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Kursk Destroyed By Cavitation Missles?
A reader submitted: "One of Russia's biggest independent TV networks, NTV, broadcast at about 22:20pm that the developers of the Shkval torpedo system (which was discussed here on July 23rd) claim that Kursk was testing their torpedoes, and one of them accidentially homed on the sub itself. It was also mentioned that the torpedo can travel at the speed of 200 knots. What could it mean to the development of the supersonic underwater devices? It seems that even before corporations get to science, blood does." I just saw this on the news as well, and a number of readers submitted this over the last few days.
Didn't they learn anything from Hunt for Red October?
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
"Geeks in Space: Kursk Destroyed By Cavitation Missles"
The Kursk wasn't really destroyed, right? It was just sunk to the bottom of the Barents Sea.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Anybody know if this is possible?
What did they do put in cordinates 0,0?
I thought Torpedos were Fire & forget.
Please let me know
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
Since a fast torpedo goes fast and turns slowly -- I doubt that it got turned around.
More likely they've got the same problems that plagued the US torpedo inventory during the 50's and 60's. Namely, spontaneous arming. One of the US subs was lost in the Atlantic owing to a torpedo that armed itself in the tube.
Hope the engineer that built that one feels at least slightly guilty.
torpedo 127.0.0.1
and kaboom!
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
I had a feeling the Russians were testing something. Otherwise why would they release so much disinformation to keep everyone away until they ran out of options (made sure there wasn't anything noticable)?
The fact that the disinformation came from the higher-ups makes the case stronger. I mean, how would the Secretary of the Navy KNOW everyone is dead, please go away? But he sure would know what was going on and want to keep everyone away. I'll be really surprised if the salvage effort goes ahead if there is anything left of the front of that sub.
slightly related, did I hear correctly that the explosion was heard as a 3 on the Richter scale, or did I just dream that up again?
"Yuri, you've lost ANOTHER one?" -Red October quote of the day
-----
My karma is still less than my age.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
a BOD.
"Torpedo Program not responding. Press any key to return to submarine"
You are a unique individual, just like everyone else.
Sig it.
Also where did the geeks in space section go on
thesync.com. I got a 404 for www.thesync.com/geeks
To: Admiral Xinablutznuk (phb@kremvax.org)
Subject: homing circuit
Date: 8, October, 1999
Hey, like, dude, we just, like, wanted to let you know that, uhh, there's a bug, well, a really small one, in the guidance system. If you, uhh, point the torpedo at yourself, it will, you know.. do it's thing...
Probably nothing though, we fixed it by putting a sign on the side of the launcher that says "Point this side towards enemy"..
From: Admiral Xinablutznuk (phb@kremvax.org)
To: Engineering Team (techgods@kremvax.org)
Subject: homing circuit
Date: 21, Jun, 2000
Das, are you thinkink we are stupid? Remove the sign, our sailors know this!
Remember
Torpedoes don't kill people... People kill people
I actually have a few issues with NTV, from the filtered, poorly translated material that I see from them they don't really seem to know what is going on. It might be the fact that you can't seem to get a straight answer out of the Russian government or it might be incompetent news people. I'll wait a little before I give this report credability.
It is a shame that people have to die in the name of science but sometimes things just need to be tested first hand. Think about the first person to eat an egg... or the first person who found out that cyanide kills.
___________________
He who laughs last... Thinks slowest
Beacause those torpedoes are actually underwater missilles with over 2 mach speed. Imagine what kind of a circle it would have to make before hitting the mothership. Possible that an another boat fired a torpedo and by accident got Kursk.
First their were reports that the Kursk crew was tapping on the hull, then there were numerous false reports due to speculation about why it sunk. From the Norwegian video and examination the submarine was most likely destroyed by a missle being detonated in the forward part of the hull. This happened to a US sub in 1968 and wasn't the first time for a Russian sub.
