Modern torpedo: what is and what will be. Torpedo weapons Prospects for the development of torpedo weapons

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

TORPEDO WEAPONS

Guidelines

for independent work

by discipline

"COMBATIVE FACILITIES OF THE FLEET AND THEIR COMBAT APPLICATION"

Torpedo weapons: guidelines for independent work on the discipline "Combat weapons of the fleet and their combat use" / Comp.: ,; St. Petersburg: Publishing House of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI", 20 p.

Designed for students of all profiles of training.

Approved

editorial and publishing council of the university

as guidelines

From the history of development and combat use

torpedo weapons

Appearance at the beginning of the 19th century armored ships with thermal engines exacerbated the need to create weapons that hit the most vulnerable underwater part of the ship. A sea mine that appeared in the 40s became such a weapon. However, it had a significant drawback: it was positional (passive).

The world's first self-propelled mine was created in 1865 by a Russian inventor.

In 1866, the project of a self-propelled underwater projectile was developed by the Englishman R. Whitehead, who worked in Austria. He also proposed to name the projectile by the name of the sea stingray - "torpedo". Having failed to establish their own production, the Russian Naval Department in the 70s purchased a batch of Whitehead torpedoes. They covered a distance of 800 m at a speed of 17 knots and carried a charge of pyroxylin weighing 36 kg.

The world's first successful torpedo attack was carried out by the commander of a Russian military steamship, a lieutenant (later - vice admiral) on January 26, 1878. At night, with heavy snowfall in the Batumi roadstead, two boats launched from the steamer approached the Turkish ship 50 m and simultaneously released torpedo. The ship quickly sank with almost the entire crew.

A fundamentally new torpedo weapon changed views on the nature of armed struggle at sea - fleets moved from general battles to systematic combat operations.

Torpedoes of the 70-80s of the XIX century. had a significant drawback: not having control devices in the horizontal plane, they strongly deviated from the set course and shooting at a distance of more than 600 m was ineffective. In 1896, Lieutenant of the Austrian Navy L. Aubrey proposed the first sample of a gyroscopic course device with a spring winding, which kept the torpedo on course for 3-4 minutes. On the agenda was the issue of increasing the range.

In 1899, a lieutenant of the Russian fleet invented a heating apparatus in which kerosene was burned. Compressed air, before being fed into the cylinders of the working machine, was heated up and already did a lot of work. The introduction of heating increased the range of torpedoes to 4000 m at speeds up to 30 knots.

In the First World War, 49% of the total number of large ships sunk fell on torpedo weapons.

In 1915, a torpedo was first used from an aircraft.

The Second World War accelerated the testing and adoption of torpedoes with proximity fuses (NV), homing systems (SSN) and electrical power plants.

In subsequent years, despite the equipment of the fleets with the latest nuclear missile weapons, torpedoes have not lost their significance. Being the most effective anti-submarine weapon, they are in service with all classes of surface ships (NK), submarines (submarine) and naval aviation, and have also become the main element of modern anti-submarine missiles (PLUR) and an integral part of many models of modern sea mines. A modern torpedo is a complex single set of systems for movement, movement control, homing and non-contact charge detonation, created on the basis of modern achievements in science and technology.

1. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT TORPEDO WEAPONS

1.1. Purpose, composition and placement of complexes

torpedo weapons on the ship

Torpedo weapons (TO) are intended for:

To destroy submarines (PL), surface ships (NK)

Destruction of hydraulic and port facilities.

For these purposes, torpedoes are used, which are in service with surface ships, submarines and aircraft (helicopters) of naval aviation. In addition, they are used as warheads for anti-submarine missiles and mine torpedoes.

A torpedo weapon is a complex that includes:

Ammunition for torpedoes of one or more types;

Torpedo launchers - torpedo tubes (TA);

Torpedo fire control devices (PUTS);

The complex is complemented by equipment designed for loading and unloading torpedoes, as well as devices for monitoring their condition during storage on the carrier.

The number of torpedoes in the ammunition load, depending on the type of carrier, is:

On NK - from 4 to 10;

On the submarine - from 14-16 to 22-24.

On domestic NKs, the entire stock of torpedoes is placed in torpedo tubes installed on board on large ships, and in the diametrical plane on medium and small ships. These TAs are swivel, which ensures their guidance in the horizontal plane. On torpedo boats, TAs are fixed on board and are non-guided (stationary).

On nuclear submarines, torpedoes are stored in the first (torpedo) compartment in TA pipes (4-8), and spare ones are stored on racks.

On most diesel-electric submarines, the torpedo compartments are the first and the end.

PUTS - a set of instruments and communication lines - is located at the main command post of the ship (GKP), the command post of the commander of the mine-torpedo warhead (BCH-3) and on torpedo tubes.

1.2. Torpedo classification

Torpedoes can be classified in a number of ways.

1. By purpose:

Against submarines - anti-submarine;

NK - anti-ship;

NK and PL are universal.

2. By media:

For submarines - boat;

NK - ship;

PL and NK - unified;

Aircraft (helicopters) - aviation;

anti-submarine missiles;

Min - torpedoes.

3. By type of power plant (EPS):

combined-cycle (thermal);

Electrical;

Reactive.

4. By control methods:

With autonomous control (AU);

Self-guided (SN + AU);

Remote controlled (TU + AU);

With combined control (AU + SN + TU).

5. By type of fuse:

With a contact fuse (KV);

With proximity fuse (HB);

With combined fuse (KV+NV).

6. By caliber:

400 mm; 533 mm; 650 mm.

Torpedoes of caliber 400 mm are called small-sized, 650 mm - heavy. Most foreign small-sized torpedoes have a caliber of 324 mm.

7. By travel modes:

Single mode;

Dual-mode.

The regime in a torpedo is its speed and the maximum range corresponding to this speed. In a dual-mode torpedo, depending on the type of target and the tactical situation, modes can be switched in the direction of travel.

1.3. Main parts of torpedoes

Mixed blasting substances with a TNT equivalent of 1.6-1.8 are used as explosives in torpedoes. The mass of explosives, depending on the caliber of the torpedo, is 30-80 kg, 240-320 kg and up to 600 kg, respectively.

The middle part of the electric torpedo is called the battery compartment, which, in turn, is divided into battery and instrument compartments. Here are located: energy sources - a battery of batteries, elements of ballasts, a high-pressure air cylinder and an electric motor.

In a steam-gas torpedo, a similar component is called the department of energy components and ballasts. It houses containers with fuel, oxidizer, fresh water and a heat engine - an engine.

The third component of any type of torpedo is called the aft compartment. It has a conical shape and contains motion control devices, power sources and converters, as well as the main elements of the pneumohydraulic circuit.

The fourth component of the torpedo is attached to the rear section of the aft compartment - the tail section, ending with propellers: propellers or a jet nozzle.

On the tail section are vertical and horizontal stabilizers, and on the stabilizers - the controls for the movement of the torpedo - the rudders.

1.4. Purpose, classification, basics of the device

and principles of operation of torpedo tubes

Torpedo tubes (TA) are launchers and are intended for:

For storing torpedoes on a carrier;

Introduction to torpedo locating motion control devices

data (shooting data);

Giving the torpedo the direction of the initial movement

(in rotary TA of submarines);

Production of a torpedo shot;

Submarine torpedo tubes can also be used as launchers for anti-submarine missiles, as well as for storing and laying sea mines.

TAs are classified according to a number of criteria:

1) at the place of installation:

2) according to the degree of mobility:

Rotary (only on NK),

fixed;

3) by the number of pipes:

single pipe,

Multi-pipe (only on NK);

4) by caliber:

Small (400 mm, 324 mm),

Medium (533 mm),

Large (650 mm);

5) according to the method of firing

Pneumatic,

Hydraulic (on modern submarines),

Powder (on small NK).

Inside the TA pipe (Fig. 1.3), there are four guide tracks along its entire length.

The distance between opposite tracks corresponds to the caliber of the torpedo. In front of the pipe there are two obturating rings, the inner diameter of which is also equal to the caliber of the torpedo. The rings prevent the breakthrough of the working fluid (air, water, gas) supplied to the rear of the pipe to push the torpedo out of the torpedo.

For all TAs, each tube has an independent device for firing a shot. At the same time, the possibility of salvo fire from several devices with an interval of 0.5 - 1 s is provided. The shot can be fired remotely from the ship's GCP or directly from the TA, manually.

The torpedo is fired by applying excess pressure to the aft part of the torpedo, providing a torpedo exit speed of ~ 12 m/s.

TA submarine - stationary, single-tube. The number of TAs in the torpedo compartment of the submarine is six or four. Each unit has a strong back and front cover, locked with each other. This makes it impossible to open the back cover while the front cover is open and vice versa. Preparing the apparatus for firing includes filling it with water, equalizing the pressure with the outboard and opening the front cover.

In the first TA submarines, the air pushing the torpedo out of the pipe and floated to the surface, forming a large air bubble that unmasked the submarine. Currently, all submarines are equipped with a bubbleless torpedo firing system (BTS). The principle of operation of this system is that after the torpedo passes 2/3 of the length of the torpedo, a valve automatically opens in its front part, through which the exhaust air enters the hold of the torpedo compartment.

On modern submarines, hydraulic firing systems are installed to reduce the noise of the shot and ensure the possibility of firing at great depths. An example of such a system is shown in Fig. 1.4.

The sequence of operations during system operation is as follows:

Opening the automatic outboard valve (AZK);

Equalization of pressure inside the TA with outboard;

Closing the filling station;

Opening the front cover of the TA;

Opening the air valve (VK);

piston movement;

Movement of water in TA;

firing a torpedo;

Closing the front cover;

Dehumidification TA;

Opening the back cover of the TA;

Closing the back cover.

1.5. The concept of torpedo fire control devices

PUTS are designed to generate the data necessary for aimed shooting. Since the target is moving, there is a need to solve the problem of meeting the torpedo with the target, i.e., finding that preemptive point where this meeting should occur.

To solve the problem (Fig. 1.5), it is necessary:

1) detect the target;

2) determine its location relative to the attacking ship, i.e. set the coordinates of the target - the distance D0 and the heading angle to the target KU 0 ;

3) determine the parameters of the movement of the target (MPC) - the course Kc and speed V c;

4) calculate the lead angle j to which it is necessary to direct the torpedo, i.e., calculate the so-called torpedo triangle (marked with thick lines in Fig. 1.5). It is assumed that the course and speed of the target are constant;

5) enter the necessary information through the TA into the torpedo.

2) determining the parameters of the movement of the target. In their capacity, computers or other computing devices (PSA) are used;

3) calculation of the torpedo triangle, as well as computers or other PSA;

4) transmission and input of information into torpedoes and control of the data entered into them. These can be synchronous communication lines and tracking devices.

Figure 1.6 shows a variant of the PUTS, which provides for the use of an electronic system as the main information processing device, which is one of the schemes of the general ship combat information control system (CICS), and, as a backup, an electromechanical one. This scheme is used in modern

The types of fuel used in modern torpedoes can be:

Multicomponent (fuel - oxidizer - water) (Fig. 2.2);

Unitary (fuel mixed with an oxidizing agent - water);

Solid powder;

The thermal energy of the fuel is formed as a result of a chemical reaction of oxidation or decomposition of the substances that make up its composition.

The fuel combustion temperature is 3000…4000°C. In this case, there is a possibility of softening of the materials from which individual units of the ECS are made. Therefore, together with the fuel, water is supplied to the combustion chamber, which reduces the temperature of the combustion products to 600...800°C. In addition, the injection of fresh water increases the volume of the gas-vapor mixture, which significantly increases the power of the ESU.

The first torpedoes used a fuel that included kerosene and compressed air as an oxidizer. Such an oxidizing agent turned out to be ineffective due to the low oxygen content. A component of the air - nitrogen, insoluble in water, was thrown overboard and was the cause of the trace unmasking the torpedo. Currently, pure compressed oxygen or low-water hydrogen peroxide are used as oxidizing agents. In this case, combustion products that are insoluble in water are almost not formed and the trace is practically not noticeable.

The use of liquid unitary propellants made it possible to simplify the ESU fuel system and improve the operating conditions of torpedoes.

Solid fuels, which are unitary, can be monomolecular or mixed. The latter are more commonly used. They consist of organic fuel, a solid oxidizer and various additives. The amount of heat generated in this case can be controlled by the amount of water supplied. The use of such fuels eliminates the need to carry a supply of oxidizer on board the torpedo. This reduces the mass of the torpedo, which significantly increases its speed and range.

The engine of a steam-gas torpedo, in which thermal energy is converted into mechanical work of rotation of propellers, is one of its main units. It determines the main performance data of the torpedo - speed, range, track, noise.

Torpedo engines have a number of features that are reflected in their design:

short duration of work;

The minimum time to enter the mode and its strict constancy;

Work in the aquatic environment with high exhaust backpressure;

Minimum weight and dimensions with high power;

Minimum fuel consumption.

Torpedo engines are divided into piston and turbine. Currently, the latter are most widely used (Fig. 2.3).

The energy components are fed into the steam-gas generator, where they are ignited by an incendiary cartridge. The resulting gas-vapor mixture under pressure

Propellers are used as propellers for most modern torpedoes. The front screw is on the outer shaft with right rotation, the rear screw is on the inner shaft with left rotation. Due to this, the moments of forces that deviate the torpedo from a given direction of movement are balanced.

The efficiency of engines is characterized by the value of the efficiency factor, taking into account the influence of the hydrodynamic properties of the torpedo body. The coefficient decreases when the propellers reach the speed at which the blades begin to

cavitation 1 . One of the ways to combat this harmful phenomenon was

The main disadvantages of the ECS of the considered type include:

High noise associated with a large number of rapidly rotating massive mechanisms and the presence of exhaust;

Decrease in engine power and, as a result, the speed of the torpedo with increasing depth, due to an increase in exhaust gas backpressure;

Gradual decrease in the mass of the torpedo during its movement due to the consumption of energy components;

The search for ways to ensure the elimination of these shortcomings led to the creation of electrical ECS.

2.1.2. Electric ESU torpedoes

The energy sources of electrical power plants are chemicals (Fig. 2.5).

