Sonic Torpedo Defense

dylanduck writes "How do you defend a ship against torpedoes? According to the US Navy, you line the hull with loudspeakers and blast the incoming missile with such a devastating blast of sounds that it explodes." When asked about the possible ecological effects on marine life the military had no comment.

Comments

marine life?

[Anonymous Coward]

When asked about the possible ecological effects on marine life the military had no comment.

We care... why? My guess is that a large sonic blast is going to be a lot less harmful than a torpedo detonating. But that's just me.

Re:marine life?

[Carnildo]

Neither a sonic blast nor a torpedo exploding will cause the harm of a ship sinking. Which would you expect to be worse: short-term, localized effects of a pressure wave, or a massive oil slick from ruptured fuel tanks?

Re:marine life?

[ScentCone]

Except in this case you get both.. ( even the summary stated this ).

Sure, but when you do get both, what you don't get is a giant ship sinking, spilling fuel oil or nuclear waste, weapons (er, and potentially thousands of lives) into the ocean. An economical, strategic, tactical, and ecological bargain.

Re:marine life?

[Futaba-chan]

Or, worse, an entire nuclear reactor....

Re:marine life?

[helix_r]

For every time that particular countermeasure is used in combat, it will have been used thousands upon thousands of times in open water testing and war gaming. That really could have an adverse effect on wild life.

It would be very irresponsible to develop this weapon without clear data on what effect it has on wildlife.

Re:marine life?

[raddan]

It would be very irresponsible to develop this weapon without clear data on what effect it has on wildlife.

That's silly. What if we have data that says that our potential weapon obliterates wildlife? Should we toss the idea and move on? Let's look at what we have now: Nuclear weapons obliterate wildlife. Fair enough, nuclear weapons are grossly indiscriminate; toss 'em. Conventional explosives obliterate wildlife. Ok, toss those too. Artillery isn't very green, either. In fact, machine guns aren't particularly enviro-friendly. Get rid of 'em. And let's just forget about a whole platoon of soldiers tramping through the forest, crushing wildlife, shooting guns, and throwing grenades.

I guess we don't have many options left, do we?

I'm most certainly not a big supporter of war. It's fair to say that I am probably a bit of a peace-nik, and rather left-leaning. I'd say I'm rather environmentally-conscious, too; I hang my clothes to dry, my house is full of compact fluorescents, I try to avoid meat and eat a diet that consists primarily of organically-grown vegetables, fruits, and legumes, etc, etc, etc.

But war is a tradeoff. We survive. We harm the environment.

Don't get me wrong. Environmental damage is regrettable, and hopefully avoidable. But despite the fact that our politicians love to cry wolf, I do believe that malice really exists in the world. Sure, we haven't waged a legitimate (aka, just) war in 50 years. But we need to make sure we're prepared for that. If there's one thing that humans are good it, it's killing each other.

Re:marine life?

[Anonymous Coward]

So some whale is more important than the men and women on the subs?

a) Given that there's thousands of men and women on this planet for every whale and no shortage of replacements, who knows?

b) If the people of this world really thought that each man and woman is so damned important, they wouldn't routinely put them in situations where they're ordered to try slaughter each other. Duh. Throughout human history, those men and women's lives have never been as important as the egos and hubris of their leaders, which is to say, not very important at all.

Re:Who cares?

[ptbarnett]

And then theres the ecological damage from a sunken ship (petrol fuel, nuclear reactors possibly) that would also harm the environment long term, plus the explosion itself will be pretty darn loud.

Reading TFA, the concern is not over the effects of sonic blast vs. sinking ship.

The concern is the effect of open-water testing of the sonic blast against simulated or dummy threats in the ocean.

Re:It works because....

[Stripe7]

Does it work in the lab, possibly. Does it work in deployment? Hooked up to a ship that has been out of port for 8 months, corrosion barnacles etc.. will it work at that time? Pretty much do not care about ecological effects, those are mitigated by the far more disastrous effects of a damaged/destroyed ship. What concerns me is the cost of deploying a high maintenance system that becomes ineffective when deployed for long durations.

Re:I'll comment

[The Evil Couch]

you sound like one of my privates bitching about having to carry food, water, batteries and nightvision for a day mission.

the principle behind this tech is the same as most when it comes to military planning: It's better to have it and not need it, than it is to need it and not have it.

Re:Easy counter measures, not worth killing whales

[John Hasler]

> This is like shooting down missles with lasers; just make a shiny
> missile and the light bounces off without damaging it.

Utterly ineffective. At intensities high enough to be useful the electric field of the laser pulse rips electrons out of the surface of the target. This creates a plasma which absorbs more energy from the pulse, explodes, and blows a piece out of the surface. It makes no difference at all what material the target is made of or how it is polished. This effect has been experimentally verified.

It's also how LASIX works.

> You can probably render the sound blast torpedo killer worthless
> just by skinning the torpedos in cheap appropriately sound
> absorbing material. Perhaps a derivative of foam or rubber.

Failed freshman physics, did you?

On the other hand

[davmoo]

I bet those of you making the "but what about the animals" comments would care less about the animals if you had friends or relatives serving on a ship that could be a torpedo target.

I love animals, I'm all for ecology and protecting wildlife, etc etc. I own a big chunk of land, and I don't cut a bush or move a bolder without thinking about what it might do to the animals...and 99 percent of the time, I let the animals win. But when the choices are limited to 'humans live but animals die' and 'humans die but animals live', I'll take choice number one every time, and with no regrets what so ever.

Re:It works because....

[Anonymous Luddite]

>> barnacles etc..

Doesn't the U.S. Navy paint all its' hulls with a really nasty paint to kill off/prevent encrustation? If my faded memory serves it was a cost saver - smooth hulls require less power to go the same speed...

Re:This is brilliant.

[Detritus]

If you are maneuvering at flank speed with active sonar, trying to dodge an incoming torpedo, it's safe to say that stealth is not one of your hallmarks.

[OT] Nuclear powered surface ships

[RetiredMidn]

The last of the non-carrier surface ships to have a reactor was a destroyer or cruiser (whichever is larger) and either has been or is being decomisioned.

I was about to post that there were only two nuclear powered non-carrier surface ships in the Navy (the two my father helped build), but my favorite source indicates there were nine nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers (CGN's), the last of which were decommissioned in 1998.

IIRC, the US built one proof-of-concept nuclear-powered merchant ship (the Savannah) in the 60's, and the Soviet Union built at least one nuclear-powered ice-breaker.

Slashdot: a convenient dumping ground for the trivia that clutters our minds...

P.S. I have to add that pausing to contemplate environmentally safe warfare is laughable; this is a classic case of wanting to treat the symptom instead of the disease.