Posted on 04/03/2007 10:24:52 AM PDT by Dacb
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Office (DARPA) has initiated an underwater express program to "demonstrate stable and controllable high‑speed underwater transport through supercavitation. The intent is to determine the feasibility for supercavitation technology to enable a new class of high‑speed underwater craft for future littoral missions that could involve the transport of high‑value cargo and/or small units of personnel. The program will investigate and resolve critical technological issues associated with the physics of supercavitation and will culminate in a credible demonstration a significant scale to prove that a supercavitating underwater craft is controllable at speeds up to 100 knots."
Such a 100-knot (115 miles-per-hour) undersea craft would be more than twice as the world's fastest submarine, the Soviet-built Project 661 (NATO code-name Papa). That submarine, completed in 1969, was armed with ten Amethyst anti-ship missiles (NATO designation SS-N-7) plus torpedoes. Twin reactors and twin shafts drove the Papa at 44.7 knots on trials--the fastest ever traveled by a manned underwater vehicle. She subsequently went slightly faster in service.
A book published in 1988 offered some tantalizing glimpses into the future thinking of the Soviet Navy's leadership. The Navy: Its Role, Prospects for Development and Employment written by three naval officers with a foreword by Admiral Sergey G. Gorshkov, the long-time head of the Soviet Navy (who died the year that the book was published), predicted "in the near future" the Soviet Union would develop submarines with 50 to 60 knot speeds, and more than 100 knots in the long term.
The U.S. Seawolf (SSN 21) class is credited with being the fastest U.S. nuclear submarine. While the top speed of the two Seawolf attack submarines is classified, when they were under construction the Chief of Naval Operations said that they would have an underwater speed of 35 knots.
The current DARPA underwater express program is based on the concept of supercavitation. This involves surrounding an object with a bubble of gas that allows it to travel at high speed by reducing contact with the surrounding water and hence reducing drag. The Soviet-developed VA-111 Shkvall (squall) torpedo is the best known use of this technology; that rocket-propelled torpedo has an underwater speed of about 200 knots.
In the United States the primary DARPA contracts for the "100-knot submarine" have been awarded to General Dynamics/Electric Boat, Northrop Grumman, New Systems Tech, and the University of Pennsylvania 's Applied Physics Laboratory.
Make sure you put in the whale avoidance system so Greenpeace and Peta doesn’t get their knickers in a twist.
Supersonic cavitating subs?
It would have to be noisy as hell, but if they were depth charging you, getting away at 100 knots would be a good trick to pull out of the bag.
When supercavitating, you may be fast but you won’t be quiet.
Not counting the 200 knott Russian torpedo, what sorts of speeds are most subs’ enemies (standard torpedos, destroyers, etc.) operating at?
It's true! I read it on the Internet!
When are we gonna see commercial submarine transports, for regular shipping, fuel, etc? I always thought that would be cool.
I never cared for that show. UN in charge of the world?
30 - 40 knots
Above 40 knots in a big ship is flying.
Torpedos can go 50-60 knots but not forever.
100 Knots is racing boat speeds.
That said, high speed covert transit through relatively well charted and operationally safe areas is probably useful.
Thank you. That really puts things in perspective for me.
So much for silence.
Quiet’s out a well as navigation. I suspect this is a “dash” system; when speed, and only speed, is your friend.
You had better have a heck of a lot of open sea between you and where you’re going.
“what sorts of speeds are most subs’ enemies (standard torpedos, destroyers, etc.) operating at?”
The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, had a top speed capability of 60 knots or better, though this was “classified” information at the time. In one of the space flight capsule recovery operations the capsule came down 60 nautical miles away from the Enterprise, the closest surface ship to the landing - It was announced that the Enterprise would be on site to make the recovery in an hour, and it was...60 knots to accomplish that. I had that speed capability confirmed from other sources about that same time.
For more information, type in DARPA+LOKI and see what you get.
“A manned underwater craft anologous to a modern Fighter aircraft etc....”
And quite a budget too.
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