Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Re: A NASTY attack sub idea
Message-ID: <7404@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Jun 89 03:23:48 GMT
References: <7101@cbnews.ATT.COM> <7260@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego
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From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy)

In article <7260@cbnews.ATT.COM> esco@tank.uchicago.edu (ross paul weiner) writes:
>I remember hearing a rumour that the torpedoes on a sub can get enthusiastic
>and home in on the helo's downwash.  Should make a heck of a photo.

A couple of years back, when I took the Tactical Warfare Overview
course at the Fleet Combat Training Center, Pacific for background on
a project I was working on, one of the attendees had a series of
photographs like that.

The ship he was assigned to was conducting torpedo exercises; they had
a helo out monitoring the torpedo run. When the torpedo launched, the
gyros failed, and the torpedo kept trying to turn nose up.

The series of pictures showed the torpedo leaving the tube, then
leaping out of the water at the helo (the first leap only missed by
about five feet); more pictures showed the torpedo making five more
attempts to catch the helo, but since each time it hit the water
tailfirst it lost some velocity, it didn't leap as high next time.
Eventually, it couldn't make it back out of the water and went
spastic. They recovered it after it ran down and took it apart to find
out what the problem was, which is when they found out about the gyro
problem.


 Sean Malloy					| "The proton absorbs a photon
 Navy Personnel Research & Development Center	| and emits two morons, a
 San Diego, CA 92152-6800			| lepton, a boson, and a
 malloy@nprdc.navy.mil				| boson's mate. Why did I ever
						| take high-energy physics?"