Chemical current sources must meet a number of requirements:

Permissibility of high discharge currents;

Operability in a wide range of temperatures;

Minimal self-discharge during storage and no outgassing;

1 Cavitation is the formation of cavities in a dropping liquid filled with gas, steam or their mixture. Cavitation bubbles are formed in those places where the pressure in the liquid becomes below a certain critical value.

Small dimensions and weight.

Disposable batteries have found the widest distribution in modern combat torpedoes.

The main energy indicator of a chemical current source is its capacity - the amount of electricity that a fully charged battery can give when discharged with a current of a certain strength. It depends on the material, design and size of the active mass of the source plates, discharge current, temperature, electro concentration

For the first time in electric ECS, lead-acid batteries (AB) were used. Their electrodes, lead peroxide ("-") and pure spongy lead ("+"), were placed in a solution of sulfuric acid. The specific capacity of such batteries was 8 W h/kg of mass, which was insignificant compared to chemical fuels. Torpedoes with such ABs had low speed and range. In addition, these ABs had a high level of self-discharge, and this required them to be periodically recharged when stored on a carrier, which was inconvenient and unsafe.

The next step in the improvement of chemical current sources was the use of alkaline batteries. In these ABs, iron-nickel, cadmium-nickel, or silver-zinc electrodes were placed in an alkaline electrolyte. Such sources had a specific capacity 5-6 times greater than lead-acid sources, which made it possible to dramatically increase the speed and range of torpedoes. Their further development led to the appearance of disposable silver-magnesium batteries using outboard sea water as an electrolyte. The specific capacity of such sources increased to 80 W h /kg, which brought the speed and range of electric torpedoes very close to those of combined-cycle ones.

Comparative characteristics of energy sources of electric torpedoes are given in Table. 2.1.

Table 2.1

The motors of electric ECS are electric motors (EM) of direct current of series excitation (Fig. 2.6).

Most torpedo EMs are birotational type engines, in which the armature and the magnetic system rotate simultaneously in opposite directions. They have more power and do not need a differential and gearbox, which significantly reduces noise and increases the specific power of the ESA.

The propellers of electric ESUs are similar to the propellers of steam-gas torpedoes.

The advantages of the considered ESU are:

Low noise;

Constant, independent of the depth of the torpedo, power;

The invariance of the mass of the torpedo during the entire time of its movement.

The disadvantages include:

They are fuel charges made in the form of cylindrical checkers or rods, consisting of a mixture of combinations of the presented substances (fuel, oxidizer and additives). These mixtures have the properties of gunpowder. Jet engines do not have intermediate elements - mechanisms and propellers. The main parts of such an engine are the combustion chamber and the jet nozzle. In the late 1980s, some torpedoes began to use hydroreactive propellants - complex solids based on aluminum, magnesium or lithium. Heated to the melting point, they react violently with water, releasing a large amount of energy.

2.2. Torpedo traffic control systems

A moving torpedo, together with its surrounding marine environment, forms a complex hydrodynamic system. While driving, the torpedo is affected by:

Gravity and buoyancy force;

Engine thrust and water resistance;

External influencing factors (sea waves, changes in water density, etc.). The first two factors are known and can be taken into account. The latter are random. They violate the dynamic balance of forces, deflect the torpedo from the calculated trajectory.

Control systems (Fig. 2.8) provide:

The stability of the torpedo movement on the trajectory;

Changing the trajectory of the torpedo in accordance with a given program;

The device is based on a hydrostatic device based on a bellows (corrugated tube with a spring) in combination with a physical pendulum. The water pressure is sensed by the bellows cap. It is balanced by a spring, the elasticity of which is set before the shot, depending on the given depth of movement of the torpedo.

The operation of the device is carried out in the following sequence:

Changing the depth of the torpedo relative to the given one;

Compression (or extension) of the bellows spring;

Moving the gear rack;

Gear rotation;

Turning the eccentric;

Balancer offset;

Spool valve movement;

Movement of the steering piston;

Relocation of horizontal rudders;

Return of the torpedo to the set depth.

In the event of a torpedo trim, the pendulum deviates from the vertical position. At the same time, the balancer moves similarly to the previous one, which leads to the shifting of the same rudders.

Instruments for controlling the movement of a torpedo along the course (KT)

The principle of construction and operation of the device can be explained by the diagram shown in Fig. 2.10.

The basis of the device is a gyroscope with three degrees of freedom. It is a massive disk with holes (recesses). The disc itself is movably reinforced within the framework, forming the so-called gimbals.

At the moment the torpedo is fired, high-pressure air from the air reservoir enters the holes of the gyroscope rotor. For 0.3 ... 0.4 s, the rotor gains up to 20,000 rpm. A further increase in the number of revolutions to 40,000 and maintaining them at a distance is carried out by applying voltage to the gyroscope rotor, which is the armature of an asynchronous alternating current EM with a frequency of 500 Hz. In this case, the gyroscope acquires the property to keep the direction of its axis in space unchanged. This axis is set to a position parallel to the longitudinal axis of the torpedo. In this case, the current collector of the disk with half rings is located on an isolated gap between the half rings. The relay supply circuit is open, the KP relay contacts are also open. The position of the spool valves is determined by a spring.

If a fixed torpedo tube is installed on the ship, then during torpedo firing, to the lead angle j (see Fig. 1.5), the heading angle under which the target is located at the time of the salvo ( q3 ). The resulting angle (ω), called the angle of the gyroscopic instrument, or the angle of the first turn of the torpedo, can be introduced into the torpedo before firing by turning the disk with half rings. This eliminates the need to change the course of the ship.

Torpedo roll control devices (γ)

The roll of a torpedo is its rotation around the longitudinal axis. The causes of the roll are the circulation of the torpedo, the re-raking of one of the propellers, etc. The roll leads to the deviation of the torpedo from the set course and the displacement of the response zones of the homing system and the proximity fuse.

The roll-leveling device is a combination of a gyro-vertical (vertically mounted gyroscope) with a pendulum moving in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the torpedo. The device provides the shifting of the controls γ - ailerons in different directions - "fight" and, thus, the return of the torpedo to the roll value close to zero.

Maneuvering devices

The device is connected to the outer propeller shaft of the torpedo. The distance traveled is determined by the number of revolutions of the shaft. When the set distance is reached, maneuvering starts. The distance and type of maneuvering trajectory are entered into the torpedo before firing.

The accuracy of stabilization of the torpedo movement along the course by autonomous control devices, having an error of ~ 1% of the distance traveled, ensures effective shooting at targets moving at a constant course and speed at a distance of up to 3.5 ... 4 km. At longer distances, the effectiveness of shooting drops. When the target moves with a variable course and speed, the accuracy of shooting becomes unacceptable even at shorter distances.

The desire to increase the probability of hitting a surface target, as well as to ensure the possibility of hitting submarines in a submerged position at an unknown depth, led to the appearance in the 40s of torpedoes with homing systems.

2.2.2. homing systems

The homing systems (SSN) of torpedoes provide:

Detection of targets by their physical fields;

Determining the position of the target relative to the longitudinal axis of the torpedo;

Development of the necessary commands for steering machines;

Aiming a torpedo at a target with the accuracy necessary to trigger a proximity torpedo fuse.

SSN significantly increases the probability of hitting a target. One homing torpedo is more effective than a salvo of several torpedoes with autonomous control systems. CLOs are especially important when firing at submarines located at great depths.

SSN reacts to the physical fields of ships. Acoustic fields have the greatest range of propagation in the aquatic environment. Therefore, the SSN torpedoes are acoustic and are divided into passive, active and combined.

Passive SSN

Passive acoustic SSNs respond to the primary acoustic field of the ship - its noise. They work in secret. However, they react poorly to slow-moving (due to low noise) and silent ships. In these cases, the noise of the torpedo itself may be greater than the noise of the target.

The ability to detect a target and determine its position relative to the torpedo is provided by the creation of hydroacoustic antennas (electroacoustic transducers - EAP) with directional properties (Fig. 2.12, a).

Equal-signal and phase-amplitude methods have received the widest application.

The reception of useful signals (noise of a moving object) is carried out by the EAP, which consists of two groups of elements that form one radiation pattern (Fig. 2.13, a). In this case, in the case of a deviation of the target from the axis of the diagram, two voltages equal in value, but shifted in phase j, operate at the outputs of the EAP E 1 and E 2. (Fig. 2.13, b).

The phase shifter shifts both voltages in phase by the same angle u (usually equal to p/2) and sums the active signals as follows:

E 1+ E’ 2= U 1 and E 2+ E’ 1= U 2.

As a result, the voltage of the same amplitude, but different phase E 1 and E 2 are converted into two voltages U 1 and U 2 of the same phase but different amplitude (hence the name of the method). Depending on the position of the target relative to the axis of the radiation pattern, you can get:

U 1 > U 2 – target to the right of the EAP axis;

U 1 = U 2 - target on the EAP axis;

U 1 < U 2 - the target is to the left of the EAP axis.

Voltage U 1 and U 2 are amplified, converted by detectors to DC voltages U'1 and U'2 of the corresponding value and are fed to the analyzing-commanding device of the AKU. As the latter, a polarized relay with an armature in the neutral (middle) position can be used (Fig. 2.13, c).

If equal U'1 and U'2 (target on the EAP axis) the current in the relay winding is zero. The anchor is stationary. The longitudinal axis of the moving torpedo is directed at the target. In the event of a target displacement in one direction or another, a current of the corresponding direction begins to flow through the relay winding. There is a magnetic flux that deflects the armature of the relay and causes the movement of the spool of the steering machine. The latter ensures the shifting of the rudders, and hence the rotation of the torpedo until the target returns to the longitudinal axis of the torpedo (to the axis of the EAP radiation pattern).

Active CLOs

Active acoustic SSNs respond to the secondary acoustic field of the ship - reflected signals from the ship or from its wake (but not to the noise of the ship).

In their composition, they must have, in addition to the nodes considered earlier, a transmitting (generating) and switching (switching) devices (Fig. 2.14). The switching device provides switching of the EAP from radiation to reception.

The torpedo is fired with the aiming point displaced in the direction opposite to the direction of the target's movement so that it is behind the target's stern and crosses the wake stream. As soon as this happens, the torpedo makes a turn towards the target and again enters the wake at an angle of about 300. This continues until the moment the torpedo passes under the target. In the event of a torpedo slipping in front of the target's nose, the torpedo makes a circulation, again detects a wake stream and maneuvers again.

Combined CLOs

Combined systems include both passive and active acoustic SSN, which eliminates the disadvantages of each separately. Modern SSNs detect targets at distances up to 1500 ... 2000 m. Therefore, when firing at long distances, and especially at a sharply maneuvering target, it becomes necessary to correct the course of the torpedo until the SSN captures the target. This task is performed by remote control systems for the movement of the torpedo.

2.2.3. Telecontrol systems

Remote control systems (TC) are designed to correct the trajectory of the torpedo from the carrier ship.

Telecontrol is carried out by wire (Fig. 2.16, a, b).

To reduce the tension of the wire during the movement of both the ship and the torpedo, two simultaneously unwinding views are used. On a submarine (Fig. 2.16, a), view 1 is placed in the TA and fired along with the torpedo. It is held by an armored cable about thirty meters long.

The principle of construction and operation of the TS system is illustrated in fig. 2.17. With the help of the hydroacoustic complex and its indicator, the target is detected. The obtained data on the coordinates of this target are fed into the computing complex. Information about the parameters of the movement of your ship and the set speed of the torpedo is also submitted here. The counting and decisive complex develops the course of the KT torpedo and h T is the depth of its movement. These data are entered into the torpedo, and a shot is fired.

With the help of the command sensor, the current parameters of the CT are converted and h T into a series of pulsed electrical coded control signals. These signals are transmitted by wire to the torpedo. The torpedo control system decodes the received signals and converts them into voltages that control the operation of the corresponding control channels.

If necessary, observing the position of the torpedo and the target on the indicator of the carrier's hydroacoustic complex, the operator, using the control panel, can correct the trajectory of the torpedo, directing it to the target.

As already noted, at long distances (more than 20 km), telecontrol errors (due to errors in the sonar system) can be hundreds of meters. Therefore, the TU system is combined with a homing system. The latter is activated at the command of the operator at a distance of 2 ... 3 km from the target.

The considered system of technical conditions is one-sided. If information is received from the torpedo on the ship about the state of the on-board instruments of the torpedo, the trajectory of its movement, the nature of the target's maneuvering, then such a system of technical specifications will be two-way. New possibilities in the implementation of two-way torpedo systems are opened up by the use of fiber-optic communication lines.

2.3. Igniter and torpedo fuses

2.3.1. Igniter accessories

The ignition accessory (FP) of a torpedo warhead is a combination of primary and secondary detonators.

The composition of the SP provides a stepwise detonation of the BZO explosive, which increases the safety of handling the final prepared torpedo, on the one hand, and guarantees reliable and complete detonation of the entire charge, on the other.

The primary detonator (Fig. 2.18), consisting of an igniter capsule and a detonator capsule, is equipped with highly sensitive (initiating) explosives - mercury fulminate or lead azide, which explode when pricked or heated. For safety reasons, the primary detonator contains a small amount of explosive, not enough to detonate the main charge.

The secondary detonator - ignition cup - contains a less sensitive high explosive - tetryl, phlegmatized hexogen in the amount of 600 ... 800 g. This amount is already enough to detonate the entire main charge of the BZO.

Thus, the explosion is carried out along the chain: fuse - igniter cap - detonator cap - ignition cup - BZO charge.

2.3.2. Torpedo contact fuses

The contact fuse (KV) of the torpedo is designed to prick the primer of the igniter of the primary detonator and thereby cause the explosion of the main charge of the BZO at the moment of contact of the torpedo with the side of the target.

The most widespread are contact fuses of impact (inertial) action. When a torpedo hits the side of the target, the inertial body (pendulum) deviates from the vertical position and releases the striker, which, under the action of the mainspring, moves down and pricks the primer - the igniter.

During the final preparation of the torpedo for the shot, the contact fuse is connected to the ignition accessory and installed in the upper part of the BZO.

In order to avoid the explosion of a loaded torpedo from accidental shaking or hitting the water, the inertial part of the fuse has a safety device that locks the striker. The stopper is connected to the turntable, which begins rotation with the beginning of the movement of the torpedo in the water. After the torpedo has passed a distance of about 200 m, the turntable worm unlocks the striker and the fuse comes into firing position.

