Comments on: Loudspeakers Vs. Torpedoes

By: Mungo

Mungo — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:37:00 +0000

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.

By: Kortney Dunkle

Kortney Dunkle — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 04:09:20 +0000

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.

By: Crusty

Crusty — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 04:47:16 +0000

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!

By: William A. Peterson

William A. Peterson — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 16:45:57 +0000

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…

By: Mikko

Mikko — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 11:36:07 +0000

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.

By: James

James — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 07:52:26 +0000

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.

By: Lance Winslow

Lance Winslow — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 00:53:35 +0000

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.

By: terry

terry — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 22:55:39 +0000

To hell with the environmentalsts. Go for it!

By: Nicholas Weaver

Nicholas Weaver — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:56:48 +0000

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.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 16:57:13 +0000

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