NationStates Jolt Archive

The Federal Navy unveils new weapon

Naval warfare scientists reveal the existence of an ultra-fast, rocket-powered, supercavitational torpedo, stating it has been in use by the Federal Navy for over a year now.

STROMBURG, WINGARDE.- In a press conference last night in the Stromburg Convention Center, Navy officials presented the SC-1 Sea Drake. Exploiting the phenomenon of cavitation through supercavitation, the torpedo can reach speeds of over 475 knots underwater, something which would've been certainly unthinkable 20 years ago. This technology has tremendous potential to completely reshape sea warfare in the coming decades.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/ShadowB/Wingarde/sc1-lg.jpg
The Sea Drake and supercavitation in action.

Cavitation, generated by fast moving objects with sharp edges such as propellers, creates bubbles that damage vessels and equipment by imploding when pressure falls fast enough. In addition, these small implosions produce noise which can be deadly in some situations of submarine combat. On the other hand, supercavitation exploits these bubbles in order to create a single, larger, renewable bubble, or 'supercavitational bubble', which completely envelops the vessel. This way, the object doesn't come into direct contact with the water and effectively travels within a bubble of air, drastically reducing the drag normally caused by water and allowing safe underwater movement at high speeds.

The cavitator is the key component of the torpedo which controls supercavitation. At the breakthrough speed, 100 knots, the pressure at the tip of the weapon drops sharply, and starts changing the water coming into contact with it from its liquid form to a gaseous one. The supercavitational bubble starts forming and gradually envelops the whole SC-1. The cavitator works as a stabilizer that prevents the loss of control over this phenomenon. The Sea Drake also uses its own fumes from the rocket engines through outlets located near the nose of the torpedo in order to enlarge the bubble to ensure complete envelopment. Dr. Gunther Salzmann expresses his opinion about this revolutionary technology.

"It's simply amazing to realize the wide array of uses supercavitation has to offer after proper research. With such generous funding, we can safely expect considerable breakthroughs on a yearly basis. And not just in the weapons department; just imagine ships travelling at 200 knots, or even more! The possibilities are infinite!"


OOC: Completely possible by MT standards!

(In German)
http://www.prosieben.de/lifestyle_magazine/www/artikel/13387/
http://www.prosieben.de/lifestyle_magazine/www/themenarchiv/themen_1_n/13595/

Russian VA-111 Shkval underwater rocket
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/shkval.htm

Letter to Federal Navy from the Federated Association of Dienstadi Scientist

Greetings. We have recently read a news article and several leaked government documents that point towards the release to weapons revolving around the Soviet technology of SuperCavitation. We had our own run in with super caviation a while ago, and we decided to drop the technology except for a single torpedo for many aspects. These aspects include the fact that super cavitation on ships is frankly impossible until we design some sort of superalloy, or armor composition, that can handle both the air friction and the water pressure of moving at two hundred knots in the surface, or for submarines, simple pressure and counter-force issues submerged. For a torpedo, or a missile, it's completely difference, since the design and size of both lend themselves to being capable of taking said pressures and forces, making super cavitation possible for them.

You would think that we would just allow you to test and fail, however, we have our merits, and frankly, we wish to warn several customers of the super cavitation technology of the faults within the concept.

Other such faults is the fact that items that super cavitate are going so fast that they can't turn without slowing down, or else they will tear, and this remains the same for objects of all sizes, including torpedoes. With modern ASHUM guns this makes the technology largely obsolete, even before it was officially released. Ergo, although super cavitation is truly an interesting application, it's truly not worth to put the money into designing weapons that incorporate. If you are bent on it, we suggest you merely buy super cavitating products from foreign military companies.

Nonetheless, thank you for listening to what we had to say.

Super-cavitating torpedoes cannot be guided, because of two factors:

A. They make so much sound that they cannot use sonar themselves.
B. They cannot use a guidance cable from the sub because the forces involved with such high speeds would cut the cable.