Didn't the Russians say just last week that a US vessel was nearby, hinting that the US may have shot at them? Hmmm... -Ozzy
I think it is sad that a country with so many social and financial problems keeps clinging to their cold war mindset. Does russia really need nuclear subs nowadays? I would seem to think that money spent on their military program could maybe be better spent bringing the country back together. Last I heard, Russia (of whatever the country is called today,) had problems even paying its soldiers. It is such a suprise they are having accidents with their nuclear subs, which testing new "state of the art" torpedos? -Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Error executing SELF_DESTRUCT.EXE. Program is valid in Win32 mode.
Unrecoverable error. Please reinstall torpedo. Returning to submarine...
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Anybody want to start a betting pool ***(pun)*** on just how long before covert US Navy SEAL divers are roaming up and down the flooded passageways of this sub? It has never-before-seen surface-to-surface missiles designed to take out US aircraft carriers, maybe warp-speed torpedos, certainly top-of-the-line Russian crypto gear, in only 350 feet of international water. Project Jennifer raised a sub from miles down back in the early 70s, and a Russian boomer that sank due to internal fire off the coast of Bermuda in 1986 in thousands of feet of water mysteriously had the missile hatches peeled open and several missiles gone when a follow-on Russian oceanographic expedition photographed it a few months later. Hmm, wonder who did that? The Kursk is a piece of (very tempting) cake in comparison...
See? It is comments like that that makes me proud to be a nerd -- I love to laugh uncontrollably at jokes that 99% of the rest of the world wouldn't get.
Thank you sulli. You rock!
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It's really hard to tell what happened, but I seriously doubt a torpedo detonation was responsible for the initial explosion. Two explosions were heard by Norway and the U.S. The first one was (relatively) small - smaller than a sub torpedo. It was followed by a second larger blast - more powerful than a single torpedo.
;)
Submarine torpedos are designed to arm after they've travelled some distance from the boat. I can't imagine a scenario where one would detonate in the tube.
More likely, there was some other cause for the initial explosion. This could be any number of things -- buildup and ignition of hazardous gas or torpedo fuel, hydrogen exploding in the battery compartment, or perhaps even hitting a mine. Whatever happened, it seemed to have set off the rest of the torpedo room.
Not that I know anything about subs
Best regards,
SEAL
However, it may very well be that the missile exploded before leaving the tube. That would make sense.
[
I heard that on NPR riding across Wyoming. But I also heard that there were 2 explosions, recorded, a small one, then the big one (3)
But I think the positive side to all of this is that merely a decade ago, this would not have been reported. Likely, there would have been no international effort to help with a rescue attempt. It is sad that a country with their economic woes must still funnel such vast funds into enormous military projects. Worse yet, when they fail. Maybe in another couple of decades even this won't happen.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
No, silly, submaries ping.
It is extremely unlikely that a torpedo - especially one moving as fast as claimed - would circle around and hit the firing ship. The turning radius is just too large, and there's only so much fuel on board the torp.
It is much more likely that the warhead armed too early, and it detonated in the tube, or perhaps <i>Kusk</i> wound up downrange, and got shot by the tester - although a 200 knot torpedo would make a HELL of a lot of noise, so you'd think one of the Yank subs would have heard it if the latter was the case.
What strikes me as odd though is that I'm pretty sure <i>Kursk</i> is a boomer, that is, a strategic missle sub. It seems an odd choice to use a boomer to test a hunter/killer weapon.
The 200 knot torpedo is pretty impressive though. That's like 4 times faster than the current crop. I wonder how long the range is, and how fast it can turn, and how the guidence system (if any) works. Most modern torpedos are wire-guided, active-homing terminal. You steer it from the ship via commands down the wire until it picks up the target with its own active sonar, and then it homes in from there. Keeping a wire payed out without breaking at 200kts is quite the trick.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
In other unrelated news, several non-NATO supporting countries have have announced they will be disarming and dismantling their rust seeking torpedoes."
--CH - "Tailgate" (BB)
'Das noogoodnick 0,0 coordinates are targeting torpedo at 127.0.0.1 and causing a bluescreen.'
