Posted on 10/27/2016 5:49:46 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
In early October, Russian military analysts reported that a group of designers working for the navy were completing work on a completely new high-speed torpedo. The widely-known Shkval (“Squall”) torpedo, which for a long time was a global leader in terms of speed and the destructive force of its warhead, will be replaced by a new torpedo, called Khishchnik (“Predator”).
No specific information is available yet on what the new torpedo is like and what its technical characteristics are: The project is classified. It is only known that it is being developed by the Elektropribor design bureau, which specializes in aviation technology.
The connection is not accidental – after all, what is being developed is not just a torpedo but what is in effect an underwater missile whose engine has a lot in common with its airborne equivalents. One thing is certain: In terms of its main specifications, the Khishchnik will exceed its famous predecessor, the Shkval.
Underwater record breaker
The project brief to develop a fundamentally new torpedo capable of carrying a nuclear warhead was issued in the USSR back in the 1970s. The resulting Shkval torpedo was accepted into service in 1977 and, despite its venerable age, remains the world’s record breaker among underwater projectiles.
The Shkval torpedo / Source: Anatoly Sokolov / Oruzhie Rossii
An ordinary torpedo has a speed of no more than 140 kilometers per hour (87 mph), which allows a ship targeted by it to maneuver and avoid being hit. The Shkval, however, leaves the enemy practically no chance: Its speed is nearly three times the speed of a standard torpedo. This means that a targeted ship has just a third of the standard time for maneuver. In real naval combat that means a nearly inevitable hit.
The secret of the Shkval’s speed is in its special engine, which runs on solid fuel. While an ordinary torpedo gains speed with the help of spinning propellers, the Shkval uses supercavitation. A special design of its engine makes it possible to achieve a unique physical effect, whereby a gas bubble forms around the moving torpedo. That allows the projectile to move virtually in a vacuum, minimizing drag.
The Shkval torpedo remains one of the top-secret Russian military designs. Although it has been in operation for nearly 40 years, some of its technical characteristics continue to be classified. It is therefore not surprising that it was Shkval-related documents that featured in an early 2000s spy scandal involving U.S. businessman Edmond Pope.
That said, most of the attempts to replicate this torpedo abroad have failed. It was only in 2005 that the German Navy received an underwater rocket with specifications close to those of the Shkval, though even then it failed to beat its Russian equivalent in terms of speed.
Cold War legacy in the 21st century
Like many other military designs that originated in the Cold War, the Shkval has outlived the Soviet-U.S. global confrontation. It was originally created as a Soviet response to the development of U.S. naval air defense. Soviet aviation was no match for the powerful American navy and reactive torpedoes emerged as a know-how aimed to make up for that deficiency. As an effective anti-naval weapon, the Shkval remains popular still. Back in 1992, Russian designers developed a dedicated export version of the torpedo. This is somewhat inferior to the original in terms of its range and speed but is still superior to foreign equivalents.
And yet the Shkval has considerable potential for improvement. It has a relatively short firing range and the depth capability of its carrier is limited. This makes a Shkval-enabled submarine susceptible to active enemy defense. A torpedo traveling at a high speed generates noise that makes it easy to detect it. Finally, it does not have a homing guidance system.
One can assume that all these considerations were taken into account in the development of the Khishchnik. After all, things that were technically impossible 40 years are quite achievable today.
Chi-Ping
“The Shkval torpedo remains one of the top-secret Russian military designs.”
Yes there is a picture of it
If history proves anything at all, it’s that governments are always fighting the last war.
World War III, now in its twentieth year, is a fight of ideologies, and the West is losing. Badly.
Actually, if I wanted a carrier killer, it would be one like the Chinese are supposed to have, OR a long range skimmer drone that drops trou (wings) and becomes a superfast torpedo in the end game totally switching from detection, positioning and targeting to a completely different mode.
If it is at all nuke capable, the carrier would be dead.
My question is why we don’t already have such a weapon?
Too bad our corrupt political machine decided to ignore the Constitution.
Yeah, but we've got trans-gender bathrooms now so every thing's cool...OK?
why would we want a short range non-homing noisy torp when we have the Mk48 ADCAP?
That right there is a John Deere tater digger.
Designing? Bet they already have it.
It looks like the first three bells produce a robust gas jacket around the torpedo, and the fourth one (the front one) can be tilted for steering, like the swash plate in a helicopter rotor. You can see one of two actuating rods, the other is blocked from view.
The front one must produce an intentional asymmetry in the gas jacket, allowing for some directional control. It’s probably not very much but — at the speeds that thing is supposed to move — you wouldn’t need very much.
That’s it then, cancel every future carrier build project. Lets go home. The Navy is finished. Obsolete. Let drones take care of us. /sarc
Unless it is nuclear tipped, one torpedo is not gong to kill a 95,000 tonne CVN. If in the future navies are firing nuclear weapons at each other then most all of the cities of the earth would be nuclear waste lands. So who cares?
That’s EXACTLY what I was thinking!
A rocket-boosted, super-cavitating torpedo.
I didn’t mean to imply that it was a one-shot/one-kill torpedo, but that multiple torpedoes would be able to strike the carrier before it or its escorts could react and, if not sinking it outright, would so badly damage it to make it unfit for combat operations.
FReeper Jeff Head wrote a novel about our future war with China.
In it, China developed super fast torpedoes that loitered and laid in wait.
When we developed countermeasures, the Chinese reprogrammed their torpedoes to go jump out of the water at the last second, go airborne, and hit from above.
I just referenced Dragon’s Fury!
Good call!
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