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Supercavitation: Ultrafast Underwater Weapons
Peter Dyck writes: "According to this article, the world's major naval powers are developing the means to build entire arsenals of innovative underwater weapons and armadas of undersea watercraft able to operate at unprecedented speeds. This high-velocity capability - a kind of "warp drive" for water - is based on the physical phenomenon of supercavitation. The trick is to surround an object or vessel with a renewable envelope of gas so that the liquid wets very little of the body's surface, thereby drastically reducing the viscous drag." We've done a couple of articles about these weapons before, but Scientific American has good explanations and diagrams and some new information. If (when?) underwater guns actually come into use, it will change the entire nature of underwater warfare.
Radar Operator: Captain, captain...sound the alarm!!
.004 secs!!!
Captain: What is it man?! [captain glances down at radar screen] good GOD -- look at the size of it! [captain runs of quickly]
Loudspeaker: [alarm siren sounds] Alarm, alarm, we have a troll, monstrous in size! Battlestations everyone, the flamewar is beginning in t-minus
Really, the whole beaching thing, I think, is not a big deal. It happens, and a few dozen whales die from it each decade.
What we really need to worry about is the mass slaughter of whales that has been going on for the past 200 years. Let's put that a bit higher on our priority scale, shall we?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Supercavitation is really not anything new, however it spells big big trouble for the US military. I haven't read this article but I'm assuming it makes mention of the Russian "shkval" (squall) rocket torpedo, which can do an amazing 200mph underwater. If not, go look it up on Google. This thing is fscking sweet. Nothing in our arsenal comes even close to competing with this technology, and, as the post said, it will change the face of naval warfare. Defense analysts say the Russians are at least 20 years ahead of anyone else for supercavitation, and they're selling it to all their friends (China, etc.) I think this stands to really alter the strategic balance of naval powers. What good are our 11? 14? whatever---what good are our carrier groups when you've got torpedoes coming in as fast as an Indycar (faster!). Nothing. Nada. Kaput.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Especially more recent history
Bullshit. The past wasn't some happy place where people all got along, until people invented airplanes and poison gas and atomic bombs and ruined it all. The last fifty years have been the most peacful period in human history, and military budgets have always been funded even when other things couldn't be.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I don't want to be on a submarine in the next big international pissing contest, someone is going to get fucked up. Supercav weapons can be launched from the surface as normal rockets and then go into supercav mode when they hit the water. This turns a Seahawk helicopter into a number one sub killer rather than a second or third tier theater weapon. Destroyers are going to go from minor picket ships back to line ships because they can equip and refuel Seahawks et al for sub killing. Weird, just like back in the old days.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
There's no "if (when?)" about this. According to the SciAm article (the print version, at least - I haven't read the online version), the Soviet Union already had a supercavitating torpedo (codenamed "Shkval") in 1977. Apparently, Russia, strapped for cash as always, has been selling them off; France has reputedly acquired a few to bootstrap their supercavitation research programme.
DES
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The supercavitating projectiles are still going to have a hard time changing course.
A supercavitating torpedo or shell may be fast enough that a close-range opponent doesn't have time to dodge - even better, a supersonic weapon could hit your opponent before he heard it coming, since it would travel faster than both its own noise and a sonar return.
Disregarding that situation, supercavitating weapons are still useful as "engagement breakers", i.e. weapons that, even if they do not hit the opponent, force the opponent to abandon a favorable attack position and cut loose any wire-guided torpedoes he may have launched.
DES
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Whales tend to live in deep waters preferring them to coastlines mainly because of the greater abundance of life to feed on the bottom. As to earthquakes and volcanoes underneath the ocean, earthquakes rarely if ever occur along spreading centers (plates that are moving apart) when looked at in the proportion of convergent and transform fault earthquakes. This is due to the plates moving away from one another not towards each other, so not much stress is involved. Second, volcanoes under the water are not clastic or viscous. In fact, underwater volcanoes are always basaltic meaning they have very little silicon oxide (about 50%). The silicon oxide contributes to the viscousness (resistance to flow) and why Mt. Saint Helens blew really high and really loud. Volcanoes underneath the water are not viscouses at all meaning that magma flows out readily, and cools quickly looking like a mushroom. Since their is no pressure built up by resistance to flow (Mount St. Helens) their is no tremendous release of pressure and therefore no BOOM. On a side note, these areas of divergent zones are home to some of the most interesting life in the sea and full of rich mineral deposits. Class dismissed.