The guys are DEAD. Even if it was some giant Russian cock-up, I don't think it's all that funny.
How amusing were all the morbid NASA jokes when the Challenger blew up?
-Greg
Actually, that was my first thought when the Russians initially refused outside help. But it is very strange. Why would the Russians want to keep this a secret when it was apparently public knowledge? And what use is military might in this post-Cold War era? It seems that the Russians might see more profit from selling the weapons than using them.
Unless, of course, these weapons are incredibly powerful. With the boost in speed must come a comparable boost in range. The Russian test sub must have been taking many precautions. The torpedo must have acquired them as a target and almost instantaneously hit them, in this scenario, since they have a remote detonation control(as my memory of Red October serves). They may have given up on a weapon with which they had lost contact, and by the time it came back on their equipment, it was too late, because of the weapon's blinding speed. Now think about this: extreme speeds and extreme range, such that even when a ship is aware of the danger, it is unable to protect itself once targeted.
Whatever the case, it seems clear that this weapon is the new naval superweapon. Add nuclear warheads to them, and you have a weapon which is impervious even to the newest US 'Star Wars'-style air defense schemes.
A new arms race? Perhaps. Don't forget the economic repercussions of such a race--the winner in the arms race is always the more economically viable country. And how economically viable would the States be if nuclear warheads mounted on supersonic torpedoes were to hit every major US port. New York City and Boston unlivable because of fallout from the water table? What if they could be carefully programmed to travel up waterways, and avoid all but their programmed target? It seems that this would be possible in this advanced age.
Maybe the Cold War isn't over...and maybe it's about to get hot. There are a lot of nukes in the world, and a lot of people who would rather see the Americans without their vast economic resources, even if they don't gain by the loss.
Of course, I just really like making up conspiracy theories. Don't forget that.
There's an article in New Scientist on supersonic cavitating torpedos and submarines.
Now, my point is, if it were that easy to send some folks down to have a look-see, wouldn't it have been much easier to rescue the survivors of the initial explosion?
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The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
So much speculation and conjecture; so little facts or reasoning.
What if the Mach 2 torpedo was launched by another sub, hit the Kursk, and caused it's demise?
What if the Mach 2 torpedo did not explode or was not equipped with a warhead? That would account for the initial, low powered thud. I'm sure a torpedo traveling at high velocity and hitting a submarine would cause enough damage for it to turn turtle and crash towards the seafloor, causing the rest of the torpedos to fall off their mounts and go kaboom? Surely this would cause a bigger boom a few minutes later?
What do I know, though? I always hated that Village People song.
You know, some people had families on that submarine. And we don't really appreciate you making some big fucking joke over it so that you gain karma points. You are such a fucking prick to poke fun at someone else's disfortune. Shame on you, and shame on the moderators who helped you.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
A recent Popular Science had an article on supersonic torpedoes that utilized cavitation, and they acted essentially like a gun. The nature of cavitation weaponry means you have very little control surface in the water, as the torpedo is surrounded by an air pocket, except for at the nose. If cavitation torpedoes are going to do any turning I doubt it will be any faster than 1% per foot for quite some time.
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
marotti.com
i have it on good authority (someone from COMSUBLANT) that the US had two subs in the vicinity near the Kursk at the time the incident. The subs hear only one small explosion and then a series of explosions following the first. they heard no 200 knot missle....
A torpedo is supposed to have a safety mechanism that prevents it from detonating after a 180 degree turn, preventing this sort of accident. If it's true that the Kursk was hit by it's own weapon, and that is an unsubstantiated theory, then it means a bad design or bad quality control. It is more likely that the torpedo exploded while still in the submarine, or just outside it. The 60's era US submarines had a design flaw where a torpedo would start running inside the sub (called a hot run) when some testing leads were hooked up incorrectly. The only way to stop it was to do an emergency 180 degree turn, which activated the torpedo's safety mechanism designed to keep the torpedo from going after the sub that fired it. It would be interesting to see if the Kursk make any radical changes in depth, direction, or speed just before the explosion.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The Kursk disaster was almost certainly caused by a "hot run" in one of their torpedo tubes.
