Future of surface units?

Naval discussions covering the latter half of the 20th Century.
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Legend
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by Legend »

Alright perhaps not five... but the most armor they have these days is posibly a half inch of steel on the outer hull... and perhaps a bit of kevlar in rare areas! At this point the only other thing I see protecting these modern ships are bulkheads... making it necessary for an entire area of the ship to absorb the damage and become a cavern of twisted and melted metal, while an old system would have absorbed it outside of crew spaces.
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neil hilton
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by neil hilton »

Modern warships don't rely on armour to prevent damage but instead rely on automated DC systems to minimize the effects on ship performance. Automated sprinkler and halon gas systems to quickly put out fires and automatic watertight bulkheads and pumps to keep on top of flooding. Shock prone machinery is mounted on springs, electronics use hardened components etc. Its not fool proof but it is useful in keeping a ship functional when a ship of a previous generation would have been knocked out.
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Bgile
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by Bgile »

Legend wrote:Alright perhaps not five... but the most armor they have these days is posibly a half inch of steel on the outer hull... and perhaps a bit of kevlar in rare areas! At this point the only other thing I see protecting these modern ships are bulkheads... making it necessary for an entire area of the ship to absorb the damage and become a cavern of twisted and melted metal, while an old system would have absorbed it outside of crew spaces.
You may be protecting against the wrong thing. Modern torpedoes would have been just as effective against WWII ships as they are against today's ships.
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by lwd »

And I suspect the larger missiles would as well.
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RF
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by RF »

Bgile, with improvements in technology I would have thought that the torpedoes of today would be more effective against armoured warships of WW2 than the torpedoes actually used in that war?
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by Bgile »

RF wrote:Bgile, with improvements in technology I would have thought that the torpedoes of today would be more effective against armoured warships of WW2 than the torpedoes actually used in that war?
They would be, at least the ones with large warheads. You might have misunderstood me, or I didn't express myself well enough. The point I was trying to make was that a WWII ship wouldn't necessarily be any better protected against a modern torpedo than a modern ship is. Modern torpedoes don't explode against a side protective system, so whether a ship has one isn't terribly relevant anymore.
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RF
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by RF »

I see, sorry I did misunderstand you.
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neil hilton
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by neil hilton »

Modern torpedoes can be either programmed to explode under the targets keel, creating a partial vacuum which the target then falls into thus breaking its back. In this way even the largest ships can be sunk with a single hit. Or they can be programmed to go up the prop shaft where the hull is thinnest generally and where the prop shafts can be used as giant shrapnel inside the hull and the shaft holes form weak points for greater levels of flooding.
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by Bgile »

neil hilton wrote:Modern torpedoes can be either programmed to explode under the targets keel, creating a partial vacuum which the target then falls into thus breaking its back. In this way even the largest ships can be sunk with a single hit. Or they can be programmed to go up the prop shaft where the hull is thinnest generally and where the prop shafts can be used as giant shrapnel inside the hull and the shaft holes form weak points for greater levels of flooding.
Where did you get this info about going "up the prop shaft"? Or the shaft becoming giant shrapnel?
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neil hilton
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Re: Future of surface units?

Post by neil hilton »

It was one of the things the Instructors taught me during branch training.

To clarify, I didn't literally mean up the prop shaft. 'up the prop shaft' was just the phrase used. What really happens is the torpedo is guided or pre/programmed to home in on the propeller noise but at an angle so that it can then turn along the targets wake an drive right into the stern. The explosion blows off the rudder, props and a big hole obviously. The force also drives the shafts right off their mountings and straight through their own engine room, like pile drivers. Depending on the size of the target they may also punch through the engine room forward bulkhead.
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