Posted on 10/30/2023 12:08:23 PM PDT by servo1969
Traditional bullets lose their deadly momentum within mere feet when submerged, rendering water a safe haven from gunfire. However, this paradigm is on the brink of an epic shift, thanks to an innovative breakthrough by Norway's DSG.
Harnessing the enigmatic powers of supercavitation, DSG has engineered a projectile that defies the constraints of underwater physics. The CAV-X bullet, with its unique design, breaks through the watery barrier that has long shielded those seeking refuge beneath the surface, striking targets up to 200 feet away, and opening up the possibility for a new breed of underwater soldiers…
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
"Although the results are noted as unofficial, DSG Inc and Edwin Sarkissian have just posted a video of what they are calling a World Record Gel Penetration Test. Using DSG’s specially designed bullets that are designed to supercavitate, the below video shows a 7.62×51 projectile passing through 13 feet of clear ballistic gel before hitting a watermelon."
I think the Russians have had a supercavitating torpedo for some time.
Hard to imagine reducing that tech to a rifle bullet.
Correct. The Russians have had this to some degree for several years. Who knows their degree of success.
Well, I needed this to defend myself from the sharks with lasers...
The torpedoes are referring to how their propellor’s edge cuts through the water.
I’m guessing the bullets supercavitate because their shape allows them to apply higher pressure on a smaller point of attack which then boils off the water in front of them allowing for reduced drag.
Wow! Naval ships around the world were already sitting ducks as it was
The torpedo bodies themselves supercavitate, not just the props. They couldn’t be referring to the props because the supercavitating torpedoes don’t actually have any as they are rocket powered. The VA-111 Shkval torpedo is available on the world arms market, has been available for decades and has a demonstrable top speed in excess of 200 knots for the export models.
learn something new everyday
Pretty good, actually. The supercavitating part works fine and it’s been around since 1977. The problems with it are the relatively short range and lack of effective guidance. On the other hand, while deployed versions carry a very large conventional warhead, it was designed to alternately carry a small nuclear warhead.
The Germans were developing a Western version of it, but apparently that program fizzled out. The US Navy was working on an active torpedo defense system for our carriers, with supercavitating torpedoes as an intended target, but that program was recently cancelled due to nobody being able to make it work.
The unfired bullets resemble the shape of conventional fired lead or jacketed bullets recovered from a forensic water shoot tank.
I am more interested in how it holds center once you come up from underwater.... Is this a super flat shooting round?
Wrong, from what I read, the Russian torp is rocket powered and bleeds off some exhaust to form the bubble shroud.
No propeller.
Not, or barely maneuverable.
It was sluggish but the original concept was basically a giant superfast version of the Long Lance or other WW2 torpedoes. They didn’t have working homing or guidance either, which has the one advantage of not being jammable.
The Shkval 2 reportedly is much more maneuverable, incorporating vectored-thrust nozzles.
Clarification: The Shkval 1 was sluggishly manueverable, but that was part of the design brief. It didn’t matter much as it had no possible guidance system in 1977.
With a nuke warhead, close, as with hand grenades, was good enough.
Yeah, my days of being cleared to read about that stuff were huge fun. The Russians came up with some ingenious stuff.
Defined what “thinking outside the box” came to mean.
Yup. And for the goals it was supposed to achieve in the mission it was intended to perform, apparently the Shkval does spectacularly well. Its primary initial mission was to kill a Western sub that had fired a wire guided torpedo before the torpedo could hit the Russian sub.
It does have some major drawbacks, which is why it’s not terribly popular on the world arms market. If you fire it, it’s extremely easy to see the launch and locate the sub that launched it, for starters, so basically it’s a one way trip for that sub if there’s surface forces around. It’s also enormous, so a sub or ship can carry fewer shots and has to have the oversized tubes to launch it.
Yup. Ivan is not dumb at all, and he sometimes comes up with weird solutions to problems that work more often than you’d think they would.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.