Hangtime
Super cavitating weapons would travel faster than the speed of sound, so it cannot be detected sonically
Nope. They're talking about 200 knots (approx) here, so sub speed of sound in air, let alone water.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
At first glance, I read:
Ultrafast Underwear Weapons
At I wondered what that had to do with geeks... as if anyone would attack a geek's underwear.
Oooooh. Underwater warfare! We're so scared. What are you gonna' do, kill all our fish?
Read the article again. The underwater missiles have the potential of scooting along underwater until they get to the coast, and then popping up and blowing away coastal cities, thus rendering any Star-Wars-style missile defense systems useless. Now, think about how just about every country has ships in the ocean that are permitted to come right up to our shoreline, and you'll realize that they don't even have to be that accurate in order to wipe out cities like DC, NY, LA, Miami, etc. Yes, you should be scared.
Of course, most of this can already be done on a smaller/cheaper scale by smuggling nuclear weapons aboard container ships, but this allows for a more timely attack, I guess.
What's your damage, Heather?
I think they gave them a fancy name, like sea-plane or something like that, but they were essentially "planes" that "flew" across the surface of the water with pontoons submerged.
Ships which rise up on pontoons at speed are called hydrofoils, as you are on about Russian flying planes you might actually mean ikranoplans which fly at very low altitude.
Catamarans are double hulled sailboats
A catamran is simply a double hulled water craft. It could be a sailboat, could be ore powered, could have an inboard or outboard motor or for that matter be a ship.
The original poster's reference to Russia makes me guess he was thinking of the KM from the JSC R.E. Alexeiev Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau. It was supposed to be a military transport.
One advantage is no need to have a preasurised cabin (or for that matter store effluent from toilets.) Also IIRC the Soviets did experiment with having KM fire missiles. Though something like the Volge-2 would probably make a more sensible design base for an antiship "fighter". (even though it's considerably slower.)
The reason that airplanes and (some) racecars and some navy ships use gas-turbines for power generation is that gas turbines have a superior power/weight ratio compared to pistion engines.
Also gas-turbines can be made to tollerate contaminants (e.g. sea water) in fuel and to be less fussy about the fuel itself. e.g. the Russians have a fighter aircraft which will run on just about any vehicle fuel you can put in the tank. Compare this to car engines which won't work at all if you put diesil in the tank. A piston engine, even a V8 or radial can produce a lot of vibration with a crankshaft being one more bit to go wrong. Aircraft, race cars and warships are all vehicles where reliable engines (and for that matter reliable engine managment systems) are very important.
Even after discovered by Western scientists, it hasn't been well developed outside of Russia. I don't know the reasons why, but maybe the efficiency / performance gains aren't enough to justify the lack of fexlibility - who wants something like a plane/boat that can't fly up into the atmosphere and maneuver like a plane, or travel efficiently on the water like a boat?
Maybe not sufficent cost advantages to threaten the aviation industry.
A large ekranoplan could easily carry the same as a 747, at similar speed. Also since it does not need to be presurised it can be made a shape better for fitting passengers and/or cargo in.
Just imagine, a "bomb" that goes off under a ship, releases a huge gas "bubble"
This is exactly what any explosive does anyway. Detonation involves a solid or liquid explosive being converted to gas (typically including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides and steam) very rapidly.
supersonic aircraft need to reach very high altitudes to be at all fuel-efficient.
Only a handful of supersonic aircraft can cruise supersonically, most can only do so in short bursts.
Supercav torps don't have that option; at any combat depth they are going to be almost literally plowing through a wall and rendering hideous stressors upon their shells.
Water is going to be a lot harder on them than even sea level air. Thus a sea skimming missile is more likely to make a practical weapons system. These devices only being useful against submarines and torpedos. Even then having them able to fly most of the distance to their target, then dive makes more sense, IMHO.
Imagine a battle erupting near an area with schools of fish and suddenly dozens of supercavitating torpedos rip through the area on their way to a ship. Not only do we have the possibility of a good number of human beings losing their lives, but anything living near enough to the surface will be splattered.