The desire to influence the most vulnerable part of the ship - its bottom and at the same time provide a non-contact detonation of the BZO charge, which produces a greater destructive effect, led to the creation of a non-contact fuse in the 40s.

2.3.3. Proximity torpedo fuses

A non-contact fuse (NV) closes the fuse circuit to detonate the BZO charge at the moment the torpedo passes near the target under the influence of one or another physical field of the target on the fuse. In this case, the depth of the anti-ship torpedo is set to be several meters greater than the expected draft of the target ship.

The most widely used are acoustic and electromagnetic proximity fuses.

The pulse generator (Fig. 2.19, a) generates short-term impulses of electrical oscillations of ultrasonic frequency, following at short intervals. Through the commutator, they go to electro-acoustic transducers (EAP), which convert electrical vibrations into ultrasonic acoustic vibrations that propagate in water within the zone shown in the figure.

When the torpedo passes near the target (Fig. 2.19, b), reflected acoustic signals will be received from the latter, which are perceived and converted by the EAP into electrical ones. After amplification, they are analyzed in the execution unit and stored. Having received several similar reflected signals in a row, the actuator connects the power source to the ignition accessory - the torpedo explodes.

The stern (radiating) coil creates an alternating magnetic field. It is perceived by two bow (receiving) coils connected in opposite directions, as a result of which their difference EMF is equal to
zero.

When a torpedo passes near a target that has its own electromagnetic field, the torpedo field is distorted. The EMF in the receiving coils will become different and a difference EMF will appear. The amplified voltage is supplied to the actuator, which supplies power to the ignition device of the torpedo.

Modern torpedoes use combined fuses, which are a combination of a contact fuse with one of the types of proximity fuse.

2.4. Interaction of instruments and systems of torpedoes

during their movement on the trajectory

2.4.1. Purpose, main tactical and technical parameters

steam-gas torpedoes and the interaction of devices

and systems as they move

Steam-gas torpedoes are designed to destroy surface ships, transports and, less often, enemy submarines.

The main tactical and technical parameters of steam-gas torpedoes, which have received the widest distribution, are given in Table 2.2.

Table 2.2

Opening the locking air valve (see Fig. 2.3) before firing a torpedo;

A torpedo shot, accompanied by its movement in the TA;

Reclining the torpedo trigger (see Fig. 2.3) with a trigger hook in the pipe

torpedo launcher;

Opening the machine crane;

Compressed air supply directly to the heading device and the tilting device for spinning the gyroscope rotors, as well as to the air reducer;

Reduced pressure air from the gearbox enters the steering machines, which provide the shifting of the rudders and ailerons, and to displace water and oxidizer from the tanks;

The flow of water to displace fuel from the tank;

Supply of fuel, oxidizer and water to the combined cycle generator;

Ignition of fuel with an incendiary cartridge;

Formation of a steam-gas mixture and its supply to the turbine blades;

The rotation of the turbine, and hence the screw torpedo;

The impact of a torpedo into the water and the beginning of its movement in it;

The action of the depth automat (see Fig. 2.10), the heading device (see Fig. 2.11), the bank-leveling device and the movement of the torpedo in the water along the established trajectory;

Counter flows of water rotate the turntable, which, when the torpedo passes 180 ... 250 m, brings the percussion fuse into the combat position. This excludes the detonation of a torpedo on the ship and near it from accidental shocks and impacts;

30 ... 40 s after the torpedo is fired, the HB and SSN are switched on;

The SSN starts searching for the CS by emitting pulses of acoustic vibrations;

Having detected the CS (having received reflected impulses) and having passed it, the torpedo turns towards the target (the direction of rotation is entered before the shot);

SSN provides maneuvering of the torpedo (see Fig. 2.14);

When a torpedo passes near the target or when it hits, the corresponding fuses are triggered;

Torpedo explosion.

2.4.2. Purpose, main tactical and technical parameters of electric torpedoes and interaction of devices

and systems as they move

Electric torpedoes are designed to destroy enemy submarines.

The main tactical and technical parameters of the most widely used electric torpedoes. Are given in table. 2.3.

Table 2.3

* STsAB - silver-zinc storage battery.

The interaction of torpedo nodes is carried out as follows:

Opening the shut-off valve of the torpedo high pressure cylinder;

Closing the "+" electrical circuit - before the shot;

A torpedo shot, accompanied by its movement in the TA (see Fig. 2.5);

Closing the starting contactor;

High-pressure air supply to the heading device and the tilting device;

Supply of reduced air to the rubber shell to displace the electrolyte from it into the chemical battery (possible option);

Rotation of the electric motor, and hence the propellers of the torpedo;

The movement of the torpedo in the water;

The action of the depth automaton (Fig. 2.10), the heading device (Fig. 2.11), the roll-leveling device on the established trajectory of the torpedo;

30 ... 40 s after the torpedo is fired, the HB and the active channel of the SSN are turned on;

Target search by active CCH channel;

Receiving reflected signals and aiming at the target;

Periodic inclusion of a passive channel for direction finding of target noise;

Obtaining reliable contact with the target by the passive channel, turning off the active channel;

Guiding a torpedo on a target with a passive channel;

In case of loss of contact with the target, the SSN gives a command to perform a secondary search and guidance;

When a torpedo passes near the target, HB is triggered;

Torpedo explosion.

2.4.3. Prospects for the development of torpedo weapons

The need to improve torpedo weapons is caused by the constant improvement of the tactical parameters of ships. So, for example, the depth of immersion of nuclear submarines has reached 900 m, and their speed of movement is 40 knots.

There are several ways in which the improvement of torpedo weapons should be carried out (Fig. 2.21).

Improving the tactical parameters of torpedoes

In order for a torpedo to overtake a target, it must have a speed of at least 1.5 times greater than the attacked object (75 ... 80 knots), a cruising range of more than 50 km, and a diving depth of at least 1000 m.

Obviously, the listed tactical parameters are determined by the technical parameters of the torpedoes. Therefore, in this case, technical solutions should be considered.

An increase in the speed of a torpedo can be carried out by:

The use of more efficient chemical power sources for electric torpedo engines (magnesium-chlorine-silver, silver-aluminum, using sea water as an electrolyte).

Creation of combined-cycle ECS of a closed cycle for anti-submarine torpedoes;

Reducing the frontal resistance of water (polishing the surface of the torpedo body, reducing the number of its protruding parts, selecting the ratio of the length to the diameter of the torpedo), since V T is directly proportional to the resistance of water.

Introduction of rocket and hydrojet ECS.

An increase in the range of a DT torpedo is achieved in the same ways as an increase in its speed V T, because DT= V T t, where t is the torpedo movement time, determined by the number of power components of the ESU.

Increasing the depth of the torpedo (or the depth of the shot) requires strengthening the torpedo body. For this, stronger materials, such as aluminum or titanium alloys, must be used.

Increasing the chance of a torpedo hitting a target

Application in fiber optic control systems

waters. This allows for two-way communication with the torpe-

doi, which means to increase the amount of information about the location

targets, increase the noise immunity of the communication channel with the torpedo,

reduce the diameter of the wire;

The creation and application of electroacoustic converters in SSN

callers made in the form of antenna arrays, which will allow

improve the process of target detection and direction finding by a torpedo;

The use on board the torpedo of a highly integrated electronic

computing technology that provides more efficient

the work of the CLO;

An increase in the response radius of the SSN by an increase in its sensitivity

vitality;

Reducing the impact of countermeasures by using

in a torpedo of devices that carry out spectral

analysis of received signals, their classification and detection

false targets;

The development of SSN based on infrared technology, is not subject to

no interference;

Reducing the level of own noise of a torpedo by perfecting

motors (creation of brushless electric motors

alternating current transformers), rotation transmission mechanisms and

torpedo screws.

Increasing the probability of hitting a target

The solution to this problem can be achieved:

By detonating a torpedo near the most vulnerable part (for example,

under the keel) goals, which is ensured by the joint work

SSN and computer;

Undermining a torpedo at such a distance from the target at which

the maximum effect of the shock wave and expansion

rhenium of a gas bubble that occurs during an explosion;

Creation of a cumulative warhead (directed action);

Expanding the power range of the nuclear warhead, which

connected both with the object of destruction and with their own safety -

radius. So, a charge with a power of 0.01 kt should be applied

at a distance of at least 350 m, 0.1 kt - at least 1100 m.

Increasing the reliability of torpedoes

Experience in the operation and use of torpedo weapons shows that after long-term storage, some of the torpedoes are not capable of performing the functions assigned to them. This indicates the need to improve the reliability of torpedoes, which is achieved:

Increasing the level of integration of electronic equipment torpe -

dy. This provides an increase in the reliability of electronic devices.

roystvo by 5 - 6 times, reduces the occupied volumes, reduces

equipment cost;

The creation of torpedoes of a modular design, which allows you to

dernization to replace less reliable nodes with more reliable ones;

Improving the technology of manufacturing devices, assemblies and

torpedo systems.

Table 2.4

The end of the table. 2.4

Some of the paths considered have already been reflected in a number of torpedoes presented in Table. 2.4.

3. TACTICAL PROPERTIES AND BASIS OF COMBAT USE OF TORPEDO WEAPONS

3.1. Tactical properties of torpedo weapons

The tactical properties of any weapon are a set of qualities that characterize the combat capabilities of a weapon.

The main tactical properties of torpedo weapons are:

1. The range of the torpedo.

2. Its speed.

3. The depth of the course or the depth of the torpedo shot.

4. The ability to inflict damage on the most vulnerable (underwater) part of the ship. The experience of combat use shows that to destroy a large anti-submarine ship, 1 - 2 torpedoes are required, a cruiser - 3 - 4, an aircraft carrier - 5 - 7, a submarine - 1 - 2 torpedoes.

5. Secrecy of action, which is explained by low noise, tracelessness, large depth of travel.

6. High efficiency provided by the use of telecontrol systems, which significantly increases the likelihood of hitting targets.

7. The ability to destroy targets moving at any speed, and submarines moving at any depth.

8. High readiness for combat use.

However, along with the positive properties, there are also negative ones:

1. Relatively long exposure time to the enemy. So, for example, even at a speed of 50 knots, a torpedo takes about 15 minutes to reach a target located at a distance of 23 km. During this period of time, the target has the opportunity to maneuver, use countermeasures (combat and technical) to evade the torpedo.

2. The difficulty of destroying the target at short and long distances. On small ones - because of the possibility of hitting a firing ship, on large ones - because of the limited range of torpedoes.

3.2. Organization and types of preparation of torpedo weapons

to shooting

The organization and types of preparation of torpedo weapons for firing are determined by the "Rules of Mine Service" (PMS).

Preparation for shooting is divided into:

For preliminary;

Final.

Preliminary preparation begins at the signal: "Prepare the ship for battle and march." It ends with the obligatory fulfillment of all regulated actions.

Final preparation begins from the moment the target is detected and target designation is received. It ends at the moment the ship takes up the salvo position.

The main actions performed in preparation for firing are shown in the table.

Depending on the shooting conditions, the final preparation may be:

abbreviated;

With a small final preparation for guiding a torpedo, only the bearing to the target and the distance are taken into account. Lead angle j is not calculated (j =0).

With reduced final preparation, the bearing to the target, the distance and the direction of movement of the target are taken into account. In this case, the lead angle j is set equal to some constant value (j=const).

With full final preparation, the coordinates and parameters of the movement of the target (KPDC) are taken into account. In this case, the current value of the lead angle (jTEK) is determined.

3.3. Methods of firing torpedoes and their brief description

There are a number of ways to fire torpedoes. These methods are determined by the technical means with which the torpedoes are equipped.

With an autonomous control system, shooting is possible:

1. To the current target location (NMC), when the lead angle j=0 (Fig. 3.1, a).

2. To the area of ​​the probable target location (OVMC), when the lead angle j=const (Fig. 3.1, b).

3. To a pre-empted target location (UMC), when j=jTEK (Fig. 3.1, c).

With telecontrol, when the control of the movement of the torpedo is corrected by commands from the ship, the trajectory will be curvilinear. In this case, movement is possible:

1) along a trajectory that ensures that the torpedo is on the torpedo-target line;

2) to a lead point with correction of the lead angle according to

as the torpedo approaches the target.

time coincides with the direction to the target (Fig. 3.2, a).

The disadvantage of this method is that the torpedo is part of its

the path passes in the wake stream, which worsens the working conditions

you are the SSN (except for the SSN along the wake).

2. The so-called collision type trajectory (Fig. 3.2, b), when the longitudinal axis of the torpedo all the time forms a constant angle b with the direction to the target. This angle is constant for a particular SSN or can be optimized by the torpedo's onboard computer.

Bibliography

Theoretical foundations of torpedo weapons /,. Moscow: Military Publishing House, 1969.

Lobashinsky. /DOSAAF. M., 1986.

Zabnev weapons. M.: Military Publishing, 1984.

Sychev weapons / DOSAAF. M., 1984.

High-speed torpedo 53-65: history of creation // Marine collection 1998, No. 5. With. 48-52.

From the history of the development and combat use of torpedo weapons

1. General information about torpedo weapons …………………………………… 4

2. The device of torpedoes ……………………………………………………………… 13

3. Tactical properties and basics of combat use

In the autumn of 1984, events took place in the Barents Sea that could lead to the start of a world war.

An American missile cruiser suddenly burst into the combat training area of ​​the Soviet northern fleet at full speed. This happened during a torpedo throwing by a Mi-14 helicopter link. The Americans launched a high-speed motor boat, and raised a helicopter into the air for cover. The Severomorsk aviators realized that their goal was to capture the latest Soviet torpedoes.

The duel over the sea lasted almost 40 minutes. With maneuvers and air currents from the propellers, the Soviet pilots did not allow the annoying Yankees to approach the secret product until the Soviet one safely brought it on board. The escort ships that arrived in time by this time forced the American out of the range.

Torpedoes have always been considered the most effective weapon of the Russian fleet. It is no coincidence that NATO secret services regularly hunt for their secrets. Russia continues to be the world leader in terms of the amount of know-how applied to the creation of torpedoes.