A torpedo fired from underwater must carry an oxidizer with the fuel, since it is hard to get the O2 out of H2O on the fly. This creates a potential hazard, and a "hot run" is what happens when the torpedo starts up before it is supposed to (i.e. in the tube or on the rack).
If this happened, it is possible (although unlikely if you believe the hype in the case of the MK 48's currently used on U.S. submarines) that a warhead could "cook off," causing an explosion. It is also possible that the torpedo in the tube could have itself exploded, causing a serious flooding casualty.
The men in the torpedo room would have perished instantly from high-speed water in the people compartment and the resultant pressure increase. Those that survived would have been behind an already closed watertight door, because a hull breach of the diameter of a torpedo tube or larger at operating depth for a nuclear sub would cause an increase in air pressure too rapid to permit casualty actions before rendering the crew incapable of them.
I speculate that there is an engine room watertight door on that class of ship, and no others forward of it. The people in engineering probably survived (accounting for the shut down reactor and lack of a radiological event), and that those are the people who were doing the tapping. If a Russian sub is anything like a U.S. sub, there would have been 8 and 20 people working in the engineering spaces. Everyone else would have been in the forward compartment at battle stations for the torpedo drill.
A lot of this is based on SOP for U.S. subs, but I have a feeling that the Russian procedures are fairly similar.
The first report russia put out was that the sub had colided with another sub. They seemed to imply that it was a US sub.
If the folks at ntv.ru did not know about the Slashdot Effect, they will soon.
Wrong. Try again.
A 200 knot torpedo/missile (that's not even designed to make drastic course changes at all, much less 180 degrees) has a minuscule (read: impossible) chance of taking out its launch platform once launched.
Far more likely is the theory that K-141's standard torpedoes detonated in the exercise, probably while still in the tube or weapons racks.
The Bellona Foundation has posted their analysis here, and the venerable folks at Jane's have their's up as well.
Finally, the effect this will have on Naval funding and deployment was discussed at STRATFOR.
:wq
THe USA has had its own torpedo problems -- some of the most glaring being the early nuclear-tipped (!) torpedo designs like the Mk 45. No Naval commander with any sense whatever would have ever considered using it, despite the millions of dollars spent on its deployment. It was reported to be the only torpedo system ever developed with a 'kill ratio' of 2.0: the target AND the sub that launched it.
Nearby instruments confirmed this -- two explosions, the second one much larger about 2 minutes later.
Now, how might authorities predict exactly 2 minutes and 15 seconds? They didn't say. I suspect that was the length of the end-of-run timer. Many underwater weapons will blow themselves up if they don't find a target within a certain time. For a missile designed for a fast "flight", 2 minutes seems reasonable. There are safety devices which stop torpedoes/missiles from arming until they're out of the tube and away from the launcher, but it's possible the thing got stuck partway out.
I admit when I read the story I assumed it was a pop-up missile, which hops into the air and lands vertically on the target submarine. It didn't occur to me that it might be a horizontal-flight device. The popular press report was ambiguous.
This is all speculation. They will not know until they raise the ship and actually investigate the damage.
Saying that the explosion registered a 3 on the richter scale doesn't mean a whole to to me. Does anybody know a rough translation for this into some more common measure of explosive force (lbs of TNT perhaps)?
Richter scale 3 is equivalent to 29 tons of TNT going off. 3.5 is equivalent to 73 tons of TNT and 4.0 is around 1000 tons of TNT or a small nuclear device.
That is a truely sobering statistic.
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
(In Sean Connery's voice, of course.)
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
Ever worked in a project that went bad ? ... through stupidity and ignorance . <br><br>
...
