MK-48 torpedo takes out destroyer (video)

[freespirit]

the sheer destructive power is this weapon is absolutely incredible!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GOz307phzI


Have you ever seen footage where a single torpedo does damage like this? It's a US made (non nuclear) torpedo that is in use today by our submarines....very precise, very accurate and very powerful. This is an Australian Navy Submarine performing a live torpedo practice shot on one of their decommissioned ships. They used a MK 48 torpedo developed in the USA. It is not a contact weapon. It is designed to go off directly underneath the ship at about 50 feet under the keel. The effect is devastating as you can see from the video. This lethal weapon can break the back of ships much larger than the one shown in this video. They don't even have a chance of survival.

[sirgonzo420]

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2012/02/battleship-board-game.jpg

[Dogman]

3481

Description:

The Mk-48 is designed to combat fast, deep-diving nuclear submarines and high performance surface ships. It is carried by all Navy submarines. The improved version, Mk-48 ADCAP, is carried by attack submarines (http://navysite.de/submarine.htm) and the OHIO class ballistic missile submarines (http://navysite.de/ssbn.htm). The Mk-48 replaced both the Mk-37 and Mk-14 torpedoes.

More at link. http://navysite.de/weapons/mk-48.htm

[freespirit]

i think the most impressive part for me was watching the initial explosion buckle and ripple the ship's hull and literally shred the mid section, then after that, seeing huge chunks of twisted metal being tossed about like a handful of popcorn!

the blast pressure must be insane! to be able to throw that much weight around like it was made of tin foil...WOW!

[Dogman]

i think the most impressive part for me was watching the initial explosion buckle and ripple the ship's hull and literally shred the mid section, then after that, seeing huge chunks of twisted metal being tossed about like a handful of popcorn!

the blast pressure must be insane! to be able to throw that much weight around like it was made of tin foil...WOW! Seeing that water can not compress, the blast drives a piston(?) of water and shock wave upward and breaks the back of the ship. There is less resistance to the blast upward than downward in the water column, so I would think most of the blast/hydrostatic shock is directed at the ship. The steel of that ship was like wet cardboard.


Edit: Did some more reading and think this is right and what I wrote was not quite right.


Snip:

Generally speaking while the torpedo's explosive package does do damage, most are designed to explode very close to the target boat and create a "void" in he water causing the ship to buckle under its own structural pressure. In other words, it makes a HUGE bubble under the boat and it sinks. Torpedoes are set to detonate at a certain range and depth; ideally at the centre of a ship. The blast created lifts the ship at this point before the downward movement from the 'void' breaks the spine of the ship. Torpedoes do not actually 'hit' a ship.


The torpedo does not actually "hit" a ship because it explodes underneath the vessel. This creates steam (essentially) in enormous amounts of pressure that lifts up the ship and smacks it back down, while at the same time the explosion is striking the ships hull. This is why, in videos, you see the ship being lifted upward and dropped. One slight exception is the MK 48 using CBASS, which gives the operator a choice to strike the target or explode underneath. We'd use the strike method if there is not enough metal on the ship (fishing boats (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_torpedoes_work#), modern aluminum made structures etc). This is usually detected by either visual confirmation or a weak acoustic signature if a submarine goes active. The MK48 is also used on surface ships (snip)


Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_torpedoes_work#ixzz23ixunOqw

[Glass]

Australia's most advanced submarine is a design so noisy it can not conceal itself. That same design saw the Australian navy defeat the US navy in war games because it was so noisy the US navy disregarded it. The reasoning: the amount of noise it was making couldn't possibly be coming from a stealthy naval wessel.