar…
And the great part is that they can just scoop up all the fish (and dolphins) it kills to restcok their food reserves.
Play some classic music with this in front of the environmentalists so they would understand how environment friendly this is. I request Orpheus in the Underworld
My brother’s destroyer once accidentally killed a whale that was nearby during a sonar test– this new device would make Captain Ahab join Greenpeace.
It’s surely no worse than the torpedo going off?
And I assume testing would be rare — similar to how often a sub lets out a ping.
A new audiance for the “Stones”, torpedoe bate, all right.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
“Stewart’s Platoon”
It’s nice to hear that so many of you think the lives of dolphins, whales and fish are more important that the those of the Marines and Sailors we owe our freedom to.
it’s obvious that none of these people whining about the poor fishes don’t have loved ones serving on ships that could be killed by a torpedo
Am I the only one who saw The Incredible Mr. Limpet as a child? Don Knotts turns into a cartoon fish with his amazing “thrum” power, remember? It was a super loud underwater sound that threw torpedoes off course.
Torpedo defense is an area that is severely lacking in the Navy. Which would be worse, from and environmental standpoint: A nuclear powered aircraft carrier being sunk and contaminating the ocean for decades with radioactive waste, or a momentary “acoustic shock wave”? How many fish would die because of a destroyer being sunk, contaminating the ocean with fuel and/or other chemical leaks? Even the tree huggers would have to admit that the “acoustic shock wave” is easier on the environment than a sunken ship, aside from the benefit to be had of saving human lives. Its not like the navy is going to be blasting away at the ocean with this thing all the time; and considering how many times a torpedo has been fired at a navy ship in the last 50 years (none?), what’s the problem?
ONe other comment, although loud underwater, it would probably be LESS loud than some alternatives, and should be less loud than whale-killing sonars. Undoubtedly the array-of-speakers approach is to not just create a shockwave, but to FOCUS the shockwave on the torpedo target.
While a sonar wants to spread its energy EVERYWHERE, the goal of the anti-torpedo system is the exact opposite: to focus all the energy on a single point.
problems:
Effect Ocean eco systems & cause other disruptions alone.
Now if the beam is focused fine.
But a wide beam, Hell good bye SOUSS array.
Do testing in the Arctic & have Navy subs emit beams to break up icefloes for surfacing OR the USCG to disrupt icebergs in the Ice Patrol duty alone.
Yes 1 focused beam can turn a iceberg away.
Nice.
The problem is that it’s NOT a focused projection; it was stated above that it’s omnidirectional. At any rate, I don’t see it being an environmental problem unless the pulse has a large (over about 300 ft.) killing radius.
Torpedoes?? Who’s gonna fire a torpedoes at us? Russia can barely get ships underway. China is doing such a good job of defeating us economically that they will never need to fire one. Only time I see a torpedo being used against us in the future is if terrorists get one and make an IED out of it, but I don’t think we left hundreds of those laying around in Iraq for them to take at will. This defense is great technology that needs to be left on the shelf in reserve. It is just not needed at this time compared to other priorities.
My initial post was just to point out that there was a furor over a rather similar technique in the recent past. I don’t have a problem with it per se. In the tension between humans and animals I know where my loyalties lie. Death to Fish! Where’d I put my lemon butter?
First, yes, if the ‘Activist’ portion of the Environmentalist community lock on to this, it’s going to be all about the poor fishies, and not about our Sailors and Marines…
Until one of our Ships gets sunk, at which point they’ll go very, very, quiet…
It’s not ‘Environmentalism’ that’s the problem, it’s ‘Activism’, the notion that people can make good money for complaining about things!
As long as their paychecks depend on them complaining about what they’re hired to complain about, don’t expect them to see reason!