Some of the engineering troubles we had eventually got straightened out and talked intellegently about but that didn't keep those 'higher ups' from saying things <b>before they knew</b> what was giong on . Hence disinformation
As to the cavitation torpedo , horse-puckey !
Use some sense . When something like this happens it is most likely some glitch . All it takes is a hatch to not really be opened when the cold gas ejector tries to fire a torpedo and
Bang ! No explosives have to detonate but consider the froce necessary to eject a 1/2 ton torpedo from a 35 ft tube , at depth ! <br><br>
I am not pretending to know what caused this but for this russian journalistic site to portray it as a cavitation mishap is ludicrous --- and journalistically irresponsible . This sounds more like the Enquirer than a real news outlet . <br>
Your Squire
Squireson
<br><br>Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence .
This BBC news page lists even more reasons why the explosions happened. I hadn't heard the story about the US sub that limped into a nearby port just after the disaster.
Hi,
If you're gonna get all cute with the configurable color schemes, _please_ make sure as to require that links be different colors than regular text, and selected links be different colors than unselected links..
Very annoying..
Your Working Boy,
the speed of sound is much faster under water than in air.
Isn't the mach 1 more along the lines of 750 miles/hour?
The New Scientist article on supercavitation specifically mentioned the Shkval and the fact that "Shkval is a straight shooter," says Kam Ng, of the ONR. "There are no control capabilities whatsoever." So much effort had gone into stabilising the projectile that it can only travel in a straight line. If that's correct (and it certainly seems plausible), there's no possible way that this could have happened.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
Uh, you probably mistyped it... This should link to the page, check for yourself.
Speaking of GIS. Taco, Hemos, anyone: Get a new episode up ASAP! It's been weeks now, and that ground control crap (a nice an idea actually) is no replacement.
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
You mean the "Mom" hatch? The little spot so that the seamen could take the moms on the tour and go "See Mom if the ship goes down I hide in that hatch and I can just swim to the surface." Knowing damn well they'll never make it.
-cpd
- W
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
Actually, TOW (and similarly guided missiles, like Sagger) are actually fairly slow, in the 400MPH range. Of course, the 4km range and the ability to steer the missile make up for it somewhat. ;)
And TOW wires break *all the time*. The last TOW shoot I did had 2 wire breaks in 10 missiles.
I would imagine that keeping a wire alive in water, which is much more viscous than air, would be even tougher.
But it's moot anyway - further reading reveals that the Russian torps in question are unguided.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The Siberia level of Soldier of Fortune reminds me of this, too. Especially with the exploding helicopter and the noxious gas. The Russian space program has some blunders, too: They were the ones to achieve the first fatality in space. I think it was when a Cosmonaut was in Soyuz (maybe Vostok or Voskhod, I lost the October 86 issue of National Geographic, that's what had it). Then came the defective valve on a later Soyuz, which caused the three Cosmonauts onboard to suffocate prior to re-entry. Then there's the Mir blunder, when a Progress freighter was navigated by hand. The monitor went blank, until 400 milliseconds before it hit the station, puncturing one of the modules.
We only have to wait (probably not long) before the next blunder occurs. The only question remaining is who will be next.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
There is an inexplicable scuff of red paint on the side,
but other then that, none the worse for wear.
Coincidence? I think not.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Now they will have to take you to Friendship Hall.
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
the russians can't be that stupid to not have that area constantly patrolled, until the sub is raised. they probably have learned from the time we tried to raise their sub unsuccessfully (can't remember its name) and when we tapped one of their undersea cables.
"knock Knock"
"Whooos ThEEre"
"um..PLummmhn"
"What?"
"Plummer"
"I Didn't call a plummer"
"um..Pizza delivery"
"Who is it really?!?!"
"it's not that torpedo I have been hearing about, it it?"
"no mamm, I'm just a dolphin"
"oh,.. OK then."
BAMMMMMMM!!!
Dirty Pirate Hooker
Damn loopback torpedos.
...or maybe not.
> Torpedoes don't kill people... People kill people
People make torpedo's kill other people.