Modern torpedo a formidable weapon of modern ships and submarines. It allows you to quickly and accurately strike at the enemy at sea. By definition, a torpedo is an autonomous, self-propelled and guided underwater projectile, in which about 500 kg of explosive or nuclear warhead is sealed. The secrets of developing torpedo weapons are the most protected, and the number of states that own these technologies is even less than the number of members of the "nuclear club".

During the Korean War in 1952, the Americans planned to drop two atomic bombs each weighing 40 tons. At that time, a Soviet fighter regiment operated on the side of the Korean troops. The Soviet Union also had nuclear weapons, and a local conflict could escalate into a real nuclear catastrophe at any moment. Information about the intentions of the Americans to use atomic bombs became the property of Soviet intelligence. In response, Joseph Stalin ordered the development of more powerful thermonuclear weapons to be accelerated. Already in September of the same year, the Minister of the shipbuilding industry, Vyacheslav Malyshev, submitted a unique project for Stalin's approval.

Vyacheslav Malyshev proposed to create a huge nuclear torpedo T-15. This 24-meter projectile of 1550 millimeters was supposed to have a weight of 40 tons, of which only 4 tons accounted for the warhead. Stalin approved the creation torpedoes, the energy for which was produced by electric batteries.

These weapons could destroy major US naval bases. Due to the increased secrecy, the builders and nuclear scientists did not consult with representatives of the fleet, so no one thought about how to serve such a monster and shoot, in addition, the US Navy had only two bases available for Soviet torpedoes, so they abandoned the T-15 supergiant.

In exchange, the sailors proposed to create a conventional caliber atomic torpedo, which could be used on all. Interestingly, the caliber of 533 mm is generally accepted and scientifically justified, since the caliber and length are actually the potential energy of the torpedo. It was possible to covertly strike at a potential enemy only at long distances, so the designers and naval sailors gave priority to thermal torpedoes.

On October 10, 1957, the first underwater nuclear tests were carried out in the Novaya Zemlya area. torpedoes caliber 533 mm. The new torpedo was fired by the S-144 submarine. From a distance of 10 kilometers, the submarine fired one torpedo salvo. Soon, at a depth of 35 meters, a powerful atomic explosion followed, its damaging properties were recorded by hundreds of sensors placed on those located in the test area. Interestingly, during this most dangerous element, the crews were replaced by animals.

As a result of these tests, the navy received the first nuclear torpedo 5358. They belonged to the class of thermal engines, since their engines operated on vapors of a gas mixture.

The nuclear epic is just one page in the history of Russian torpedo building. More than 150 years ago, the idea to create the first self-propelled naval mine or torpedo was put forward by our compatriot Ivan Aleksandrovsky. Soon, under the command, for the first time in the world, a torpedo was used in a battle with the Turks in January 1878. And at the beginning of World War II, Soviet designers created the highest-speed torpedo in the world 5339, which means 53 centimeters and 1939. However, the true dawn of the domestic torpedo building schools occurred in the 60s of the last century. Its center was TsNI 400, later renamed Gidropribor. Over the past period, the institute handed over 35 different samples to the Soviet fleet torpedoes.

In addition to submarines, naval aviation and all classes of surface ships, the rapidly developing fleet of the USSR, were armed with torpedoes: cruisers, destroyers and patrol ships. The unique carriers of these weapons, torpedo boats, also continued to be built.

At the same time, the composition of the NATO bloc was constantly replenished with ships with higher performance. So in September 1960, the world's first nuclear-powered Enterprise was launched with a displacement of 89,000 tons, with 104 units of nuclear weapons on board. To combat aircraft carrier strike groups with strong anti-submarine defenses, the range of the existing weapon was no longer enough.

Only submarines could approach the aircraft carriers unnoticed, but it was extremely difficult to conduct aimed fire at the guards covered by ships. In addition, during the years of World War II, the American Navy learned to counteract the torpedo homing system. To solve this problem, Soviet scientists for the first time in the world created a new torpedo device that detected the wake of the ship and ensured its further destruction. However, thermal torpedoes had a significant drawback - their characteristics fell sharply at great depths, while their piston engines and turbines made loud noises, which unmasked the attacking ships.

In view of this, the designers had to solve new problems. This is how an aircraft torpedo appeared, which was placed under the body of a cruise missile. As a result, the time of destruction of submarines was reduced several times. The first such complex was named "Metel". It was intended to be fired upon by submarines from escort ships. Later, the complex learned to hit surface targets. Submarines were also armed with torpedoes.

In the 70s, the US Navy reclassified its aircraft carriers from strike aircraft carriers to multipurpose ones. For this, the composition of the aircraft based on them was replaced in favor of anti-submarine ones. Now they could not only launch air strikes on the territory of the USSR, but also actively counteract the deployment of Soviet submarines in the ocean. To break through the defenses and destroy multi-purpose aircraft carrier strike groups, Soviet submarines began to arm themselves with cruise missiles launched from torpedo tubes and flying hundreds of kilometers. But even this long-range weapon could not sink the floating airfield. More powerful charges were required, therefore, specifically for nuclear-powered ships of the "" type, the designers of "Gidropribor" created a torpedo of an increased caliber of 650 millimeters, which carries more than 700 kilograms of explosives.

This sample is used in the so-called dead zone of its anti-ship missiles. It aims at the target either independently or receives information from external sources of target designation. In this case, the torpedo can approach the enemy simultaneously with other weapons. It is almost impossible to defend against such a massive blow. For this, she received the nickname "aircraft carrier killer."

In everyday affairs and worries, the Soviet people did not think about the dangers associated with the confrontation of the superpowers. But each of them was targeted in the equivalent of about 100 tons of US military equipment. The bulk of these weapons was taken out into the world's oceans and placed on underwater carriers. The main weapon of the Soviet fleet against were anti-submarine torpedoes. Traditionally, electric motors were used for them, the power of which did not depend on the depth of travel. Such torpedoes were armed not only with submarines, but also with surface ships. The most powerful of them were. For a long time, the most common anti-submarine torpedoes for submarines were the SET-65, but in 1971, the designers for the first time used remote control, which was carried out underwater by wires. This dramatically increased the accuracy of the submarines. And soon the USET-80 universal electric torpedo was created, which could effectively destroy not only, but also surface ones. She developed a high speed of over 40 knots and had a long range. In addition, it struck at a depth of travel inaccessible to any NATO anti-submarine forces - over 1000 meters.

In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the plants and testing grounds of the Gidropribor Institute ended up on the territory of seven new sovereign states. Most of the enterprises were looted. But scientific work on the creation of a modern underwater gun in Russia was not interrupted.

midget combat torpedo

Like unmanned aerial vehicles, torpedo weapons will be used with increasing demand in the coming years. Today, Russia is building fourth-generation warships, and one of their features is an integrated weapon control system. For them, small-sized thermal and universal deep-sea torpedoes. Their engine runs on unitary fuel, which is essentially liquid gunpowder. When it burns, enormous energy is released. This torpedo universal. It can be used from surface ships, submarines, and also be part of the combat units of aviation anti-submarine systems.

Technical characteristics of a universal deep-sea homing torpedo with remote control (UGST):

Weight - 2200 kg;

Charge weight - 300 kg;

Speed ​​- 50 knots;

Travel depth - up to 500 m;

Range - 50 km;

Homing radius - 2500 m;

Recently, the US Navy has been replenished with the latest Virginia-class nuclear submarines. Their ammunition includes 26 modernized Mk 48 torpedoes. When fired, they rush to a target located at a distance of 50 kilometers at a speed of 60 knots. The working depths of the torpedo for the purpose of invulnerability to the enemy are up to 1 kilometer. The Russian multi-purpose submarine of project 885 "Ash" is called upon to become the enemy of these boats under water. Its ammunition capacity is 30 torpedoes, and so far its secret characteristics are in no way inferior.

And in conclusion, I would like to note that torpedo weapons contain a lot of secrets, for each of which a potential enemy in battle will have to pay a heavy price.

It has been about eighty years since the torpedo was invented, and sixty-seven years from the day it was first used in combat. During this time, the fundamentals of the device of this weapon have not changed. But along with the successes of science and technology, metallurgy and mechanical engineering, the quality of torpedoes was continuously improved.

Scientists and technicians strained every effort to continuously improve the four main qualities of the torpedo: the destructive effect of the charge, so that the wound inflicted on the enemy ship turned out to be deeper, larger, more deadly; accuracy and speed, so that a torpedo overtakes its victim more accurately and quickly; tracelessness, so that it is more difficult for the enemy to notice the torpedo and evade it, and the range, so that it is possible, if necessary, to hit the enemy from afar.

Their efforts led to the fact that in the Second World War the torpedo became an even more formidable weapon. In large-scale combat clashes on the seas and oceans, in the daily struggle on communications, torpedo strikes often decided the outcome of battles.

Before us is a giant steel "spindle". It seems to be made up of regular geometric shapes. A long cylinder ends in front with a hemisphere, and behind with a “cone. The total length of the spindle in various designs varies from 6 to 7–8 meters, and the diameter of the cylinder varies from 450 to 600 millimeters. The shape and dimensions of the spindle are very reminiscent of a large shark, a voracious predator of the seas. And the impact of a torpedo resembles a shark attack. The electric ray, whose name Fulton gave to the torpedo, is related to the shark. Therefore, by all indications, a torpedo can be called a "steel shark".

Let's start our acquaintance with the steel shark (see the figure on pages 88-89) from its head - from the front of the torpedo. This is the part inside which the explosive charge is placed, the charging compartment. All other parts of the torpedo serve one purpose - to carry this charge to the intended target and blow it up. In the first torpedo, the weight of the charge did not exceed a few kilograms. For eighty years, these few kilograms have grown to two hundred or four hundred. Already in the first torpedoes, instead of ordinary black powder, a very strong explosive, pyroxylin, was used. This substance was pressed into the form of bricks and placed in the charging compartment. In our time, the latest, extremely powerful explosives are used. They are not only laid, but also poured into the charging compartment in liquid form, after which this charge hardens. When such a charge explodes under water at the side of the ship, the force of its impact at a distance of 7–8 meters destroys all obstacles in its path, distorts, breaks, and scatters the strongest devices made of high-quality metal.

The charging compartment of a torpedo filled with explosive is the same mine with a large charge. No matter how hard such a mine hits the hull of the ship, it will not explode if we supply it with a fuse and a detonator. The torpedo detonator consists of two substances: 1.8 grams of tetryl and 0.2 grams of mercury fulminate, placed inside the firing cup, which usually contains 600 grams of pressed tetryl powder.

A torpedo usually has two fuses, or, as they are also called, a firing pin. One is located in front of the charging compartment and is called the frontal. When hitting a target, the firing pin moves back and pricks a primer with mercury fulminate. The detonator ignites, and after it the main charge explodes.

But after all, a torpedo can hit the ship obliquely, then the firing pin will not work. In this case, the front drummer is equipped with four "mustache" protruding in front of it, diverging in different directions. It very rarely happens that a torpedo slips along the side of the ship and does not touch it with a single whisker. To insure the torpedo against such a case, it is supplied with a second drummer. It's called "inertial". The striker of this striker is so arranged that in any collision of a torpedo with some massive solid body, it instantly pierces the detonator cap and produces an explosion.

The reader probably has a fear: can not both of these strikers, both the frontal and especially the inertial one, act even before the torpedo shot, even during preparation, from accidental concussions and collisions? No, they can't! The safety of handling is ensured by a special fuse that stops the strikers of the drummers. This fuse protrudes from the front of the torpedo in the form of a rod with a tiny pinwheel at the end. When the torpedo is fired into the water, the spinner starts to rotate and releases the strikers from the fuse. This happens when the torpedo has already passed 200–250 meters in the water; now it has become dangerous. There is another type of fuse that works if the torpedo does not touch the ship at all, but only passes under it. Such fuses are called non-contact fuses. Their device is a military secret. One can only give descriptions of individual projects, information about which has penetrated into the press.

A few years before the start of the Second World War, reports appeared in the foreign technical press about a torpedo armed with an electric "eye" - a photocell. The torpedo is deliberately directed slightly below the bottom of the target ship. At the moment when the photocell hits the shadow falling from the ship, the sensitive device of the electric eye that controls the depth rudder is activated, and the torpedo soars up sharply. At the same time, the mechanism that explodes the charge is also activated. The explosion occurs either in the immediate vicinity of the bottom, or when a torpedo collides with the ship's hull.

The main purpose of such a torpedo is to strike at the most vulnerable part of the ship's hull - at its bottom, where it is least protected from an underwater explosion.

According to separate reports in foreign journals, there are still non-contact fuses in which a magnetic needle works instead of an electric eye, just like in a magnetic mine. When a torpedo with such a fuse hits the ship's magnetic field, the charge explodes. In time, the action of the magnetic fuse is so calculated that the torpedo explodes just under the bottom of the ship, where there is no mine protection.

Air, water and kerosene - that's what our steel predator eats. He takes this food into special receivers - tanks and tanks. If we go from the charging compartment to the tail of the torpedo, then first of all we get into the air receiver - the air reservoir. This is the middle and longest (about 3 meters) part of the torpedo. It is a steel cylinder in the entire diameter of the torpedo. At both ends, this cylinder is closed with spherical bottoms.

Air is the main and largest component of the "food" of the torpedo, and a lot of it is required. Therefore, they try to put as much air as possible into the tank. But how to do it? We have to pump air into the tank at high pressure, reaching up to 200 atmospheres, and store it in the tank in a compressed state.

At ordinary atmospheric pressure, a force of 1 kilogram would press on each square centimeter of the surface of the tank both inside and outside.

But here we pumped air into the tank under a pressure of 200 atmospheres. Now, for every square centimeter of the surface from the inside of the tank, a huge force of 200 kilograms is pressing, and outside - the same 1 kilogram as before. The metal from which the tank is made must reliably withstand excess pressure from the inside and not burst. Connections of bottoms to the cylinder Must not let latent air out. Therefore, the air reservoir of a torpedo is a very important part of it. The tank is made of very durable steel. The bottoms are carefully inserted into the cylinder tightly. The manufacture of the reservoir and bottoms, their assembly - all these are very important operations in the manufacture of the entire torpedo.

