July 16, 2010: USS Pampanito

[GunMaster357]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

When submarines dive in the movies, the hull makes groaning sounds as the pressure builds up. Do they really do that, or is that just Hollywood being dramatic?

True with old submarines, less so with modern ones. They're built with better materials. And don't forget that the objective is to stay as silent as possible.

In another area, the Concorde plane when flying at Mach2 was known to elongate by 28 centimeters (nearly a foot) due to speed friction and less external pressure.

Originally Posted by ZenGum

In movies, we often see a submarine hiding below while a destroyer lobs depth charges at it. Why can't submarines strike back? They could push mines out through the torpedo tubes which would float to the surface and endanger the destroyer. There could even be a special vertical launch torpedo they could fire. Why not, huh?

From the pictures, you can imagine that space is at a premium. You have to put in that tin can over a hundred men,torpedoes, engines, computers for detection, targeting firing, counter-measures, communications.And everything to keep them going for a minimum of three months. And I nearly forget, ballistic missiles when the sub is a boomer. My brother served for 3 year on a Nuclear Attack Submarine. He told me that, at the start of the missions, cans of food were stacked everywhere. He also told me that an active submarine smell of, I quote, "death, unwashed bodies and beer".

Also, letting a mine float up to the surface is fine... but to be effective, the ennemy ship has to be more or less at the exact vertical of the sub. And just the sending of the mine will create a noise giving the sub's position to the ennemy.

Same problem with trying to escape at full speed, you create noise due to the cavitation of the propeller. Even worse, the performance of detection systems are so degraded that the sub is nearly running blind. Since the major risks of detection are in coastal areas, it's like going full speed on a highway with Steevie Wonder at the wheel.

Nowadays, subs can be very fast, at least nuclear ones, and can outspeed most anti-submarine ship. But torpedoes can do the job nicely, can be launched from a chopper, and some of those fuckers are real fast.

[Lamplighter]

Not to mention breaking the back of the sub in the process.

[Scriveyn]

Originally Posted by GunMaster357

...In another area, the Concorde plane when flying at Mach2 was known to elongate by 28 centimeters (nearly a foot) due to speed friction and less external pressure. ...

Gives a whole new notion to taking a ƒlying ƒ*ck

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by GunMaster357

From the pictures, you can imagine that space is at a premium. You have to put in that tin can over a hundred men,torpedoes, engines, computers for detection, targeting firing, counter-measures, communications.And everything to keep them going for a minimum of three months. And I nearly forget, ballistic missiles when the sub is a boomer. My brother served for 3 year on a Nuclear Attack Submarine. He told me that, at the start of the missions, cans of food were stacked everywhere. He also told me that an active submarine smell of, I quote, "death, unwashed bodies and beer".

Also, letting a mine float up to the surface is fine... but to be effective, the ennemy ship has to be more or less at the exact vertical of the sub. And just the sending of the mine will create a noise giving the sub's position to the ennemy.

Same problem with trying to escape at full speed, you create noise due to the cavitation of the propeller. Even worse, the performance of detection systems are so degraded that the sub is nearly running blind. Since the major risks of detection are in coastal areas, it's like going full speed on a highway with Steevie Wonder at the wheel.

Nowadays, subs can be very fast, at least nuclear ones, and can outspeed most anti-submarine ship. But torpedoes can do the job nicely, can be launched from a chopper, and some of those fuckers are real fast.

Thanks for your thoughts.
I understand why subs can't run, but the reasons for not having a weapon like I describe don't work for me.
Small one first - the noise in deploying it. I'm thinking of the situation where the U-boat has attacked the convoy and sunk a ship or two, and now the destroyer escort are hunting the sub with sonar and lobbing depth charges. The enemy know where the sub is already. So silence doesn't matter.

Space? well true, at a premium, but not being sent to the bottom of the ocean must be the first priority. Or taking out enemy warships. Either way, some kind of sub-to-surface weapon strikes me as good value, and worth the space.

So the main objection seems to be that the ship has to be pretty much directly above the sub. I don't see why - the sub could release twenty smallish floating mines over ten minutes as it maneuvers, then remain in this general area. If the destroyer wants to keep hunting, it must risk the minefield. Or the mines could be connected to a long rope that the destroyer will intersect and pull the mines in to it. Modern hi-tech toys could do much more, I'm mostly thinking WWII technology.