10 of these coming at a carrier group & firing 300km/h Russian torpedos?
Posted on 04/06/2010 12:45:41 PM PDT by chuck_the_tv_out
After laying hands on the record-breaking 61.5 mph speedboat, built for a British sporting adventurer, the Iranian navy plans to arm it with the reputedly fastest torpedo in the world, the Russian-designed Shkval (Squall), which moves at speeds of 360 kph. debkafile's military sources report Tehran is aiming for a seaborne weapon able to sink a US carrier in the Persian Gulf. Blogs tracking the international weapons trade and the Financial Times reported Monday, April 5, that after purchasing the Bladerunner 51 powerboat from a Florida boatyard in 2005, the British sailor Neil McGrigor smashed the Italian-held record for the fastest circumnavigation of Britain in 27 hours 10 minutes.
Advertised for sale next year, the British government blocked it its purchase by Iran, which finally managed to purchase it under cover through South African agents in the face of an international embargo. In Jan 2009, US special forces stood ready to intercept the Iranian merchant vessel carrying it to the Revolutionary Guards headquarters in Bandar Abbas, but the operation was called off for some unknown reason.
The deputy commander of the IRGC, Gen. Ali Fadavi has boasted that no warship can escape from the Shkval torpedo whose speed makes it almost impossible for radar to pick up. This claim has not been tested, but the US Persian Gulf naval command is concerned that the Iranians are outfitting the former Bladerunner 51 to lead the Guards navy's fleet of fast boats in attacks on the big American warships and aircraft carriers deployed in these waters. It is feared that big warships may prove vulnerable to "swarming tactics by small boats," a hypothesis never yet demonstrated in practice. US naval experts stress that in recent US naval exercises in the Persian Gulf, small boats, however fast, trying to attack large warships, were beaten down and destroyed by the helicopters mounted on the ships' decks. They stressed that the powerboats were no match for military helicopters.
At the same time, these experts admit that a surprise hit-and-run operation by an armed powerboat able to approach a warship undetected could be extremely damaging. As one American source pointed out, although the US failure to keep Iran from laying hands on the record-breaking vessel, of which only two have been built, despite a four-year head start, bodes ill for the sanctions Washington is working so hard to get implemented against Iran. Tehran outwitted the world in the case of Bladerunner 51 and runs rings around the world powers and the last three rounds of international sanctions. Monday, The Wall Street Journal revealed the entire extent of the US freeze on Iranian assets as no more than $43 m, which is roughly a quarter of Iran's per day oil revenue, scarcely a bump on the road of Tehran's advance towards a nuclear weapon capacity.
The penalties the Obama administration is considering for the next round of sanctions rest heavily on the same old assets freeze rather than measures that really bite. While US intelligence and the Vienna-based nuclear watchdog claim Iran has encountered problems in running the centrifuges for enriching uranium, Tehran was revealed two days ago as beating former sanctions by cunningly acquiring French-made valves and vacuum gauges for uranium enrichment through a phony Chinese firm. An unregistered Iranian firm, Javedan Mehr Toos, made the illegal purchase through the unregistered Chinese-based Zheijiang Ouhai Trade Corp from the French maker KD Valves-Descote, which was formerly owned by the US conglomerate Tyco International.
If the Iranians sank one of our carriers with one of these we would nuke Tehran so fast ... wait ... what nukes are off the table?
Some torpedoes, such as the Russian VA-111 Shkval, the Iranian Hoot and the proposed German Unterwasserlaufkörper / Barracuda,[12] use supercavitation to increase their speed to over 200 knots (370 km/h); the maximum speed of torpedoes which do not use supercavitation, such as the American Mark 48 and British Spearfish, is well under 100 kn (120 mph; 190 km/h), although figures are not always supplied.
http://www.diehl-bgt-defence.de/index.php?id=550&L=1
Don’t worry. They’ll be protected by Zero’s “tough” sanctions that “bite.” Really.
“Tehran is aiming for a seaborne weapon able to sink a US carrier in the Persian Gulf.”
You mean the ones without escorts?
And no aircraft.
Sounds like a little fun skeet shooting with a quad 50
The problem with these torps is that when fired they give the exact position of the sub. Several seconds later the sub gets hit with one of our missiles and disappears in the deep.
It is the suicide round.
That might bother a Russian on a sub; it won't bother an Iranian in a speedboat.
A speedboat will be tracked from many miles. Easy pickings. This is not WWII.
I suspect our Navy already has a sound signature on the engine and prop.
the boat is a little faster than they said:
“with a top speed in excess of 65 knots (74 mph)”
http://www.icemarine.com/spec/51_spec.htm
The Shkval weighs (masses?) 2700 kg. That is a pretty heavy load even for a big speedboat. And that doesn’t include the launch mechanism. I have my doubts about the Iranians getting full performance out of the boat.
The modern version of the Shkval has range of round 7,000 m to 13,000 m. Older versions could only fire 2,000 m. (Hmmmm. I wonder which they have?)
So they gotta get close (max range is 13 km). And they ain’t gonna be goin’ 60 knots.
I’m not saying they can’t do it. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t sign up for it.
Basically, it just expands the keep out distance for the Persian Navy, iow.
6,000 pounds for shkval? Plus launching equipment?
The boat weighs in at 26,000 lbs.
2,000 horse power.
It won’t even plane. It’ll pilot like a pig.
It was Schvals that cooked off in the Kursk.
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.