How well do you think these fish will manage with bombs dropping on them. It's easy to miss a ship dropping bombs from the air, but if you drop enough you are likely to sink it.
US Navy sonar will most certainly detect something appraching underwater at over 250mph
But something undersea doesn't have to move at 250mph, it could move slowly, close to the seafloor...
Seriously, a man-portable nuclear weapon could detonate and probably not inflict massive damage beyond the first row of buildings/hard objects surrounding the port. Fallout would be an issue, although weapons designers can minimize this to an extent
If weapon design can minimise fallout it can also maximise fallout. A terrorist might prefer to do the latter.
I'm told that there are systems in R&D for over-the-horizon detection of nuclear weapons...
Don't see how you could detect a type of weapon, methods of weapon delivery maybe. But you can't identify a bomb in a car or truck until it goes bang. With a nuclear weapon you don't need to park it as close to the target.
The effects of detonating a thermonuclear weapon (as opposed to your run of the mill nuclear weapon) high-above DC would be pretty devastating - depending upon the exact rating of the weapon, weather, topography, etc. you could reasonably expect much of DC to be destroyed.
Note that for a high level airburst the damaged area is proportional to the cube root of the yield. A cluster of lower yield weapons could do more damage than a single high yield weapon.
In all honesty, a "suitcase nuke" (still kind of a big suitcase, but the word fits) attack is much more likely than a missile attack for a number of reasons:
If the suitcase would be too big and heavy then cars and trucks are the obvious alternative. Probably even harder to spot since most cities don't have people carting 20kg suitcases around...
Not at all.
I will agree with you that it only is a speculation, since no one (no even the Russians) really knows what happened. But is seems that you overlooked some of the articles passages.
Quote from the given link :
The tests of upgraded VA-111 ("Shkval") torpedo with a rocket propulsion are supposed to conduct on the submarine. It explains the presence onboard of two experts of "Dagdizel" military plant. The aforesaid modernization is supposed to be replacement of hard fuel on cheaper, but explosion-dangerous liquid one. The version is founded on the analysis of audio signals obtained USS MEMPHIS and the NORSAR Service.
Now, if you also read the Scientific American article you will have noticed that they also talk about the Russian build Supercavitation torpedo name "Shkval"
Quote from Scientific American Article:
In 1977, after more than a decade of research and development, the Soviet navy secretly introduced a rocket-powered torpedo called the Shkval (Squall) that can "fly" through water at 100 meters per second (about 230 miles per hour) or more inside a self-generated gas cavity.
Please refrain from yelling about any sensationalism, BEFOR fully reading both articles.
Murphy(c)
I wonder if this has ever been attempted:
I have heard that a ship can be sunk if an underwater eruption causes enough bubbles to be formed around the ship to lower the density of the water, thus causing the ship to sink because it displaces more of the less dense medium.
Has such a weapon ever been devised or built? Just imagine, a "bomb" that goes off under a ship, releases a huge gas "bubble", which the hull "falls" into, to be swallowed instantly under the ocean, before the crew can even react...
Possible?
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Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Nice, except the H-bomb (which is a nuclear weapon) is about 3-4 orders of magnitude more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. It could take out D.C. ... What's STL?
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I'm a C++ guru
At high speeds, the inertia of the water is more important: Water has to move out of the way of the projectile, and return after it passes. Since water is hardly compressible, alot of water has to move.
The page written by Leonid A. Kharitonov that you linked states that the Russian government simply speculated on the idea of a failure of a secret new torpedo as the reason for the Kursk disaster, along with several other reasons. No mention of cavitation. So you are disseminating sensationalism and possibly misinformation by filtering out the rest of the page and submitting fourth hand knowledge (The Russian government - Russian reporters - Leonid Kharitonov - then yourself) to create fifth hand knowledge for the rest of the slashdot public.
A lot of people never read the links, you know...
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a hydrofoil has lifting surfaces below waterlevel to lift the ship's hull(s) out of the water, like the wings on a plane. This greatly reduces drag. ekranoplanes have no contact with the water. The ekranoplane is closer related to the hovercraft than to a hydrofoil.