A hole is left in the rear bottom of the air reservoir. A tube connects this hole to the surface of the torpedo. Air is pumped through the inlet cock located on this tube. Then the inlet cock closes - “the tank has taken its portion of air. When needed, another valve will open in the same tube - the machine one, and air will flow to the torpedo mechanisms.

Right there, behind the air tank, the aft compartment of the torpedo begins. Here, next to the air tank, there is a small tank - a cylinder for several liters of kerosene. And, finally, here we will also find water poured here specifically to “water” the steel shark.

All the main mechanisms of the torpedo are located in the aft compartment. Air, kerosene, water enter a special apparatus, which the torpedoists call the "heating apparatus". On the way to this apparatus, compressed air passes through high and low pressure regulators. The first of them lowers the air pressure from 200 atmospheres to 60, and the second - from 60 to a lower, working pressure. Only then does the compressed air finally enter the heating apparatus. Here, air, water and kerosene are processed into a single source of energy for the movement of the torpedo. How it's done?

As soon as kerosene enters the heating apparatus, it immediately ignites from a special automatic incendiary cartridge.

Air allows kerosene to burn - the temperature in the apparatus rises greatly. The water evaporates and turns into steam. The entire working mixture of gases from burnt kerosene and water vapor comes from the heating apparatus to the main machine - the torpedo engine; it is small and occupies about a meter in the length of the torpedo, and yet this engine develops great power - 300-400 horsepower.

The mixture that enters the engine cylinders maintains a significant working pressure. Pistons with rods can move in cylinders. The working mixture presses on the piston, pushes it. Then a special distribution mechanism of the engine releases the spent mixture and lets in a new one, on the other side of the piston. The pressure drops on one side and increases on the other. The piston comes back and pulls the rod along with it.

An ordinary steam engine in a locomotive works almost the same way. Only there the machine rotates the wheel of the locomotive, and in the torpedo it sets the propeller shafts in motion. Two steel pipes inserted one into the other are the propeller shafts of the torpedo. They pass through the tail of the torpedo, along its axis from the car to the rear end. The work of the pistons through the crank mechanism is transmitted to both shafts, causing them to rotate in different directions. The shafts are called propeller shafts because a propeller is mounted on each of them. It goes without saying that the screws rotate in different directions.

But why are there two of them and why are they forced to rotate in different directions? Imagine that a torpedo has only one propeller. Let's make this screw rotate in any one direction. Then the torpedo will move forward and rotate to the side; roll. But the operation of the mechanisms of the torpedo is designed for the fact that it will move forward without swinging or turning over. When two propellers rotate in opposite directions, they balance each other - the torpedo goes smoothly, does not heel, does not roll over.

When the gases did their job - they pushed the pistons, made the shafts rotate, they go inside the hollow propeller shaft. Through the rear open end of the shaft, the exhaust gas goes into the water and bubbles up to the surface. There, the bubbles burst and form a rather noticeable foamy trail.

This trace is the enemy of torpedoists: it gives out a torpedo and an attacking submarine.

Very often this frothy trail spoils the whole thing for torpedoists. The enemy saw the trail, "turned away", and the torpedo passed by. The most important quality of a torpedo attack from submarines - its secrecy - is greatly reduced due to the fault of some air bubbles, due to the fault of the exhaust gases of the torpedo engine leaving the water. How to get rid of them?

First of all, you can replace the engine in a torpedo, put an electric motor, then there will be no air bubbles, the trace of the torpedo will disappear. Previously, it was believed that this was impossible to achieve, since batteries so heavy and bulky were needed to power the electric motor that there was nowhere to place them in the torpedo. And the size and weight of the torpedo supposedly did not allow this. But already during the Second World War, reports appeared in the press that torpedoes with an electric motor were used. This means that lightweight and capacious batteries, a lightweight but powerful electric motor have been invented. Thus, a way was found to get rid of the torpedo trace.

The same problem can be solved in another way - to make the exhaust gases invisible - then there will be no bubbles.

Ten years ago, information began to appear in the press about a torpedo engine operating not on a vapor-air mixture, but on oxygen and hydrogen. The exhaust gases of such an engine should turn into water and disappear into the sea without a trace.

It is possible that such a solution to the problem of tracelessness has already been achieved.

If we remove the air tank and photograph the section of the torpedo, we will see in the photograph a complex labyrinth of tubes and valves that enveloped the body of the heating apparatus, the kerosene cylinder and the main engine.

But there is nothing superfluous here. Each tube, each valve serves a specific job.

Every ship has a helmsman. He holds the helm in his hands, turns the rudder with it, the ship changes direction. The torpedo also has rudders, and they also need to be controlled. If this is not done, the torpedo may jump to the surface or, conversely, dive very deep and hit the bottom. It may even happen that she turns the other way or goes back and hits her ship.

Where the tail of the torpedo ends, two pairs of rudders are fixed. One pair is vertical, the other is horizontal. Each pair of torpedo rudders has its own "helmsman". But these, of course, are not people, but mechanical steering.

Horizontal rudders keep the torpedo running in depth. This means that they force the torpedo to stay at a given level underwater. In different cases, these levels are different.

A battleship sits deep in the water: in order to hit it with a torpedo lower, away from armor protection, it is necessary that the torpedo go deeper. Small surface ships sit shallow in the water; if you launch a torpedo at great depth, it can pass under the bottom of such a ship, under its keel. So, it is necessary to launch a torpedo at a shallow depth. And you need to ensure that the specified depth does not change.

This is where the work of the first steering torpedo begins - a hydrostatic apparatus.

We are already familiar with the device of a hydrostat operating in a mine. In the torpedo, its device is repeated. A cylinder with a movable disk and a spring is placed in the torpedo so that the disk communicates with sea water and experiences water pressure. The deeper the torpedo goes, the greater this pressure; the smaller the torpedo goes, the lower the pressure. This pressure will push the hydrostat disk from bottom to top.

What needs to be done so that the torpedo goes at a given depth, for example, at a depth of 4 meters? The hydrostat spring is adjusted so that at a depth of 4 meters the disk occupies a certain position in the cylinder. If the torpedo goes deeper, the pressure will increase, the disk will go up. If the torpedo goes smaller, the disk will lower.

Special rods connect the disk to the steering machine, powered by compressed air. The steering machine, in turn, is connected to the horizontal rudders. If the torpedo went down and dived below a predetermined depth, the disk went up, pulled the thrust, the steering machine started working and turned the rudders. The torpedo starts going up. So she reached a certain level under water, but could not stay on it and went higher. The disk lowered, pulled the rod again, but in the other direction. The steering machine started up again and turned the rudders. We have to turn the torpedo down. So the hydrostat does not allow the torpedo to go from a given depth.

But how do the hydrostat and rudders behave if the torpedo goes correctly at a given depth? In this case, the disk is left alone; the whole device is adjusted in such a way that, with a stationary disk, the horizontal rudders are located in a horizontal plane, they constitute a direct continuation of the tail plumage of the torpedo. In this case, a straight move should also be obtained, without jumps up and down. In fact, there is no strictly direct move: the torpedo always goes up, then it looks, it goes along a wavy line. But if there are no sharp jumps, if the deviations from the given level are not large, not more than 1/2 meter, the depth progress is considered satisfactory. But not one hydrostat solves this problem.

The hydrostat is exactly as old as the torpedo itself. Whitehead invented this device when he was trying to make Luppis' mineboat go under water. Tests have shown that the torpedo makes jumps and deviates from a given level by 6-8 meters. Very often she burrowed into the sandy bottom or, like a dolphin, jumped out and tumbled on the surface of the water.

Whitehead soon discovered the cause of this "playfulness". Torpedo is a heavy body. Here she is going down at high speed, and the rudders pulled her up. The torpedo will not immediately “obey the helm”, by inertia it will still go down some distance. The steering wheels are also always a little late with the turn. Yes, and it's understandable why. The moment the torpedo has gone below the predetermined depth, the disk immediately begins to move. But between it and the rudders, the traction and the steering machine should still work. This takes time. That's why Whitehead's first torpedo jumped.

Whitehead began to solve a new problem - how to destroy or slightly reduce torpedo jumps. Two years later (in 1868) he solved this problem - the torpedo began to walk more evenly, without jumps. Whitehead attached another mechanism to the hydrostat. "Secret of a mine" - so this device was called for many years.

Of course, everyone has seen the pendulum in the wall clock. The "secret" of the mine is the pendulum. Its heavy load through a special steering machine is connected to the steering rods. The suspension point is chosen in such a way that the weight of the pendulum, as it were, helps the hydrostat to straighten the course of the torpedo. As soon as the torpedo dives nose down or jumps up, the weight of the pendulum begins to act through the steering machine on the steering rods. The pendulum is an assistant to the hydrostat. It speeds up the rudder shift when the torpedo deviates from the set depth. When the torpedo returns to a predetermined depth, the same pendulum prevents the torpedo from jumping too sharply and evens out its course.

The hydrostat together with the pendulum constitute the hydrostatic apparatus. This is the first steering torpedo, which keeps the correct course towards the enemy ship in the underwater depths.

We now know how Whitehead managed to secure the first helmsman for the torpedo. But soon a second helmsman was needed.

In the early days of the torpedo, there were no such durable materials that could withstand the high air pressure in the tank. The lower the pressure, the less air the tank contained, the less energy the torpedo engine had. Therefore, the torpedo barely passed 400 meters. In order to hit more accurately, you had to get close to the enemy. At such a short distance, the torpedo only slightly deviated from the given direction. Yet there were frequent failures.

In the future, the torpedo was improved, the air supply in the tank was increased, the range of the torpedo increased, and the deviations of the torpedo from the direction became very large, so misses often occurred even on a stationary enemy. But it was necessary to shoot at moving ships.

Whitehead never managed to think of a device for such a mechanical steering, which, like a hydrostat, would notice deviations and force the torpedo to return to a given direction.

Only 30 years after the birth of the torpedo (in 1896), the designers managed to invent a second mechanical helmsman for it - a device for controlling the course in direction. This merit belongs to the designer Aubrey. Therefore, the device is named after him; so they say - Aubrey's device. This device in its design resembles a simple top, the same top that children play with. If such a top rotates at a very high speed, its axis is always in the same position, always retains its direction. Even a great effort will not force the axis of a rapidly rotating top to change its direction. In engineering, such a top is called a gyroscope.

Aubrey provided the torpedo with a gyroscope and suspended it in such a way that the position of the axis of the top of the device always remained the same. The device was connected to the vertical rudders with the help of rods and an intermediate steering machine so that with a straight, correct course of the torpedo, its vertical rudders are motionless. But now the torpedo turned off the direct path. Since the axis of the rapidly rotating top has retained its position in space, and the torpedo has changed its direction, the rods connecting the top with the rudders through the steering machine begin to shift the vertical rudders. The connection of the top with the rudders is arranged so that if the torpedo turned to the left, the rudders will shift to the right - the torpedo will also have to turn to the right and return to the right path. The torpedo could not resist in the right direction and turned to the right - the rudders would immediately shift to the left, and again the torpedo had to return to the right path. And only when the torpedo goes along this path, the rudders will remain at rest, in a straight position. But in order for the gyroscope to work in this way, it is necessary that the top rotates very quickly, so that its number of revolutions reaches twenty thousand per minute. How it's done?

Among the labyrinth of tubes, between the tank and the machine, one winds, which passes by the heating apparatus, past the main machine, goes further and ends just in the gyroscope housing. A small air turbine is placed here. The tube brings air from the tank to it. This air retains all its pressure - it did not decrease anywhere along the way. When the engine tap opens at the moment of the shot, the air from the tank enters the turbine through the tube, presses on its blades and makes it rotate at great speed. In turn, the impeller transmits this speed to the top. All this lasts less than half a second, then the impeller automatically disengages from the top. Thus, while the torpedo slides into the water when fired, its spinning top is already launched and accurately guides the underwater projectile in a given direction. And here, as in the course of a torpedo in depth, its movement is not quite straight, but slightly wavy. But these fluctuations are very small.

So, the gyroscope is that second mechanical helmsman that makes the torpedo go straight to the target. But the same gyroscope, if suitably set beforehand, can cause the torpedo to turn through some angle to the original direction. It sometimes happens that it is more profitable to shoot a torpedo that way. Such shooting is called "corner".

We got acquainted with the main basic mechanisms of the steel shark. But many other auxiliary mechanisms were housed in her metal body. It can be said that the body of a steel shark - the body of a torpedo - is "stuffed" with these mechanisms until failure.

With the help of some mechanisms, you can make a torpedo go under water at a speed of up to 50 knots. At this speed, air is quickly consumed, it is enough for a short distance, only 3-4 kilometers. But if you reduce the speed to 30 knots, then the torpedo can travel a very long distance - up to 10-12 kilometers.

Other mechanisms force the torpedo to travel no more than a given distance, cause it to sink if it has not overtaken the enemy, or to float to the surface of the water if it needs to be returned to the ship that sent it. This happens during training practice shooting.

Both the main and auxiliary mechanisms of the torpedo are regulated, set in advance, before the shot. For this purpose, taps and regulators are brought out through special openings - necks.

If you shoot with a projectile or a bullet, you must have a cannon or a rifle. How do you fire a torpedo? There is a special torpedo "gun". It has one or more pipes. Torpedoes prepared for firing are inserted into these tubes. When fired at the back of the pipe, either a charge of gunpowder explodes, or compressed air is let in from a special reservoir. In both cases, pressure is obtained that pushes the torpedo out of the pipe.

On small surface ships, torpedo tubes are mounted on the deck. Pipes are connected by two, three or four (up to five) on one turntable. To aim, you need to rotate the platform with pipes at a certain angle. On submarines, torpedo tubes are placed inside the hull, in the bow and stern (and, more recently, outside the hull). They are tightly fixed in nests. In order to aim, you have to maneuver and direct the boat with the stern or bow to the point where the torpedo should hit.

The push-shot with compressed air or gunpowder serves only to force the torpedo to fly out of the pipe into the water. On the upper surface of the torpedo there is a folding trigger, and a hook is attached to the inner surface of the apparatus tube from above. When the torpedo is still sliding inside the pipe, this hook pulls the trigger, throws it back. The machine valve is immediately opened and the compressed air from the tank moves to the heating apparatus, and from there to the machine. The engine starts to work, the screws rotate and quickly move the torpedo forward.

