Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!veritas!amdcad!amdcad!military
From: 002@pnet16.cts.com (J.W.Cupp Lcdr/Usn)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Torpedoing Battleships
Message-ID: <1991Jun1.013022.28426@amd.com>
Date: 30 May 91 04:36:15 GMT
Sender: military@amd.com
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Lines: 33
Approved: military@amd.com


From: 002@pnet16.cts.com (J.W.Cupp Lcdr/Usn)


Some modern torpedoes are classified as "antiship" ... why exactly they
receive this label I'm not sure, but I think it's related to warhead
weight.  Most of the torpedoes not called "antiship" are known as
"lightweight" ...  this is critical for air delivery by aircraft with
limited lift capacity (such as a destroyer-borne helo).

Even as far back as WWII, the technology was sought to be exploited to
provide torpedoes which detonate _under_ a ship rather than _against
the hull_.  The key is the expanding gas bubble, explained previously,
rising directly under the keel of the target.  This was the source of
grief early in the U.S. sub attacks...the sophisticated magnetic
exploders didn't work, and many startled targets gratefully watched
U.S. torpedoes pass completely underneath them without exploding.  U.S.
forces shifted tactics to hit rather than pass under while improvement
were made.

Today, we assume the technology is much more mature.  Torpedoes which
are primarily intended to sink large surface vessels are planned to
dentonate under the keel.  This (as already stated) is the same
principal in use by influence-activated mines, and it is the main
reason why mines are so deadly.

-- 
J. W. Cupp
UUCP: humu!nctams1!pnet16!002            Naval Telecommunications Center
ARPA: humu!nctams!pnet16!002@nosc.mil    Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
INET: 002@pnet16.cts.com
I am solely and personally responsible for the all of the content of the above
post.  It is all merely my opinion, and not to be construed as anything else.