Putin isn't exactly pro-US (although he isn't stupid enough to go against the US either directly). I do not believe that the US did fire on the sub but one has to ask what the hell was a nuclear powered sub was doing that close to other US allied controlled waters? Oh and this "Red October" was in fact on a spying mission when it had that little accident and sank. Personally we really, really, really need to crack down on these stupid Borris Badinov spies before they decide to steal more military secrets or perhaps get a foothold for a suprise attack. On the subject of armanents; personally I would rather have the government controlling weapons of mass destruction than some stupid publically traded company. In fact arms dealers have to register with the government to do their thing and they are closely monitored for any duplicity.
Respond to s
Random bit of trivia here. A lotta folks think that the Soviets were being cowardly by waiting until the war was almost over and doing a land grab. Found out not too long ago that they'd actually made an agreement with the rest of the Allies to jump on Japan's back three months to the day after Germany fell.
Which it did on May 8.
-Patrick Stewart
"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Yikes! Does the onslaught and deception never end?
Really people aren't going to be *that* stupid. There are plenty of deep water docks for subs along the Eastern US controlled by the military why couldn't they go to one of those?
Respond to s
Go here for information on the USS Scorpion. Although it was never confirmed on the exact cause of it's destruction, the theory is that a torpedo test is what sank it. After the Scorion, I believe, all US torpedos were fitted with 180 degree kill switches to prevent accidents like this. Could it be possible that during a missle test on the Kursk, the weapon went active and looked for the first availible target (finding the same ship that launched it)? Sounds plausible to me and this would probably explain what took them so damn long to ask for assistance on rescuing the crew. Whatever the case, a tragedy indeed...
-----
"The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad." - Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
But to me, this seems like we're reliving the Movie "The Abyss". The Sub, sinks while encountering an alien space craft. Now, I'm going to take this a little further and throw in a little of the movie "Aliens". Now, after colliding, the Crew survived on the ocean floor, BUT a dealy alien virus (or plague) started infacting the ship and taking it over, and the remaining un-tainted crew flooded the ship to save the rest of humanity. So, if this IS the case, I'm in no hurry to bring that bitch to the surface.
If these torpedoes are really going mach 2 (whatever that means; speed of sound in water or air?) then it cannot home in on the ship because the sounds from the submarine go slower than the torpedo!! Even so, if the torpedo began to home in on the Kursk the turn it would have to make would inevitable be so wide that it would not be able to maintain the signal once it was at the greatest distance away.
The only catch is that I think sound goes faster in water than air. And I don't know how knots translate to sound speed.
# debian/rules
"Black" humor is nothing new, in particular to Americans. Morbid humor is part of the culture.
That being said, I feel for those poor kids and their families. When Wednesday hit without a rescue, tears came to my eyes while listening to NPR; imagining all those people killed in such an awful way.
I don't feel bad for the ten old-guard navy officers who were killed. They are pushing the old arms race again, trying to preserve their jobs at the cost of another cold war.
That Golf that we grabbed in the '70s was in the middle of the Pacific ocean, FAR from the red fleet's bases... AND they did NOT know where it sunk. We DID know, by virtue of having wired practiclly the entire Pacific seabed with sonar.
(contrary to what the other poster said, we *DID* get PART of the sub, most of it did disentegrate and go back down tho)
The Kursk, OTOH, sunk a hundred miles off of the russia's largest naval base. AND the ruskies know EXACTLY where it lies. The red fleet may not be what it used to be, but somehow, I doubt that Glomar Explorer could sneak up and grab the Kursk without being caught and sunk.
From a purely technical POV tho, grabbing that Oscar would be much easier tho. To grab the Golf, Glomar Explorer had to reach down approx. 17,500ft (MORE than three MILES (!!!)). The Kursk only lies in about 350ft. But, the Explorer's not gonna get anywhere NEAR the place.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
Uh, forget about the second part. This answers it pretty well...
Now why was this article in the GIS section in the first place?!?
