all the chatter about Ikara has started me thinking as to how in the current ASW climate, where a lot of navies are relearning

the art, that platforms like a modified Ikara would have merit in being lazarused rather than travel down the new gen solutuions which the vendors are quite happy to flog off in the vain hope of geek sucker punching people.  :)

eg a modified Ikara could quite reasonably be fitted out with:

Mk50 CBASS mod (quad processors, database, smarts for discrimination, smarts for killing.  A better solution (IMO) than the Mu90

add in new digitised fire control, the new conformal SAR search capabilities and you'd have a nice little hunter-killer torpedo solution for the skimmers.

new booster tech could also mean longer range, greater payload (out with the torpex and in with the new!) 

All you need is some way to get the torpedo CLOSE and slow it down when it enters the water.    

I personally don't understand why they ever stopped using Ikara and other ASW missiles, though I heard once that it is because detection ranges against modern DE's are so short that it isn't worth having a weapon that doesn't drop from a helo with its own sonar or the ship itself. I would have thought however that if we networked the sonarbouys dropped from P-3's/P-8's/Helo's/UAV's into the ships fire control system, that a rejuvenated ASW missile system would be the sh1t to exploit the long range precision detection capability.

 

On another note, I never understood what use light weight torpedos were on a surface ship when they faced heavy weights on a sub that have three or four times the range. Is it something to do with the sub needing to launch from close enough that the enemy won't have time to detect the torpedo's engine and triangulate back to the subs position?

Super Ikara was a longer range canister launched version with folding wing that was originally co-developed with Oto Melara and then BAE before being cancelled in 1986.

 

Oto Melara bailed to concentrate on Milas.

 

Anyone know what happened to VLASROC?

It needs a better front end to take insertion shock. Hence the comment on the slow and drop.

 

Herald

 

Mk50 CBASS? Do you mean Mk54 CBASS?

 

As for the VLASROC, it's alive and kicking, and being upgraded.

 

Why the dislike for the MU90?

No dislike for it.  It was an issue that it would be far easier to migrate CBASS into a defacto related system from the same source country than go through potential integration and development issues with a new "host sourced" weapons system.

For a couple of reasons.

#1 The way to out range a sub, is to use a helo. Helos carrying heavy weight torpedoes is a no go. 

The sub has to have a weapon with a long range because it needs to be its own delivery system.

#2 The sub has to sink a surface ship, which requires a larger warhead. Whereas, with the exception of a few Soviet designs, a lightweight torpedo will suffice for a submarine because the sub has done the hard work for you, it's already sunk itself. ;-)

Sounds like you're sold on the CBASS tech?

IMO, its an effective tool in current capabilities, and it does give fat subs a better chance to go in and kill small subs in greenwater. :)

the future stuff is even more interesting.  eg sympathetic systems which hunt and kill in tandem.  eg a tube sized swimmer that has on board sensors, SAR etc handing off to a killer tooling along beside it.

swarms of arrays, cec between arrays to the shooters etc.... 

It swims instead of flies, but like any  missile, ASPECT of launcher and target and closing rates dictates how large a no escape zone the torpedo has.

Most modern torpedoes are active sensor guided chase weapons, which means that once the target is aware, it runs for it. It then becomes a stern chase.  

So as a rule of thumb you want to be as close as you dare so that most of the torpedo's endurance can be used for the chase. A 2000 second  20 m/s torpedo could use up to 1200 m/s seconds chasing its target. The optimum launch distance of separation could be as little as 500 seconds separation depending on aspect!

 

Herald