But where do the powder gases or compressed air go after the torpedo has left the apparatus? On surface ships, the issue is solved simply: after the torpedo, the gases that pushed it out into the air also escape. Submarines are different. Gases escape into the water and then to its surface, forming a large bubble. This detects the submarine. That is why recently the problem of "bubbleless" shooting has been intensively solved and, apparently, successfully solved.

Even before the toga, as the compressed air threw the torpedo into the water, the miners had to take the right aim. How to aim a torpedo, how to accurately direct the tube of a torpedo tube? After all, the target ship does not stand still, but moves at high or low speed in some direction. If at the moment of the shot you aim exactly at the point where the enemy ship is located, then during the movement of the torpedo the target will have time to move forward, and the torpedo will miss and only cross the course of the ship somewhere behind, behind its stern. Therefore, you need to aim not at the ship itself, but at some point in front of it, on the path of its movement. How to find this point?

This is where the “torpedo triangle” comes to the rescue. The quick and correct solution of this triangle is the most important condition for a successful torpedo attack.

Imagine an attack ship. At some distance from it, the target ship moves in its direction. The line connecting both ships at the time of the shot is one side of the triangle. In a minute or two, an explosion will occur - the enemy ship and the torpedo will collide at some point. The line connecting the attacking ship to this point is the other side of the triangle. The third side is that segment of the path that the enemy ship managed to follow the course from the moment of the shot to the moment of the explosion.

The triangle has three vertices - points. The first point is the location of the attacking ship at the time of the shot, the second is the location of the attacked ship, also at the time of the shot, and the third is the point at which this ship and the torpedo should meet. This third vertex of the triangle must be found.

The attacking ship has special precision instruments that provide the torpedoists with the necessary information: the speed and course of the target ship and the distance to it. In addition, a special torpedo sight helps the torpedo gunner. This device also resembles a triangle. One side of this triangle is rigidly fixed in the direction of the torpedo tube. It has a scale with divisions. These divisions on the scale measure the speed of the torpedo. The other side of the triangle is movable around the hinge. It also has divisions depicting the speed of the target ship. This side is set parallel to the course of the attacked vessel. And finally, the third side coincides with the line connecting the attacking ship to the point of impact. This side is also movable. The torpedo operator combines the setting of both movable sides of his sight and finds the desired point, or rather the angle by which the direction of the torpedo must be deflected in order to hit the target ship ahead of its course at some particular point. This angle is called the "lead angle".

When the torpedo had just appeared, its speed grew very quickly and soon almost doubled compared to the speeds of the ships of that time. It was possible to shoot even in pursuit of enemy ships. Today, the speed of a torpedo is only slightly faster than that of fast surface ships. The attacking ship must therefore choose a position ahead of its target.

When firing torpedoes from long distances, it is difficult to count on a correct, accurate sight. Therefore, in such cases, several torpedoes are fired at once, but not. at one point, but so that they all cover a certain area. This is done in such a way as to "catch" the enemy ship in the fired area, even if the data for firing is incorrectly determined. This method of delivering a torpedo strike is called "square shooting". How is this shooting done?

The tubes of torpedo tubes dissolve in such a way that their axes form, as it were, rays emerging from one point. It turns out a kind of torpedo "fan". The torpedoes fired in one gulp just fan out at the target, and one or two of them will surely meet with it. You can shoot in a different way, in a burst, "quick fire" - torpedoes are fired one after another at known intervals in such a way that one of them overtakes the enemy ship at some point on its course line.

The technique contained in the torpedo is complex. Its mechanisms require very precise and skilled handling. Decisive quick actions, initiative, solid knowledge of the material part and the ability to correctly assess the combat situation require a torpedo shot from a torpedoist. The specialty of a torpedoist is full of interest.

Many times, individual mechanisms and the entire torpedo are tested on the test benches of the plant and at sea before being handed over to the fleet, and on ships, steel predators are again and again exercised in a deadly run on the enemy, training cadres of young torpedoists to master the power of their weapons.

Here are a few people on the deck of a training ship or a floating test station, leaning over the side and watching the surface of the water intently. These people have stopwatches in their hands. A signal sounded, and at the same moment a steel shark jumped into the water from the tube of the torpedo tube. She dives, disappears in the water, and then, after a moment, air bubbles bursting on the surface mark the trail of a torpedo. Several milestones are located on her way. The first milestone has already been passed. The people on the deck “spotted” the moment of the torpedo’s jump on stopwatches and now armed themselves with binoculars so as not to lose sight of its trail.

One by one, the control milestones are left behind, and the last one is the end of a given distance. Already the trace is visible very unclear, as if it is no longer there. At this moment, behind the last milestone above the surface of the water, a bright jet of a fountain merrily takes off: this torpedo traveled a predetermined distance, automatically freed itself from ballast water, stood upright and jumped helplessly on the waves, like a harmless buoy. The duty boat quickly approaches the "buoy". The people on the boat deftly take the torpedo in tow and deliver it back to the training ship. A few more minutes - and the torpedo hung in the air on a crane hook and returns to its ship.

This is how a torpedo is tested. When tested, its front part, the combat charging compartment, is replaced by a training charging compartment. Instead of an explosive charge, it is filled with ordinary water. When the torpedo travels a predetermined distance, a special mechanism automatically forces the compressed air to displace the water, and the torpedo floats to the surface.

When a torpedo has been repeatedly tested at the factory and at sea, when it is ready for its role as a carrier of a fatal underwater strike, it is handed over to the fleet, and then it is the turn of the torpedoists on ships to master their weapons in the best possible way.

The torpedo is aimed at the target, the rudders accurately lead it in a given depth and direction. But either the torpedo triangle was incorrectly resolved, or the speed and course of the target were incorrectly determined - the torpedo missed the target. It may happen that the sight is taken correctly, but the enemy noticed or suspected the danger and began to maneuver, change course and speed - again the torpedo passed by. Finally, after all, the mechanisms of the torpedo can also fail: they adjusted and set them correctly, but during the course something went wrong, the mechanisms incorrectly led the torpedo - again past.

How to ensure that the torpedo never misses the target, that it always catches up with the enemy, in order to make this underwater projectile inevitable? There is only one answer: you need to be able to control the rudders of the torpedo after the shot so as to make the torpedo pursue its target if the enemy “turned away”; you need to be able to correct the position of the rudders during the course, if an error crept into the sight or the rudders themselves failed. All this seems impossible. After all, there is no person inside the torpedo who could do all this; this means that all these matters must be entrusted to automatic machines or mechanisms, to which the torpedo operator will dictate his will from afar. Is it possible? It turns out it's possible. It turns out that it is possible to manufacture such machines and mechanisms. According to foreign data, torpedoes with such devices were manufactured and were or are being tested, perhaps even used in the Second World War.

Attempts to control a torpedo at a distance have an interesting history. These attempts are already 80 years old. Captain Luppis also tried to control his self-propelled mine boat with long ropes tied to the rudders.

The inventor hoped that he would pull the ropes, and the rudders during the course would turn the mine in any direction. So Luppis wanted to control his mine from a distance. Luppis did not succeed, but his idea did not disappear - only 13 years passed and it was revived again.

On the shore of a closed bay near Portsmouth (in England), a group of people are busy with cars. A rather long and narrow wooden pier protrudes from the shore into the sea. At the very end of the wharf lies a steel object very similar to Whitehead's first torpedoes. Behind, at the ends of the shafts, two propellers are mounted: propellers, rudders are visible. On top of the body of the torpedo, almost in the middle, two small holes were made. Two thin and strong steel wires stick out of these holes. They spread along the hull and stretch far back to the shore. There is a large steam engine, and two large drums are connected to it. Both wires are attached to these drums.

The man on the pier gives a signal. The steam engine starts to work and rotates the drums at high speed. Steel wires are quickly wound onto drums. And then on the pier, the propellers of the steel object begin to rotate in different directions. It turns out that this is indeed a torpedo. People carefully lower it into the water. The torpedo is submerged. Through the transparent depth one can see how the steel cigar rushes forward. The wires do not stop winding on the coils. This seems incomprehensible. Where does all this wire come from? But the people on the beach know this.

There, inside the torpedo, there is no engine, so no bubbles are visible on the surface. The torpedo engine is located: on the shore - this is a steam engine already familiar to us. The torpedo has two propeller shafts - one is inserted into the other. Inside the torpedo, a coil is planted on each shaft. A supply of wire is wound on these spools. When the wire is wound on the shore drums, it is unwound from the spools. The coils begin to rotate, and with them the propeller shafts rotate. Screws mounted on the shafts at the back push the torpedo forward. So it turns out that the wires move backward, and the torpedo forward. But the most interesting is yet to come.

People on the shore can change the speed of rotation of each drum - rotate the drums at different speeds. Then, both the coils in the torpedo and the propeller shafts also rotate at different speeds. Inside the torpedo, a special device operates that controls the vertical rudders. It is worth launching one drum at a higher speed than the second, and the torpedo will turn in one direction or another. People on the shore can change and regulate these speeds in such a way that the rudders will turn the torpedo to the right or left, in which direction the target ship will turn.

Not far from the shore, the tugboat is dragging a “target” behind it - a half-flooded large old longboat. The torpedo is heading straight for him. Then the tug picks up speed and sharply drags the longboat along with it. They noticed it on the beach. The speed of rotation of one reel slows down. The torpedo turns after the longboat, catches up with it and hits the side. Of course, the torpedo was not loaded, there was no explosion, but the goal was achieved: the torpedo controlled from a distance passed the test.

This torpedo was not invented by a torpedo operator or even a sailor. An ordinary watchmaker, still a very young man named Brennan, designed all the simple and at the same time very well-functioning torpedo mechanisms. The interest in mine-torpedo weapons was so great that even people who were alien to the mine business tried to create new devices.

The bulky machine and drums could not be installed on ships, so the coast was protected by the Brennan torpedo. Having found the enemy, they launched a torpedo at him from the shore and accurately directed it. This weapon guarded the southern shores of England at the end of the last century.

Fifteen years later, the famous American inventor Edison invented a new guided torpedo. This time, not steel wire, but a thin electrical cable connected the torpedo to the ship that sent it. Electric current from an electric battery was transmitted through a cable to the mechanisms of the torpedo, acted on the rudders and forced the torpedo to change direction and pursue the enemy ship.

Brennan and Edison had more success than Captain Luppis. Still, Brennan's wires and Edison's cable proved unusable, as did Luppis' ropes. All these transmitters gave out a torpedo, showed its direction; the torpedo was losing its most important quality - stealth. It turned out that the problem was not solved. After Edison's experiments, another twenty years passed, the First World War began. All the best achievements of advanced technology were put at the service of the war. And yet not a single fleet could boast of guided torpedoes; there were no such torpedoes in the whole world. And only at the end of 1917 did an event occur that marked the beginning of a new solution to the problem.

The large warship was guarded by several destroyers and other auxiliary warships. Suddenly, at a distance of 3000 meters, they noticed an enemy torpedo boat going on the attack. High in the air, an enemy plane appeared, which seemed to be escorting a torpedo boat. All ships opened furious fire on the boat and aircraft and began to leave. But the boat kept moving forward. The ship broke through the formation of destroyers, turned sharply into a large ship and at full speed ... crashed into its middle. There was a deafening explosion, and a column of fire and smoke rose above the ship. It was subsequently determined that there were no people on the boat; it was controlled at a distance in the Edison way. A coil (view) was placed on the boat, and 35 kilometers of electric cable were wound on it. A floating or coast station sent electrical signals through this cable, which shifted the rudders.

The escort aircraft followed the course of the boat and reported its observations to the station, indicating where the boat should be directed. The cargo of the boat was an explosive charge, which exploded upon impact with the ship. It turned out something like a large surface guided torpedo. The latest advances in technology made it possible to greatly improve the Edison method, but the shortcomings remained the same. A close station was definitely needed: the attack was noticed from afar. It was clear that the cable was not suitable, that it was necessary to transmit control signals without any ropes, wires, cables. But how to make such a transfer?

Radio came to the rescue. Already in 1917 it was possible to control boats by radio. Such boats were not yet of great importance in the hostilities of the World War. But after the war, there were more and more reports of the construction and testing of boats controlled by radio from an aircraft accompanying them. The ship approaches the attacked ship and automatically launches a torpedo. But then why the boat? It is much easier to control the torpedo itself by radio. Indeed, very recently it became known about the testing of radio-controlled torpedoes. Such a torpedo, controlled from a ship or aircraft, can find the enemy at slow speed for 10 or more miles and strike him.

Some time before the start of the Second World War, a torpedo design was patented in the United States, to which a long wire is attached. If a torpedo aimed at a ship passed without hitting it, at its bow, the wire trailing behind the torpedo comes into contact with the stem of the ship, closes the contacts in the torpedo device, and the torpedo returns to hit the target.

The details of the probable device of such torpedoes are little known. But you can imagine how they work.

The torpedo is aimed so that in case of a miss it passes not behind, but in front of the ship, in front of its nose. Shot. It can be seen that the torpedo really goes to the side and will pass in front of the target's nose. Two cases are possible here. If the torpedo is radio-controlled, a signal is transmitted that slows it down; the torpedo, as it were, “waits” for its target and hits it when the target comes closer. It may happen that the torpedo will still pass by (especially in the second case, if it is not radio-controlled and it is impossible to slow down). Then another device starts working. Behind the torpedo stretches a long wire-antenna. It will definitely touch the bow of the ship. Thousands of tons of steel in the ship's hull act through this wire on a special device inside the torpedo. The relay will work, the rudder will turn, and the torpedo will begin to describe a large semicircle forward, catching up with the ship. She comes back and hits the ship from the other side.

During the Second World War, along with the progress of technology, there was a further improvement in torpedo weapons. Therefore, it is very likely that at the end of the war we will learn about the torpedoes that pursued the enemy on the heels.

How much the idea of ​​​​precise control of a torpedo captured the minds of torpedoists can be seen from the fact that even during the First World War and in subsequent years, there were reports of Japanese torpedoes allegedly controlled by a person hidden somewhere inside its hull.

Such a possibility, of course, is ruled out. A person inside a torpedo could not observe the surface of the sea, see the enemy. This means that the very meaning of such control of a torpedo disappeared. If, however, the torpedo were fitted with something like a periscope, this would make the torpedo clearly visible and would reduce its speed.