I strongly believe that trying to be clever is detrimental to your health. -- Linus Torvalds
The subs got attacked by depth charges and were sunk. Also ever heard of doing a nice long range radar sounding or perhaps a thermal imaging or even a radiation analysis from the ocean or space. This isn't really terribly interesting.
Respond to s
There have been a couple of comments speculating that it was a "hot run" or a torpedo that started with the tube still closed. If this one of the supercavitation torpedos, it's good to keep in mind that these are ROCKET POWERED.
Firing a rocket in a closed cylinder could conceivably lead to a small explosion without detonating the warhead. Of course, this is just rampant speculation.
Wait... you mean you still haven't joined the ACLU?
Seeing as how Russia is having a hard time paying for fuel for their ships or paying their sailors, I have to wonder about any story put out about research & development of new weapons. I have an easier time buying the story that they couldn't afford the safer silver battery-powered torpedoes and were resorting to cheaper, but more dangerous, liquid fuel torpedoes.
This signature is a waste of 42 characters
Beats me why the Russia is trying to develop new torpedoes while their troops in the field (Chechnya) have such a bad time with the weapons they already have.
Must be that FIFO pipeline strategy.
Sad to see it come to these ends, particularly all the a**-covering and waffling on accepting foreign aid. "Please help rescue our valaint sailors who were testing out a new weapon we feel we may have to deploy against you someday." Very ironic.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I definately think there's more to this than meets the eye.
According to what was said in the original article, the torpedoes cannot turn underwater. It's a straight shot to the target, or it's a miss. Therefore, it couldn't "home in on itself". The only other option would have been for the torpedoe to explode in the tube, as a previous reader posted.
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Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
However, I seem to remember that one of the more convincing bits of evidence for the overheated torpedo theory was the fact that the sub had turned around. I realize that in the process of dropping to the bottom of the ocean things can get turned around, but there seemed to be fairly strong evidence that the sub had, indeed, turned around. Turning around was, of course, standard procedure to get a torpedo to disarm itself. The theory was, the torpedo crew informed the captain that they had a "hot torpedo". That's an accurate description of a torpedo with an overheating battery, but they also called torpedos that armed themselves "hot running", if I recall correctly. So the guess is that the captain thought he had an armed torpedo, so he turned around, but he actually had a battery overheating, which could cause an explosion and wouldn't be helped by turning the sub.
So my question is, if it was the TDU, why was the sub turned around? Is it even relevant that the sub was turned?
Thanks,
Borogrove
Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
....much faster than it is in air. A torpedo moving that fast underwater is probably an impossibility for the forseeable future.
Something to think about... Trident D-5 SLBMs don't move at 200 knots while submerged... so I am doubting that a torpedo would.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I read on CNN.com yesterday (I dont have the url handy) that over half of the Kursk's crew was on their first cruise. This is typical of the plight of the Russian military today. The US Navy would NEVER allow that many new crewmen aboard a multi-billion dollar submarine, but the Russians can't afford to keep their conscripts in the service so their turnover rate is unbelieveable. I have to agree with the misfire theory or some variation of it.
Actually, we'll never know precisely what it
was. It is very possible that Kursk was testing
some secret weapon. And if so, the chances to
know the truth are vanishing.
As to the jokes.... Real warrior, who meets death
as often as we meet our neighbours won't laugh on
it. He knows the price of another day of life and
respects another warrior's death, be that his ally
or foe.
If that doesn't touch you, think that it was a
Russian submarine. In Russia military duty is
compulsory, so sailors on Kursk were 18-21 years
old boys like most of you.
So stand up and pay last tribute to those who died
like soldiers. Thank you.
Shock relief is not an excuse. These are their
families who feel the shock, and they don't need
dirty jokes. So please, keep your kidding private.
KuroiNeko
and I don't mean "African-American."
As with profanity, the appropriateness of humor depends on the environment as much as its content.
I find black humor completely appropriate on Slashdot.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down an open manhole cover and die.