NationStates Jolt Archive

I've been developing the super-cavitating torpedo: a rocket-propelled weapon that speeds through the water enveloped in a frictionless air bubble. It can be outfitted with conventional explosivies, nuclear tips, infared and other cameras, or nothing at all. Based on the Russian "Shkval (Squall)" prototype, the nose of the torpedo ejects a oxygen-based gas that drastically cuts friction, propelling it to 230 miles per hour. 4 small fins reach out from the torpedo, through the air bubble, to steer through the air and water.

Stats:
5000 lbs.
230 mph.
20 mile range

Price:
$100,000 each

Been there, done that. Supercavs are common occurences.

I wonder, will anyone sell anything other than weapons on these forums?

I wonder, will anyone sell anything other than weapons on these forums?

yeah, i've seen videogames sold before

I wonder, will anyone sell anything other than weapons on these forums?

Yeah I'm selling duvets. Does anyone want one?

I wonder, will anyone sell anything other than weapons on these forums?

Want to buy a bridge? :-)

Lesse.... I've got some old chia-pets for sale. :P

Actually, I'm interested in that bridge. Could you give me the specifications on its architecture? Consul Riverra has plans to connect all the Hadulan islands via a massive bridge network. Or we could try our hand at a "chunnel" like structure.

I sell cheese on the International Mall anarchy board.

I laugh at supercavs. There is no way to guide them. Sound, waves, and other frequency items do not cross the two layers easily. SONAR is useless as sound doesn't enter into the super-cav bubble. Same goes for radio. You can't trail a wire at that speed. A SUPERCAV is like a Hydra rocket. You fire and it goes at what you aim for. If what you aim for moves then you are SOOL.

I laugh at supercavs. There is no way to guide them. Sound, waves, and other frequency items do not cross the two layers easily. SONAR is useless as sound doesn't enter into the super-cav bubble. Same goes for radio. You can't trail a wire at that speed. A SUPERCAV is like a Hydra rocket. You fire and it goes at what you aim for. If what you aim for moves then you are SOOL.

Of course you can trail a wire at that speed - wire guided antitank missiles trail wires at supersonic speeds! It doesn't matter that the wire is out of the bubble as it isn't moving, just being unspooled.

You trail the supercav bubble back from the vibrator in the nose, and you can put the sensory apparatus in the nose ahead of the vibrator as long as it isn't too big.

The RL latest Russian supercav is reputed to have two modes. In mode 1 it's behaving like an unguided missile. In mode 2 it drops the bubble which forces it to slow down and has a quick look at where the target is. This would allow it to use active sonar to track the target as it isn't moving at enormous speed while it's using it.

Even with the full speed ahead "unguided" ones, you're not aiming at where the target is at launch but a prediction of where the target will be when the torpedo arrives. So to miss, the target has to change its manner of motion sharply enough to thwart that prediction.

Good tactics may be good enough to force a miss if the torpedo is launched from far enough away. However I tend to use them from 1-2 miles away, giving a journey time of 10-20 seconds. That's not enough time for the crew of a submarine to react, they're not fighter aircraft that can manage 9g turns!

I laugh at supercavs. There is no way to guide them. Sound, waves, and other frequency items do not cross the two layers easily. SONAR is useless as sound doesn't enter into the super-cav bubble. Same goes for radio. You can't trail a wire at that speed. A SUPERCAV is like a Hydra rocket. You fire and it goes at what you aim for. If what you aim for moves then you are SOOL.

Oh, right, so the TOW missile is a godmod? Because it's wire guided, and it goes even faster!

Yeah. OK.

Anti-tank missiles don't exactly fly through a medium such as water. No in fact they fly through air. Water offers quite a bit more resistance than air the last time I checked. These types of weapons are purly defensive, originally meant to be fired in the direction of an incomming torpedo, a vengeance weapon. The first Russian model featured a nuclear warhead that would have devestated not only the enemy sub but the launching sub. They have not been adopted by the US simply because an ADCAP is so much more capable than a supercav. The US took a look at them in 50s - 60s and decided against them.

[The US was also thinking about aircars and surface-to-orbit mass drivers in that time-span. Having a thinktank look at the possibility of manufacturing such things is different from seriously contemplating it. The technology to manufacture supercavs didn't exist back then and the Russian 80s version is crude. You can in fact put SONAR or LIDAR into a supercav because the gas vents that expand and stabalize the bubble are several inches aft of the nose.]

IIRC I read that the Russians actually had the capability in the very late 60s and early 70s, meaning that the technology was, in fact there. Though the original Russian weapon had a nuclear warhead. It was, like I said, meant to be fired in the direction of an incoming torpedo as a vengeance weapon.

I sell cheese on the International Mall anarchy board.
I hear so much about it. What is the International Mall?