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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (33363)	8/30/2000 12:42:31 PM
From: Tom Clarke	Respond to of 769667

sunday-times.co.uk I read somewhere else that there were/are cruise missiles on that sub. The Russians deny that, of course.

To: greenspirit who wrote (33363)	8/30/2000 2:08:38 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Michael, I copied this from another board where some sub vets have been discussing this for the last week. From Americanski Popular Mechanic Magazinski: popularmechanics.com vaq34.com Great explination: newscientist.com Right from the Commies mouth...' rcaam.milparade.ru There is a listing in the 1999-2000 Edition of Jane's Fighting Ships (p. 556) under "Torpedoes" in the Russian Navy section, for a weapon called the Shkval (Russian for "Squall",). The weapon has a diameter of 53cm (one of the standard diameters for Russian submarine torpedo tubes (the other being 65 cm), equivalent to the 533mm (21 inch) tubes on US and UK submarines). Length is 8 meters, which puts it in the same general size range as many more conventional antiship torpedoes. It is apparently effective versus both submarines and surface ships. It is gyro-guided (apparently much like the torpedoes familiar to us from the WWII movies), but the designers apparently felt that such a system couldn't be distracted by decoys, and besides, at a speed of 200 knots (no typo -- that is 200 knots), the target will have little time for evasive maneuvers... It is reportedly boosted to this speed by rocket propulsion (but, unlike the USN's old SUBROC, remains underwater rather than flying through the air to splash down near the target). Range is 10 km, which means I'm not sure I'd want to be aboard the firing vessel, as the warhead is listed as "Nuclear"! (This sounds a little like the USN's old Mk-45 ASTOR nuclear torpedo -- since withdrawn from service -- which was rumored to have a Kill Probability of 2.0 (Target vessel _and_ firing vessel)!) It undoubtedly employs a decent run-to-enable before the warhead can arm, but still, the blast effects will be considerable, even 10 km away... As far as the air-bubble lubrication, this sounds like it might be possible... It would be noisy, but, when the rocket engine lights off, they'll hear this beast clear back in Pearl Harbor and Vladivostok, anyway! The time-frame sounds about right, too... IIRC, there was something of a flap in Jane's Defence Weekly in mid-1995 concerning this "super torpedo", and a Russian source stated that it had actually been introduced a couple of years before, and was just now being publicized. It's very possible only three were built before the Russian Government decided to quit paying the engineers, but, if the Special K get hold of these things... Watch out! Remember this guy? EDMOND POPE UPDATE. (Pope is the American businessman and retired US Navy officer arrested in Moscow on April 5th and charged with espionage). On 20 April, FSB revealed that Pope was seeking plans for a new kind of underwater missile fired by submarines which can reportedly achieve speeds of up to 100 meters per second. Pope is currently confined in Lefortovo prison. Western experts believe the missile to be the most effective submarine weapon available. This is a misnomer since it is not a question of a missile but a torpedo which travels twice as fast as anything the West has. Western intelligence has been seeking it for several years and it's called "Shkval" (squall; see "Torpedoes - Double Speed with Porous Second Skin", INT, n. 18 7). What is known is that it produces a high-speed and high-pressure stream of bubbles from its nose and skin which coat the torpedo in a thin layer of gas and allows it to travel at extremely high speeds, for an object in the water. Apparently its propulsion system is rocket-based -- not propeller-driven -- and guidance is a problem, particularly at 360 kph underwater. Pope cannot be defended in any way as a scientist or businessman since the technology has only military applications (at present) and, indeed, strategic military applications. In short, doing what Pope was doing, without diplomatic cover, was extremely dangerous, but the target was extremely important. The fact that the US embassy in Moscow released his name may be an indication that someone in Washington is going to "cover" Pope. Otherwise, he may spend a long time in prison. (Source, Intelligence, N. 116, 1 May 2000, p. 9, blythe.org