//rdj
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Civilian uses for super-cavitation have been proposed when the phenomenon was publicised, however there are some major drawbacks. The first is getting the object upto speed to form the cavitation which is over 500mph depending on size.
The amount of energy required to do this without explosive launches is horrendous. As a body increases speed the resistance increases by a square. You cant use explosive charges with human passengers as they would be killed by the g-force.
There is also the problem related to controlling direction, as any attemtp to change vector would require interaction with the surrounding see water massivley increasing drag.
The final problem relating to this is navigating underwater hazards, admittedly the direct course can be calculated but the problems can include whales and debris. When the craft is travelling at 600mph+ and with the turning circle of the moon it may be difficult to identify and move around these objects.
I cant see it ever being used for passenger carrying, maybe a high-speed cargo carrier for expensive goods, but with the immense costs involved it will be uneconomical for anything except colombian exports.
As for changing the nature of modern warfare it might be a could platform for weapons of mass destruction aimed at sea-facilites, with all the detection nets aimed at aerospace delivery, it is concievable the such a munition may get through unscathed.
Just my thoughts
"There is only one way left to escape the alienation of present day society:To retreat ahead of it" Roland Barthes
So turbines are best suited for constant speeds and constant loads, like you will find in transport aircraft. Indeed, they do have high P/W ratios and they do run on a wider range of fuels, which is why the U.S. Army uses them in their main battle tanks.
But if you want to see a truly twisted misapplication of gas turbine technology, check out this motorcycle.
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This is not my sandwich.
One of the theories on what drives whales to mass beachings, other than the possibility of viruses; is underwater noise pollution. Its hard to imagine that an entire pod of whales would succumb to the same infection. Since these highly social(Eusocial?) beings depend on long distance communication through corridors of reflection; isn't this technology just going to drive them MAD?
What kind of impact would this weapon, or mode of travel have on intelligent aquatic life?
As usual, unless you are human; you have no rights at all.
As for military applications, I suppose that escaping radar detection might be one motivation. I don't think that a supercavitating vessel is undetectable by sonar though.
It's interesting how this keeps popping up in the media. Supercavitating projectiles and vessels have been in use for over 40 years. Yet the world hasn't really stopped to take note of this technology the way it would seem to merit. Kind of like the turbine engine (like jet engines used on commercial airliners) when it was used on vehicles -- got great results in the indy 500 in the 1950's but never went into production because the engine had no crankshaft, no valves, no pistons, no transmission -- not much need for lubricants.
You've got a better memory than I do. Guess I should have been taking notes when I was watching the history channel ")
The sinking of the Kursk may have been caused by the premature explosion of one of these "supercavatating torpedoes." This site has some good info.
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
Hey George, get a clue.
The military has ALWAYS been the source of most technological innovation. Everything from gunpowder to 4-wheel drive and non-perishable foods all came from military applications. It was only later that civilian uses were found for the stuff.
And remember, without Beer man would never have gone to the moon.
Kevin
What kind of impact would this weapon, or mode of travel have on intelligent aquatic life?
If whales are intelligent is still subject to discussion, dumb enough to beach themselves anyways. But to answer your first question: Probably no effect at all. Beachings are not limited to this century, but have been recorded in previous centuries. In Europe, one of the main reasons of beachings is whales taking a wrong turn when they reach the UK and swimming into the North Sea. The North Sea is too shallow to support the massive creatures. They get into all kinds of trouble, get ill and beach.
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Catamarans are double hulled sailboats, small difference :)
"Catamaran" is a term used (perhaps loosely) for any twin-hulled vessel e.g. the Incat high speed ferries.
Quck... name one Navy besides USN that has a realaircraft carrier. (It's a very short list)
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
you know.. that splash you used to make in the pool when you were a kid?, now you can reach the bottom faster and harder! yes kids, just fart while jumping and you'll do a super-cavitationnal bomb :)
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Phase 1 - Blow out top of container (explosive bolts - one side goes off mmiliseconds before the other one)
Phase 2 - Helium ballon connected to the bomb self inflates from auxiliary bottles of pressurized gas
Phase 3 - Bomb explodes using a pressure detector or timer (even if the ballon get's tangled on something the timer will take care of making it explode)
Of course this is just an amateur's idea (i can think of a lot of possible problems)
The article post clearly says, "We've done a couple of articles about these weapons before, but Scientific American has good explanations and diagrams and some new information."