During the Second World War, the pages of the American press published reports about a practically more expedient device for a torpedo submarine with a crew of one person. It has a special place for the helmsman, who sits in the cockpit under a strong, transparent and streamlined hood.

The depth of the torpedo movement is calculated so that the streamlined surface of the cabin barely protrudes above the sea surface. This allows the helmsman to see his target, however, at close range.

A special mother ship delivers such a torpedo closer to the objects of attack and releases it into the sea. Further, the torpedo follows independently, guided by its helmsman. When the target is already close, when a directed torpedo hit is ensured, a special mechanism turns over the transparent cabin and throws the helmsman to the surface of the water. This creates a chance for him to be saved.

This whole device is described as one of the projects of a human-controlled torpedo. But there are cases when torpedoes were controlled by people in combat practice, but these people were not inside, but outside its shell.

When and how was it done?

On the evening of October 31, 1918, an ordinary torpedo, carrying two bombs in front instead of the charging compartment, was delivered by an Italian destroyer to the entrance to the Austrian port of Pola (in the Adriatic Sea) and launched. From here, the torpedo was towed by a boat to the boom barrier, which blocked the entrance to the harbor, at a distance of 1000 meters. Here the torpedo engine was started and the underwater projectile moved forward at a slow pace, but it was not controlled by itself ...

Two swimmers held on to two towing lines tied to a torpedo. In four hours (from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.), both helmsmen conducted a torpedo through all the booms, penetrated into the harbor of Pola and “attached” one bomb under the battleship Viribus Unitis. At this time, they were noticed from the ship and taken prisoner. The current carried the unnoticed torpedo to the steamer "Vienna", the second bomb exploded and sent the steamer to the bottom.

Meanwhile, on board the Viribus Unitis, the captured Italians waited in trepidation for the explosion: their first bomb was equipped with a clockwork; minute by minute the underwater strike was approaching. Then the Italians told everything to the commander of the ship. It was too late to disarm the bomb. The crew rushed to the boats and as soon as the last batch fell off the side and retired to a safe distance, an explosion rang out and the ship sank in 10 minutes.

25 years have passed. In the midst of operations against the large and well-defended Italian naval base of Palermo (Sicily) during the night hours of January 1943, a British submarine fired very strange torpedoes into the harbor. These torpedoes were "saddled" each by two daredevils dressed in light diving suits. "Riders" sat astride their steel "horses" and directed them along all the meanders of the path leading to the harbor. The torpedoes left no trace - they were driven by an electric motor and batteries.

An explosive charge was attached to the front of the torpedo. Here the torpedoes passed all the obstacles, approached the targeted enemy ships and dive under them. The riders separate the charges from the torpedo and attach them to the bottoms of enemy ships, then attach fuses with clockwork to them. Again saddling their steel horses, the daredevils-English swam to the exit from the port.

They failed to do this, they only reached the shore and were taken prisoner. But behind, from where they had just been, there were two powerful explosions. The Italian cruiser "Ulpio Traiano" and the transport "Viminale" with a displacement of 8500 tons went to the bottom of the sea, the first immediately, the second after some time.

The Germans also tried to use human-guided torpedoes in World War II.

Shortly after the landing of the Anglo-American troops in Normandy, a large caravan of allied ships was heading to the shores of France. Transports were guarded by hunter ships. The night was moonlit, bright, the enemy was not visible, and nothing seemed to threaten the caravan.

Suddenly, from one of the "hunters" the observer noticed that something resembling a shiny dome flashed between small waves, then - a trace of a torpedo on the water, there are already several of them. A few minutes later, the whole sea seemed to boil with bubbles of domes. On the "hunters" they immediately guessed that this was a whole flotilla of German torpedoes driven by drivers.

Immediately, the guard ships rushed at these “live torpedoes. They rammed and shot from all types of firearms the transparent domes that protected the drivers of the torpedoes, and defeated the entire flotilla. Subsequently, it became known that the Germans concentrated a large number of human-guided torpedoes in the ports of the English Channel, and hoped with their help to prevent the Allies from supplying their landing troops in France. The design flaws of these torpedoes proved to be one of the reasons for the failure of their use.

It is possible that we will soon learn about the use during the Second World War of traceless torpedoes, not only saddled by a person, but also controlled by him at a great distance, about genuine torpedoes-pursuers. Such torpedoes may prove to be a new, even more powerful weapon for delivering an underwater strike.

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✪ How do fish make electricity? - Eleanor Nelsen

✪ Torpedo marmorata

✪ Ford Mondeo stove. How will it burn?

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Translator: Ksenia Khorkova Editor: Rostislav Golod In 1800, the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt watched a school of electric eels jump out of the water to defend themselves against approaching horses. To many, the story seemed unusual, and they thought that Humboldt had made it all up. But fish using electricity are more common than you might think; And yes, there is such a type of fish - electric eels. Under water, where there is little light, electrical signals make it possible to communicate, navigate and serve to search, and in rare cases, to immobilize the victim. Approximately 350 species of fish have special anatomical structures that generate and record electrical signals. These fish are divided into two groups based on how much electricity they generate. Scientists call the first group fish with weak electrical properties. Organs near the tail, called electrical organs, generate up to one volt of electricity, nearly two-thirds that of a AA battery. How it works? The fish brain sends a signal through the nervous system to an electrical organ filled with stacks of hundreds or thousands of disk-like cells called electrocytes. Normally, electrocytes displace sodium and potassium ions to maintain a positive charge on the outside and a negative charge on the inside. But when the signal from the nervous system reaches the electrocyte, it provokes the opening of ion channels. The positively charged ions go back inside. Now one end of the electrocyte is negatively charged on the outside and positively charged on the inside. But the opposite end has opposite charges. These variable charges can create a current, turning the electrocyte into a kind of biological battery. The key to this ability is that the signals are coordinated to reach every cell at the same time. Therefore, stacks of electrocytes act like thousands of series batteries. The tiny charges of each battery form an electric field that can travel several meters. Cells called electroreceptors located in the skin allow the fish to constantly sense this field and changes in it caused by the environment or other fish. Peters' Gnathonem, or the Nile elephant, for example, has an elongated, trunk-like protrusion on its chin that is studded with electrical receptors. This allows the fish to receive signals from other fish, estimate distance, determine the shape and size of nearby objects, or even determine whether insects floating on the surface of the water are alive or dead. But the elephant and other types of weakly electric fish do not generate enough electricity to attack the prey. This ability is possessed by fish with strong electrical properties, of which there are very few species. The most powerful highly electric fish is the electric knifefish, better known as the electric eel. Three electric organs cover almost all of her two-meter body. Like weakly electric fish, the electric eel uses signals for navigation and communication, but it saves the strongest electric charges for hunting, using a two-phase attack, it finds and then immobilizes the prey. First, he releases a couple of strong pulses of 600 volts. These impulses cause the victim's muscles to spasm and generate waves that betray their hiding place. Immediately after this, high-voltage discharges cause even stronger muscle contractions. The eel can also curl up so that the electric fields generated at each end of the electric organ intersect. The electrical storm eventually exhausts and immobilizes the prey, and the electrical eel may swallow its meal alive. Two other types of highly electrical fish are the electric catfish, which can release 350 volts with an electrical organ that takes up most of its body, and the electric ray, with kidney-like electrical organs on the sides of its head, that generate 220 volts. However, in the world of electric fish, there is one unsolved mystery: why do they not stun themselves with electric shock? It is possible that the size of highly electric fish allows them to withstand their own discharges, or the current leaves their bodies too quickly. Scientists think that special proteins can protect electrical organs, but in fact this is one of the mysteries that science has not yet solved.

Origin of the term

In Russian, like other European languages, the word "torpedo" is borrowed from English (eng. torpedo) [ ] .

There is no consensus on the first use of this term in English. Some authoritative sources claim that the first record of this term dates back to 1776 and was introduced into circulation by David   Bushnell, the inventor of one of the first submarine prototypes - Turtles. According to another, more common version, the primacy of the use of this word in English belongs to Robert Fulton and refers to the beginning of the 19th century (no later than 1810)

In both cases, the term "torpedo" did not mean a self-propelled cigar-shaped projectile, but an egg-shaped or barrel-shaped underwater contact mine, which had little in common with Whitehead and Aleksandrovsky torpedoes.

Initially, in English, the word "torpedo" means electric rays, and has existed since the 16th century and has been borrowed from the Latin language (lat. torpedo), which in turn originally meant "numbness", "rigor stiffness", "immobility". The term is associated with the effect of the "hit" of an electric ray.

Classifications

By type of engine

• On compressed air (before the First World War);
• Steam-gas - liquid fuel burns in compressed air (oxygen) with the addition of water, and the resulting mixture rotates a turbine or drives a piston engine;
  a separate type of steam-gas torpedoes are torpedoes from PSTU Walter.
• Powder - gases from slowly burning gunpowder rotate the engine shaft or turbine;
• Reactive - do not have propellers, jet thrust is used (torpedoes: PAT-52, "Shkval"). It is necessary to distinguish between rocket torpedoes and rocket torpedoes, which are missiles with warheads-stages in the form of torpedoes (rocket torpedoes "ASROC", "Waterfall", etc.).

• Unmanaged - the first samples;
• Straight - with a magnetic compass or a gyroscopic semi-compass;
• Maneuvering according to a given program (circulating) in the area of ​​​​intended targets - were used by Germany in World War II;
• Passive homing - by physical target fields, mainly by noise or a change in the properties of water in the wake (the first use was in World War II), Zaukenig acoustic torpedoes (Germany, used by submarines) and Mark 24 FIDO (USA, used only from aircraft, as they could hit their ship);
• Self-guided active - have a sonar on board. Many modern anti-submarine and multipurpose torpedoes;
• Remote-controlled - targeting is carried out from the side of a surface or underwater ship via wires (optical fiber).

By appointment

• Anti-ship (originally all torpedoes);
• Universal (designed to destroy both surface and submarine ships);
• Anti-submarine (designed to destroy submarines).

“In 1865,” Aleksandrovsky writes, “I presented ... to Admiral N.K. Essence ... a torpedo is nothing more than a copy in miniature from a submarine I invented. As in my submarine, so in my torpedo, the main engine is compressed air, the same horizontal rudders for guiding at the desired depth ... with the only difference that the submarine is controlled by people, and the self-propelled torpedo ... by an automatic mechanism. On the presentation of my project of a self-propelled torpedo, N. K. Crabbe found it premature, because at that time my submarine was only being built.

Apparently the first guided torpedo is the Brennan Torpedo developed in 1877.

World War I

The Second World War

One of the disadvantages of steam-gas torpedoes is the presence of a trace (bubbles of exhaust gas) on the surface of the water, which unmasks the torpedo and creates the opportunity for the attacked ship to evade it and determine the location of the attackers, therefore, after the First World War, attempts began to use an electric motor as a torpedo engine. The idea was obvious, but none of the states, except Germany, could not realize it before the start of the Second World War. In addition to tactical advantages, it turned out that electric torpedoes were relatively easy to manufacture (for example, the labor costs for the manufacture of a standard German G7a (T1) steam-gas torpedo ranged from 3740 man-hours in 1939 to 1707 man-hours in 1943; and for the production of one electric torpedoes G7e (T2) required 1255 man-hours). However, the maximum speed of an electric torpedo was only 30 knots, while a steam-gas torpedo developed a speed of up to 46 knots. There was also the problem of eliminating the leakage of hydrogen from the torpedo battery, which sometimes led to its accumulation and explosions.

In Germany, an electric torpedo was created back in 1918, but they did not have time to use it in combat operations. Development continued in 1923, in Sweden. In the city, the new electric torpedo was ready for serial production, but it was officially accepted into service only in the city under the designation G7e. The work was so classified that the British found out about it only in the same 1939, when parts of such a torpedo were discovered when examining the battleship Royal Oak, torpedoed in Scapa Flow on the Orkney Islands.

However, already in August 1941, fully serviceable 12 such torpedoes fell into the hands of the British on the captured U-570. Despite the fact that both Britain and the United States already had prototypes of electric torpedoes at that time, they simply copied the German one and adopted it (though only in 1945, after the end of the war) under the designation Mk-XI in British and Mk -18 in the US Navy.

Work on the creation of a special electric battery and an electric motor designed for 533 mm caliber torpedoes began in 1932 in the Soviet Union as well. During 1937-1938. Two experimental electric torpedoes ET-45 with a 45 kW electric motor were manufactured. It showed unsatisfactory results, so in 1938 a fundamentally new electric motor was developed with an armature rotating in different directions and a magnetic system, with high efficiency and satisfactory power (80 kW). The first samples of the new electric torpedo were made in 1940. And although the German G7e electric torpedo fell into the hands of Soviet engineers, they did not copy it, and in 1942, after state tests, the domestic ET-80 torpedo was adopted . The first five ET-80 combat torpedoes were delivered to the Northern Fleet at the beginning of 1943. In total, Soviet submariners used up 16 electric torpedoes during the war.

Thus, in reality, in World War II, Germany and the Soviet Union were armed with electric torpedoes. The share of electric torpedoes in the ammunition load of Kriegsmarine submarines was up to 80%.

proximity fuses

Independently of each other, in strict secrecy and almost simultaneously, the navies of Germany, England and the United States developed magnetic fuses for torpedoes. These fuses had a great advantage over the simpler contact fuses. The anti-mine bulkheads located below the armored belt of the ships minimized the damage caused when a torpedo hit the side. For maximum effectiveness of the defeat, a torpedo with a contact fuse had to hit the unarmored part of the hull, which turned out to be a very difficult task. Magnetic fuses were designed in such a way that they were triggered by changes in the magnetic field of the Earth under the steel hull of the ship and exploded the warhead of the torpedo at a distance of 0.3-3.0 meters from its bottom. It was believed that the explosion of a torpedo under the bottom of the ship causes two or three times more damage to it than an explosion of the same power at its side.

However, the first German static-type magnetic fuses (TZ1), which responded to the absolute value of the vertical component of the magnetic field, simply had to be removed from service in 1940, after the Norwegian operation. These fuses were triggered after the torpedo passed a safe distance, already in light seas, in circulation, or when the torpedo was not sufficiently stable in depth. As a result, this fuse saved several British heavy cruisers from imminent death.

