Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!agate!shelby!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: johne%hpvcfs1 (John Eaton) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: DASH Message-ID: <6492@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 May 89 02:47:20 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 24 Approved: military@att.att.com Full-Name: John Eaton From: John Eaton A recent poster asked about replacing ASROC's with a non-nuclear rocket launched weapon. The Navy used to have DASH which stood for "Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter". It was a ship launched robot that could carry two torpedoes out and drop them away from the ship and hopefully on top of an approaching sub. The torpedoes were attached to the ends of a center pivoted bar so that after the first one dropped the other would swing down in line with the copter's center of gravity. That assumes of course that someone had remembered to remove the locking pin that held the bar rigid during loading. Otherwise the copter and remaining torpedoe would find a new center of gravity that was not very conducive to remaining airborne. Takeoff's consisted of starting it up and giving it an order to fly at the same speed and course as the ship until it could be vectored away. If the OSC (own ships course) signal from the gyros was not working then there was a risk that it would take off very quickly in a randon direction. Not the time to be on the flight deck. John Eaton !hpvcfs1!johne