Stop being such a karma whore =P.
This issue was raised on the SFCONSIM-L mailing list not too long ago. A number of important points were brought up. Please consult the SFCONSIM-L archives (sorry, I don't have a URL) for the full discussion.
First, supercav torps move at just over the speed of sound in water... which is considerably slower than how sound is in air. They might come up with some incredible numbers, but be forewarned: airborne weapons will still be incredibly faster.
Second, these things are LOUD. Now, they move faster than sound in water, so in that sense they are very sneaky. They'll hit before you know they're there. However, the defense for this is a distributed sonar net and a far-flung destroyer screen -- which is what GOOD navies do to protect their high-importance assets already, i.e. battleships and carriers. The destroyer screen and any roving underwater assets will detect the torpedo peripherally, notify the central asset vessel, upon which appropriate precautions will be taken.
In this sense, the supercav torpedo seems to make a better point-defense weapon when you know the bad guys are firing nuclear torps at you, or you absolutely cannot risk any damage whatsoever to your central asset (such as a carrier conducting flight operations.) A small, supercav torp fired in interception with an enemy torpedo. It could be a simple kinetic impactor, or a small explosive charge to spank the bad guys' torp, enough to generate a small pressure wave which will act like a wall to the enemy torp.
However, cavitation is extremely hard on a body and causes a lot of drag and heat -- supersonic aircraft need to reach very high altitudes to be at all fuel-efficient. Supercav torps don't have that option; at any combat depth they are going to be almost literally plowing through a wall and rendering hideous stressors upon their shells. Add to this their incredible fuel consumption, and you have a frankly short-duration weapon. You won't be able to fire one of these puppies from the other side of the Atlantic, and they're not going to be 'supercruise torpedoes' by any stretch of the imagination.
They're a cool idea, though, if for no other reason than to have the fastest torps in the depths. *rimshot* =)
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Just like jet, prop, and other air-based propulsion technologies are only used to kill people?
Militaries are loss leaders, like racing teams for car manufacturers, but the technology is something that can be applied to anything; it takes a genius to figure it out, and a genius to apply it, but once we do, the 'capitalist' system rewards them for the efficiencies they exploit.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Actually, I think the underlying principles may have merit.
You don't need to dispell the bubble at 1000 yards. You need to destabilize the bubble enough for tail slap to kick in, and you only need it far enough that the explosive warhead, if it detonates, doesn't damage the sub. Even 10 yards may be enough to soak up the explosion.
The same with the ablative armor. It doesn't need to even touch the warhead, because the destroying the bubble would be worse than tail slap; a wall of water rushing at the warhead at 200mph will do all the work you need.
A 5000lb torpedo would impact the water no different than if it were hitting a concrete barrier. The water would soak most of the impact. However, what I don't know is what range is necessary for the water to do all the work for the military.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
The speed of sound is determined by the medium in which you are measuring sound, so that in the air at sea level it can be ~700mph, but underwater it is considerably slower, I think. Regardless, if you read the article, they already have projectiles that travel faster than the speed of sound, traveling at 1.5km/s
So the bullet travels faster than the sound waves it produces, which means that a moving sub cannot 'hear' the bullet with passive sonar, and unless it uses active radar, cannot do a radar scan either (I think active radar can be detected by other subs...)
And besides the main point, the Soviet Squall has already been recorded/suspected to be capable of reaching speeds of 230miles per hour!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Read the article;
They are talking about aluminim oxide powered turboprops traveling at about 200 meters per second, which is about ~400 miles per hour.
They also have been able to launch projectiles at about 1.5kmps, which is over 7 times faster, or about 3200 miles per hour, much much faster than the speed of sound under water or above water.
Meaning that the shock waves it gives off cannot be deteced by sonar!
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Re-read my post and re-read the article, they already have projectiles that travel at 1.5kmps which breaks the sound barrier.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Here, let's spark one.
Super cavitating weapons would travel faster than the speed of sound, so it cannot be detected sonically.
The gas/water interface may be very radar noisy, so that might still work, I don't know.
A sonic attack, akin to a laser, should be able to collapse or deflect super cavitating weapons.