New German proximity fuses appeared in combat torpedoes only in 1943. These were magnetodynamic fuses of the Pi-Dupl type, in which the sensing element was an induction coil, fixedly fixed in the combat compartment of the torpedo. Pi-Dupl fuses reacted to the rate of change of the vertical component of the magnetic field strength and to the change of its polarity under the ship's hull. However, the response radius of such a fuse in 1940 was 2.5-3 m, and in 1943 on a demagnetized ship it barely reached 1 m.

Only in the second half of the war, the TZ2 proximity fuse was adopted by the German fleet, which had a narrow response band that lay outside the frequency ranges of the main types of interference. As a result, even on a demagnetized ship, it provided a response radius of up to 2-3 m at meeting angles with a target from 30 to 150 °, and with a sufficient travel depth (about 7 m), the TZ2 fuse had practically no false positives due to sea waves. The disadvantage of the TZ2 was its inherent requirement to ensure a sufficiently high relative speed of the torpedo and the target, which was not always possible when firing low-speed electric homing torpedoes.

In the Soviet Union, it was a fuse of the NVS type ( proximity fuse with stabilizer; this is a generator-type magnetodynamic fuse, which was triggered not by magnitude, but by the rate of change of the vertical component of the magnetic field strength of a ship with a displacement of at least 3000 tons at a distance of up to 2 m from the bottom). It was installed on 53-38 torpedoes (NVS could only be used in torpedoes with special brass combat charging compartments).

Maneuvering devices

During World War II, all the leading naval powers continued to work on the creation of maneuvering devices for torpedoes. However, only Germany was able to bring prototypes to industrial production (course guidance systems FaT and its improved version LuT).

FaT

The first example of the FaT guidance system was installed on a TI (G7a) torpedo. The following control concept was implemented - the torpedo in the first section of the trajectory moved straight at a distance from 500 to 12500 m and turned in any direction at an angle of up to 135 degrees across the movement of the convoy, and in the zone of destruction of enemy ships further movement was carried out along an S-shaped trajectory (" snake") at a speed of 5-7 knots, while the length of the straight section ranged from 800 to 1600 m and the circulation diameter was 300 m. As a result, the search trajectory resembled stairs. Ideally, the torpedo should have searched for a target at a constant speed across the direction of the convoy. The probability of hitting such a torpedo, fired from the forward heading angles of the convoy with a "snake" across the course of its movement, turned out to be very high.

Since May 1943, the next modification of the FaTII guidance system (the length of the “snake” section is 800 m) began to be installed on TII (G7e) torpedoes. Due to the short range of the electric torpedo, this modification was considered primarily as a self-defense weapon, fired from the stern torpedo tube towards the pursuing escort ship.

LuT

The LuT guidance system was developed to overcome the limitations of the FaT system and entered service in the spring of 1944. Compared to the previous system, the torpedoes were equipped with a second gyroscope, as a result of which it became possible to set turns twice before the “snake” movement began. Theoretically, this made it possible for the submarine commander to attack the convoy not from the bow course angles, but from any position - first the torpedo overtook the convoy, then turned to its bow angles, and only after that it began to “snake” across the course of the convoy. The length of the “snake” section could be changed in any range up to 1600 m, while the speed of the torpedo was inversely proportional to the length of the section and was for the G7a with the initial 30-knot mode set to 10 knots with a section length of 500 m and 5 knots with a section length of 1500 m .

The need to make changes to the design of torpedo tubes and a calculating device limited the number of boats prepared for the use of the LuT guidance system to only five dozen. Historians estimate that during the war, German submariners fired about 70 LuT torpedoes.

In a general sense, by a torpedo we mean a metal cigar-shaped or barrel-shaped projectile that moves independently. The projectile got its name in honor of the electric ramp about two hundred years ago. A special place is occupied by the marine torpedo. It was the first to be invented and the first to be used in the military industry.

In a general sense, a torpedo is a streamlined barrel-shaped body, inside which is an engine, a nuclear or non-nuclear warhead and fuel. Outside the hull, plumage and propellers are installed. And the torpedo command is given through the control device.

The need for such weapons appeared after the creation of submarines. At this time, towed or pole mines were used, which did not carry the required combat potential in a submarine. Therefore, the inventors faced the question of creating a combat projectile, smoothly streamlined by water, able to move independently in the aquatic environment, and which would be able to sink enemy underwater and surface ships.

When did the first torpedoes appear?

A torpedo, or as it was called at that time - a self-propelled mine, was invented by two scientists at once, located in different parts of the world, having nothing to do with each other. It happened almost at the same time.

In 1865, the Russian scientist I.F. Aleksandrovsky, proposed his own model of a self-propelled mine. But to realize this model became possible only in 1874.

In 1868, Whitehead presented his torpedo construction scheme to the world. In the same year, Austria-Hungary acquires a patent for the use of this scheme and becomes the first country to own this military equipment.

In 1873, Whitehead offered to purchase the scheme for the Russian Navy. After testing the Aleksandrovsky torpedo, in 1874, it was decided to purchase Whitehead’s live shells, because the modernized development of our compatriot was significantly inferior in terms of technical and combat characteristics. Such a torpedo significantly increased its ability to sail strictly in one direction, without changing course, thanks to pendulums, and the speed of the torpedo increased almost 2 times.

Thus, Russia became only the sixth owner of a torpedo, after France, Germany and Italy. Whitehead put forward only one limitation for the purchase of a torpedo - to keep the projectile construction scheme secret from states that did not want to buy it.

As early as 1877, Whitehead torpedoes were first used in combat.

Torpedo tube device

As the name implies, a torpedo tube is a mechanism designed to fire torpedoes, as well as to transport and store them in marching mode. This mechanism has the shape of a tube, identical to the size and caliber of the torpedo itself. There are two ways of firing: pneumatic (using compressed air) and hydropneumatic (using water, which is displaced by compressed air from a reservoir designed for this purpose). Mounted on a submarine, the torpedo tube is a fixed system, while on surface vessels, the tube can be rotated.

The principle of operation of a pneumatic torpedo tube is as follows: at the “start” command, the first drive opens the cover of the apparatus, and the second drive opens the valve of the compressed air reservoir. Compressed air pushes the torpedo forward, and at the same time, a microswitch is activated, which turns on the motor of the torpedo itself.

For a pneumatic torpedo tube, scientists have created a mechanism that can mask the place of a torpedo shot under water - a bubble-free mechanism. The principle of its operation was as follows: during the shot, when the torpedo passed two thirds of its path along the torpedo tube and acquired the necessary speed, a valve opened through which compressed air went into the strong hull of the submarine, and instead of this air, due to the difference between the internal and external pressure, the apparatus was filled with water until the pressure was balanced. Thus, there was practically no air left in the chamber, and the shot went unnoticed.

The need for a hydropneumatic torpedo tube arose when submarines began to dive to a depth of more than 60 meters. For a shot, a large amount of compressed air was needed, and at such a depth it was too heavy. In a hydropneumatic apparatus, a shot is fired by a water pump, the impulse from which pushes the torpedo.

Types of torpedoes

1. Depending on the type of engine: compressed air, combined-cycle, powder, electric, jet;
2. Depending on the ability to point: unguided, straight-line; capable of maneuvering along a given course, homing passive and active, remote-controlled.
3. Depending on the purpose: anti-ship, universal, anti-submarine.

One torpedo includes one item from each division. For example, the first torpedoes were unguided anti-ship warheads powered by compressed air. Consider several torpedoes from different countries, different times, with different mechanisms of action.

In the early 90s, he acquired the first boat capable of moving under water - the Dolphin. The torpedo tube installed on this submarine was the simplest - pneumatic. Those. the type of engine, in this case, was compressed air, and the torpedo itself, in terms of guidance ability, was unguided. The caliber of torpedoes on this boat in 1907 ranged from 360 mm to 450 mm, with a length of 5.2 m and a weight of 641 kg.

In 1935-1936, Russian scientists developed a torpedo tube with a powder-type engine. Such torpedo tubes were installed on Type 7 destroyers and Svetlana-class light cruisers. The warheads of such an apparatus were 533 calibers, weighing 11.6 kg, and the weight of the powder charge was 900 g.

In 1940, after a decade of hard work, an experimental apparatus with an electric engine type was created - ET-80 or "Product 115". A torpedo fired from such an apparatus developed a speed of up to 29 knots, with a range of up to 4 km. Among other things, this type of engine was much quieter than its predecessors. But after several incidents related to the explosion of batteries, the crew used this type of engine without much desire and was not in demand.

Supercavitation torpedo

In 1977, a project with a jet engine type was presented - the supercavitation torpedo VA 111 Shkval. The torpedo was intended both to destroy submarines and surface ships. G.V. Logvinovich. This torpedo rocket developed simply amazing speed, even for the present, and inside it, for the first time, a nuclear warhead with a capacity of 150 kt was installed.

Flurry torpedo device

Technical characteristics of the torpedo VA 111 “Shkval”:

• Caliber 533.4 mm;
• The length of the torpedo is 8.2 meters;
• The speed of the projectile reaches 340 km / h (190 knots);
• Torpedo weight - 2700 kg;
• Range up to 10 km.
• The Shkval torpedo missile also had a number of drawbacks: it produced very strong noise and vibration, which negatively affected its ability to mask, the travel depth was only 30 m, so the torpedo in the water left a clear trail, and it was easy to detect , and it was impossible to install a homing mechanism on the torpedo head itself.

For almost 30 years, there was no torpedo capable of withstanding the combined characteristics of the Shkval. But in 2005, Germany offered its own development - a supercavitation torpedo called "Barracuda".

The principle of its operation was the same as that of the Soviet "Shkval". Namely: a cavitation bubble and movement in it. The barracuda can reach speeds of up to 400 km/h and, according to German sources, the torpedo is capable of homing. The disadvantages also include strong noise and a small maximum depth.

Carriers of torpedo weapons

As mentioned above, the first carrier of torpedo weapons is a submarine, but besides it, of course, torpedo tubes are also installed on other equipment, such as aircraft, helicopters and boats.

Torpedo boats are light, low-weight boats equipped with torpedo launchers. They were first used in military affairs in 1878-1905. They had a displacement of about 50 tons, armed with 1-2 torpedoes of 180 mm caliber. After that, development went in two directions - an increase in displacement and the ability to carry more installations on board, and an increase in the maneuverability and speed of a small vessel with additional ammunition in the form of automatic weapons up to 40 mm caliber.

Light torpedo boats of the Second World War had almost the same characteristics. As an example, let's put the Soviet boat of the G-5 project. This is a small speedboat with a weight of no more than 17 tons, it had on its board two 533 mm caliber torpedoes and two machine guns of 7.62 and 12.7 mm caliber. Its length was 20 meters, and the speed reached 50 knots.

Heavy were large warships with a displacement of up to 200 tons, which we used to call destroyers or mine cruisers.

In 1940, the first sample of a torpedo rocket was presented. The homing missile launcher had a 21 mm caliber and was dropped from anti-submarine aircraft by parachute. This missile hit only surface targets and therefore remained in service only until 1956.

In 1953, the Russian fleet adopted the RAT-52 torpedo missile. G.Ya. Dilon is considered its creator and designer. This missile was carried on board by Il-28T and Tu-14T aircraft.

There was no homing mechanism on the rocket, but the speed of hitting the target was quite high - 160-180 m / s. Her speed reached 65 knots, with a range of 520 meters. The Russian navy used this installation for 30 years.

Soon after the creation of the first aircraft carrier, scientists began to develop a model of a helicopter capable of arming and attacking with torpedoes. And in 1970, the Ka-25PLS helicopter was taken into service with the USSR. This helicopter was equipped with a device capable of launching a torpedo without a parachute at an angle of 55-65 degrees. The helicopter was armed with an AT-1 aircraft torpedo. The torpedo was 450 mm caliber, with a control range of up to 5 km and a water depth of up to 200 meters. The engine type was an electric disposable mechanism. During the shot, the electrolyte was poured into all batteries at once from one container. The shelf life of such a torpedo was no more than 8 years.

Modern types of torpedoes

Torpedoes of the modern world are serious weapons for submarines, surface ships and naval aviation. This is a powerful and controllable projectile that contains a nuclear warhead and about half a ton of explosive.

If we consider the Soviet naval weapons industry, then at the moment, in terms of torpedo launchers, we lag behind world standards by about 20-30 years. Since Shkval, created in the 1970s, Russia has not made any major advances.

One of the most modern torpedoes in Russia is a warhead equipped with an electric motor - TE-2. Its mass is about 2500 kg, caliber - 533 mm, warhead mass - 250 kg, length - 8.3 meters, and speed reaches 45 knots with a range of about 25 km. In addition, the TE-2 is equipped with a self-guidance system, and its shelf life is 10 years.

In 2015, the Russian fleet received a torpedo called the Physicist at its disposal. This warhead is equipped with a single-propellant heat engine. One of its varieties is a torpedo called “Kit”. The Russian fleet adopted this installation in the 90s. The torpedo was nicknamed the “aircraft carrier killer” because its warhead had simply amazing power. With a caliber of 650 mm, the mass of the combat charge was about 765 kg of TNT. And the range reached 50-70 km at 35 knots of speed. The “Physicist” itself has somewhat lower combat characteristics and will be removed from production when its modified version, the “Case”, is shown to the world.

According to some reports, the “Case” torpedo should enter service in 2018. All of its combat characteristics are not disclosed, but it is known that its range will be approximately 60 km at a speed of 65 knots. The warhead will be equipped with a thermal propulsion engine - the TPS-53 system.

At the same time, the most modern American torpedo Mark-48 has a speed of up to 54 knots with a range of 50 km. This torpedo is equipped with a multiple attack system if it has lost its target. Mark-48 has been modified seven times since 1972, and at the moment, it outperforms the Physicist torpedo, but loses to the Case torpedo.

The torpedoes of Germany - DM2A4ER, and Italy - Black Shark are slightly inferior in their characteristics. With a length of about 6 meters, they reach speeds of up to 55 knots with a range of up to 65 km. Their mass is 1363 kg, and the mass of the combat charge is 250-300 kg.