Question About Firing Torpedos

[ESOG]

Im watching a documentary about naval battle and these two ships both fired torpedos at one another and both missed. So how far do the torpedos go? And what happens when they stop propelling? Are they propelled by its own function? Am i right in saying no, they are launched by the ship, so whats the range?
And when they stop propelling do they just sink? And explode? If not, how many torpedos do you think are just sitting on the ocean floor?

[MikeT66]

This, perhaps, should be asked here... a better chance of being answered!
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[mike74]

Doesn't answer any of your questions, but this is my favourite torpedo story...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/introducing...

[soad]

https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-torpedoes-th...

[Wrathalanche]

Torpedoes are self propelling once launched, and will sink when lost. Some Navies have torpedo recovery equipment - we supply lifting equipment that can be operated by an ROV and a winch to bring them back to the surface. Its basically a set of pipe clamps on a lifting wire. They seem to do torpedo recovery exercises every couple of months so they do get some use.

[Ayahuasca]

mike74 said:

Doesn't answer any of your questions, but this is my favourite torpedo story...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/introducing...

Grim.

Wasn’t the Kursk sunk by its own torpedo too?

[AshVX220]

Ayahuasca said:

mike74 said:

Doesn't answer any of your questions, but this is my favourite torpedo story...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/introducing...

Grim.

Wasn’t the Kursk sunk by its own torpedo too?

I thought Kursk was sunk when a torpedo exploded in the torpedo room, so kind of yes and kind of no (if you meant it was sunk by one it fired).

[captain_cynic]

ESOG said:

Im watching a documentary about naval battle and these two ships both fired torpedos at one another and both missed. So how far do the torpedos go? And what happens when they stop propelling? Are they propelled by its own function? Am i right in saying no, they are launched by the ship, so whats the range?
And when they stop propelling do they just sink? And explode? If not, how many torpedos do you think are just sitting on the ocean floor?

Torpedoes are self propelling, so they have an internal engine and fuel supply. So if they miss they can keep going until they run out of fuel and then sink as they're not buoyant enough to float to the surface.

Some torpedoes, particularly the Mark 48 used on submarines by the US and others are wire guided, meaning a wire spools out between the torpedo and the submarine so they can be remote guided and remote detonated.

Supercavitation is a relatively new invention, it works by creating a bubble of air around the object (a torpedo in this case) reducing friction, making the object much faster.

[AshVX220]

One of my great uncles was on the Arctic Convoys and he relayed to me about a torpedo launch that suffered a frozen rudder on launch and came straight back round and hit the ship.

[TEKNOPUG]

AshVX220 said:

Ayahuasca said:

mike74 said:

Doesn't answer any of your questions, but this is my favourite torpedo story...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/introducing...

Grim.

Wasn’t the Kursk sunk by its own torpedo too?

I thought Kursk was sunk when a torpedo exploded in the torpedo room, so kind of yes and kind of no (if you meant it was sunk by one it fired).

They use hydrogen peroxide as the fuel/oxygen source for the torpedo engines. Hydrogen peroxide becomes explosive when it comes into contact with a catalyst, such as organic compounds or fire.

[anonymous-user]

Ignoring the supercavitation technology as I wasn't involved in that, but in the 80s I worked on the development of the navy's heavyweight torpedo.

They carried their own fuel and own oxidising agent, so could travel fast and for a significant amount of time.

They didn't just get fired and go in a straight line they have a homing system so will keep looking for the target.

They also have multiple modes of destroying their targets beyond just slamming into them, but not sure what is classified these days so won't say any more

[citizensm1th]

I think they prefer to explode them under the keel these days rather than rely on hitting the side of ships,

It is all about the hydraulic principle

[williamp]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Zahn#U-56

Ww2 would have been very different had german torpedos worked properly in 1939...

[Ayahuasca]

citizensm1th said:

I think they prefer to explode them under the keel these days rather than rely on hitting the side of ships,

It is all about the hydraulic principle

I believe they explode under the keel, creating a huge bubble of gas, so the ship is no longer supported by water, so it cannot support its own weight and breaks its back.

[citizensm1th]

Ayahuasca said:

citizensm1th said:

I think they prefer to explode them under the keel these days rather than rely on hitting the side of ships,

It is all about the hydraulic principle

I believe they explode under the keel, creating a huge bubble of gas, so the ship is no longer supported by water, so it cannot support its own weight and breaks its back.

yep that is one way they also detonate at slightly greater distance to induce a shock effect that literally shakes the ship apart, so instead of one hole to deal with you have hundreds of smaller sources of flooding and damage to machinery pumps and engines etc this is useful with larger ships where the gas bubble tech is less effective

you can also configure them to induce a water jet which will punch its way through the ship ,it is like when you drop a big rock into deep water after the rock has entered the water you get a column of water shooting up into the air

the effects of explosives in water is quite interesting

[Phud]

There are many forms of homing used as well, some of them are scary weapons.

The speed they get, just a normal torpedo are really really fast, for a longer time than one thinks too

[citizensm1th]

Phud said:

There are many forms of homing used as well, some of them are scary weapons.

The speed they get, just a normal torpedo are really really fast, for a longer time than one thinks too

If the quoted speed for spearfish is correct it is very impressive

[Wacky Racer]

If these type of torpedos are so effective, why do countries spend hundreds of millions of pounds launching ships that can be sunk so easily with modern technology.

By the end of WW2 the Battleship was out of date.

[Phud]

oh it does what is quoted +

[Steve_D]

I would not like to be anywhere near one.
In a sea trial a torpedo was launched from a submarine to hunt another sub. The target was at speed but a fixed depth. The torpedo was programmed not to change depth and to maintain a depth a little deeper than the target.
It found the target but missed because it was too deep but passed directly below. It turned around and reacquired the target 7 times before it ran out of puff.

Bugger being the target.

Steve