Second, don’t get too complacent about the Chinese… Rightly or wrongly, they expect to be able to invade Taiwan within about two years, and they know full well that they’ll have to sink a Carrier group or tow in order to get away with it…
I’m not saying that they’ll win, just that they’re going to try, and Americans are going to die, as a result of the fact…
this is sweet. i am suprised we didnt think of this sooner. put it on subs to that would be great. make me feel a hell of a lot safer. environmentalists HA! stick them on a sub with my crew and ask them if they would feel safe with an incoming torpedo! this is a great piece of technology right here
Omnidirectional would be STUPID. TOO STUPID even for the military. It’s very easy to synchronize things enough to do focusing, the DSP calculations are pretty trivial assuming you can track the torpedo (which you need even in omnidirectional mode)
Focused is VASTLY more effective. Without focusing, the power drops off at 1/R^2, which means even a short distance away you lose a lot of effectiveness, possibly way too much if the torpedo uses a shaped charge or contains some other countermeasures.
To hell with the environmentalsts. Go for it!
Why not take out the enemy submarine and implode the whole enemy ship rather than a simple torpedo. That is if the Torpedo came from another sub. You could also explode ordinace in ships, take out engine room, communication, nuclear reactors, sea mines (using AUVs with the same components), etc.
Environmental Conditions aside — This is a really stupid idea. Would it work? Most likely — given enough power.
First off, I doubt this thing could be built for peace time use. Try scraping off the barnicals on these things. This would be a maintence nightmare.
Secondly, you would have warn everyone in the area to turn off their sonars, otherwise you are going to white noise them out.
Thirdly — Fire it up once — you tag the first torp. The second torp kills you — because your own defense has blinded you.
You are better off with some variant of a super captivating proximity rocket defense or if you were feeling plucky a properly tuned laser should do the trick, as the torpedeo is generally riding close to the surface.
I suspect the best use would be a preventive one. Why fire torpedoes if you know it will be blasted? Secondly firing a torpedo will reveal your location anyway, submarines won’t do it at close proximity unless no other option. Long range torpedoes can be handled otherwise.
Concerning whales — I wouldn’t be concerned. I think it’s more a frequency and distance issue (sonars). I doubt if focused waves would disable a torpedo over a very long range, say more than 100 times the array length.
As to the ‘omnidirectional problem’, PLEASE take the time to actually *read& the Article!
The panels provide omnidirectional coverage, yes, but each given pulse is going to be quite focussed…
As to the barnacle problem, I would hope they have some way of raising and lowering these panels…
Never mind the sea life, what’re these things going to do to hydrodynamics, and ship handling, once you crank up to full speed?
It’s a promising development, but they may still have a few ‘bugs’ to work out…
For those worried about loved ones who might be in harm’s way: Ask them not to get into vessels that draw torpedo fire. The life you save may be your own. For those worried about the fish: you’re right–you can’t eat a torpedo. Don Knotts-rest in peace!
I don’t think there is a defense for a super
captivating rocket torpedo. I suspect we will
lose a lot of our surface fleet. This torpedo
make make surface warships obsolete. Of course
we will spend billions on counter measures when
the better move would be to eliminate the surface
fleet and go totally submersible. Subs are harder
to detect and hit than floating targets.
Look at the trends. Hezbollah stopped Israeli armor with anti tank weapons. Our Copters are being downed in Iraq and would drop like flies facing an entire army armed with shoulder fired missles.
Surface ships are the next big target.
Boy does this strike me as a lousy idea. The amount of power required would be enormous, and it would lead to an immediate (and probably pretty simple) hardening of torpedoes on the part of the other side.
Wait a minute. WHAT other side? Who are we developing tom swift’s electric fish killer to fight?
I know the British did some fairly successful (and simple) testing of what amounted to reactive armor as an anti-torpedo technology. Simple and Cheap.…..
AS for the “poor fishies”, comrades, as a waterman I KNOW what kind of stress the fisheries are under, and I’m less than enthusiastic about testing some harebrained scheme like this that would leave half the oceans littered with belly up, decomposing fish to little defensive gain. You boys plan on. say EATING at all in your new invincible navy? Half the time my nets come up empty as it is.