Re: Supercavitating Torpedoes

"surfbored" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > Will supercavitating torpedoes have much effect on naval warfare?
> > Scientific American came up with the possibility of underwater cruise
> > missiles using the technology in this article:
> >
> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000CA29B-0EA6-1C70-84A9809EC588EF
> 21&pageNumber=1&catID=2
> > Will this lead to an underwater Aegis ship? Affect carrier operations?
> > Any ideas?
> 
> 
> Instead of inventing exotic guidance systems, what about deploying
> supercavitating torpedoes as mines?  The torp/mine would use a passive sonar
> to determine a target's course and speed, then all it would have to do is
> calculate an intercept solution and point itself on the correct bearing
> before lighting off its motor.   Given the torpedo's high speed, the target
> ship would not have time to make an evasive turn.  In fact, the bigger (and
> slower-turning) the target, the greater the effective radius of the "mine".

   Could effective defenses be put in place to counter the torpedoes.
I realize the most effective defense is to hit the launch platforms
before they fire, but to use this mine example,if you can't get the
launch platform, could ships end up with an underwater CIWS, using
sonar and, perhaps, anti-torpedo rockets (supercavitating or not) to
try to counter this threat. A Shkval goes 100 m/s, less than ten
percent of the speed of sound in water so if attacks a target 1 km
away, it would take one second for its sound to reach the target,
leaving 9 seconds for a response. This should be enough time to slave
a turret to the bearing and generate a target solution.