Focus the water waves/sound waves into a beam like weapon in the path of the super cavitating weapon, feed more energy into the bubble than it was designed to handle, and destabilize the cavitating devices capacity to create a stable bubble, forcing tail slap and mis-guides.
Or something as simple as 'ablative' armor, in which surface mounted explosives destroy the bubble and using the shockwave/water as a weapon against super-cavitating devices.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Not ALWAYS, maybe always but not ALWAYS.
Gunpowder was first used in china for fireworks, I could be wrong here but I don't think they used it for warfare until the europeans got a hold of the stuff.
4WD was first built in 1898, when the worlds armies were still on horseback.
Non-perishable foods, how far back do you want to go, the first salted meats, dried fruits etc, hard to discern if they were first used by the military.
Now on to my main point, the reason that the american military 'invents' so much stuff is that they have the money. Where does the majority of american tax payers money go?
The effects of detonating a thermonuclear weapon (as opposed to your run of the mill nuclear weapon) high-above DC would be pretty devastating - depending upon the exact rating of the weapon, weather, topography, etc. you could reasonably expect much of DC to be destroyed. A high-altitude airburst would minimize residual radiation effects, maximize blast damage (greater line of sight area for blast overpressure damage - the primary kill factor for a thermonuclear weapon) - and you'd make quite a mess.
On the other hand, ground-bursting a thermonuclear weapon on a ship in harbour is going to be a LOT less destructive relative to a well-placed airburst. You'll have more secondary radiation issues to deal with (the fireball really HAS to reach ground level, by definition) but blast damage is likely to be relatively localized by the quantity of solid matter it has to pass through/over to knock more stuff over. Remember, blast reflects/wraps on solid objects that don't break - so while the first few buildings would crumble against pressure, the buildings behind them would receive MUCH weaker effects. Detonating a full-scale thermonuclear weapon on a ship really is a bit of a waste because of this!
All of this ignores the strategic lunacy of targeting cities in general, but that's another can of worms. :-)
Lead developer, http://wisptools.net
Depends upon the nuclear weapon. :-) Seriously, a man-portable nuclear weapon could detonate and probably not inflict massive damage beyond the first row of buildings/hard objects surrounding the port. Fallout would be an issue, although weapons designers can minimize this to an extent - certainly not as bad as the apocalyptic impression spread by phrases such as that one. Remember that people in shelter's around Hiroshima ground-zero were relatively unscathed - and train service for the city was functional again in a few hours. Nuclear != Armageddon, just a particular type of weapon.
Highly recommended reading:
S. Glasstone & P. Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, GPO.
Also, US Navy sonar will most certainly detect something appraching underwater at over 250mph (and maybe they could do something about it, or maybe not...) but if a nuke is hidden on a ship then the Navy very well may allow them to dock.
This is a big issue, and one that the Pentagon is familiar with (although navy brass tend to reject the notion that nuclear weapons will ever be used). In a recent wargame in which I participated, red team was able to do a ridiculous amount of infrastructure damage to the US with this very tactic. I'm told that there are systems in R&D for over-the-horizon detection of nuclear weapons... although I have no idea how that would work. For all I know, it's military vapourware.
It should be possible to detect inbound weapons travelling at >250mpg, the question is what to do about it once you've detected it (the exact same problem as with ballistic missiles). Shooting it down requires the existence of a pretty impressive infrastructure designed to stop that particular type of attack - and as you say, probably won't help against the shipping boat packed with explosives.
Lead developer, http://wisptools.net
Catamarans are double hulled sailboats, small difference :)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Deepangel and Supercavitation
I take that back, this is a game for geeks i suppose, heh =).
Before they develop supercavitation too much, i really think they need to work on being able to get DEEPER because we have yet to explore a large portion of the earth simply because its too deep.
If this story is true, I'm sure that the activists were concerned more about the extinction of entire species of whales than about any individual whale.
The human race, on the other hand, is in no danger of extinction by hand grenades.
It's arguable whether a small number of people are indeed more important than a major animal species. The former is certainly more replaceable than the later.
However, they're not so dumb that they smoke cigarettes.
(And to the wales' credit, beaches don't have warning labels from the Surgeon General.)
Supersonic is pretty hard to do underwater - sound travels much faster there.
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