Thread: Under water cannon for submarines?

Hello,
I was watching this doucumentary and the idea came to me, why use only torpedoes what if there could be point defense cannons on the submarine.
Could we make cannons underwater. Some guns can work underwater, why not a cannon?
Has anybody experimented with underwater guns? of all sizes?

And if anyone knows a website or video that can help me please link it in the comments, thanks

And if you please could, take a look at the attached image below to better understand my question. many thanks.




sub.jpg

It's hard to make a projectile travel at the kinds of velocity underwater that they can reach in air. It just has too much drag.

Torpedoes are a pretty old technology, though. You'd think they could come up with something better after all this time.

Originally Posted by kojax

It's hard to make a projectile travel at the kinds of velocity underwater that they can reach in air. It just has too much drag.

Torpedoes are a pretty old technology, though. You'd think they could come up with something better after all this time.

You'd think they could come up with something better after all this time.
I know, quite exactly my thinkings. That is precisely why I brought it up, Torpedoes seem so simple, it would be depressing to see such combat technology cease to advance in a next great war.
I know the projectile would be slow, but it could potentially do some damage to the sound suppressing hull and damage in general, and the tactical and strategic advantages in a underwater cannon are worth looking in to for.

There is nothing simple about modern torpedoes.

Originally Posted by pyoko

There is nothing simple about modern torpedoes.

A device with sophisticated computer programming, self propelled, and capable of delivering various submarine explosive devices as well as mines. Very simple in design to me, unless I am missing some magical piece to the design that makes the torpedo a super complicated totally un-simple...
but I do understand your point, they do there job, they work, and they are very much useful.

Originally Posted by Japith

Originally Posted by pyoko

There is nothing simple about modern torpedoes.

A device with sophisticated computer programming, self propelled, and capable of delivering various submarine explosive devices as well as mines. Very simple in design to me, unless I am missing some magical piece to the design that makes the torpedo a super complicated totally un-simple...
but I do understand your point, they do there job, they work, and they are very much useful.

Not sure if you are joking, or serious. The sheer amount of mechanical, electric, fluid dynamic etc engineering in those things is immense. Read up on moden torpedos.

I could say something similar - A cannon is a piece of metal with an explosive that goes boom and then the rest is brainless. Very simple. But I won't

Supercavitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Still some way to go but, once perfected, submarine warfare will be either be discarded or will undergo some serious refits in defensive technologies. Manoeuvring to avoid these things is all but impossible.

I dimly recall some announcement from China a year or two back around hand-held weapons being developed offering similar capabilities.

Originally Posted by pyoko

Originally Posted by Japith

Originally Posted by pyoko

There is nothing simple about modern torpedoes.

A device with sophisticated computer programming, self propelled, and capable of delivering various submarine explosive devices as well as mines. Very simple in design to me, unless I am missing some magical piece to the design that makes the torpedo a super complicated totally un-simple...
but I do understand your point, they do there job, they work, and they are very much useful.

Not sure if you are joking, or serious. The sheer amount of mechanical, electric, fluid dynamic etc engineering in those things is immense. Read up on moden torpedos.

I could say something similar - A cannon is a piece of metal with an explosive that goes boom and then the rest is brainless. Very simple. But I won't

That IN FACT is true, HOWEVER I was hoping you would fill in the blanks. Of course a Torpedo isn't just all that, of course a cannon isn't just a piece of metal with explosives. I meant; once you can understand these things, they are not as complicated, hard.
Someone who has built a torpedo before does not lose the information required to build it again from this device being so complicated, if that were true then building a torpedo is impossible. But here we see modern vessels and all sorts of vehicles using these weapons. I feel like you are saying these machines/devices are so absolutely complicated that a attempt to create one would be a futile attempt. I was simply saying that, nothing is so absolutely complicated that no mind could grasp the design and that in a sence once you can understand these devices could seem very simple from your perspective. I was quite serious :-)

A ballistic projectile fired underwater will stop within a few meters.

Originally Posted by rustypup

Supercavitation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Still some way to go but, once perfected, submarine warfare will be either be discarded or will undergo some serious refits in defensive technologies. Manoeuvring to avoid these things is all but impossible.

That depends a lot on how maneuverable the weapon is, how far it can be detected, and how blinded are the weapon's own sensors at it tries to maintain lock on it's target. Anything supercavitation is going to be really really loud and thus easy to detect and thus allow the full range of countermeasures including maneuvering. As pure torpedo, they might well be reserve that high speed mode for the final run for these reasons.

Originally Posted by pyoko

Originally Posted by Japith

Originally Posted by pyoko

There is nothing simple about modern torpedoes.

A device with sophisticated computer programming, self propelled, and capable of delivering various submarine explosive devices as well as mines. Very simple in design to me, unless I am missing some magical piece to the design that makes the torpedo a super complicated totally un-simple...
but I do understand your point, they do there job, they work, and they are very much useful.

Not sure if you are joking, or serious. The sheer amount of mechanical, electric, fluid dynamic etc engineering in those things is immense. Read up on moden torpedos.

I could say something similar - A cannon is a piece of metal with an explosive that goes boom and then the rest is brainless. Very simple. But I won't

And one could also say the same things about a state of the art hunting bow.

A cannon IS very simple. You take a tube, you place an amount of propellant charge in the tube, then you place the object you want propelled in the tube then BANG, the object is launched from the tube at high velocity. The reason a system like this will NOT work under water is drag. The item launched from the cannon will be subject to drag and drop rapidly in velocity. The reason a torpedo will always be more effective in underwater combat is that it has its own propulsion and guidance systems otherwise it would be a waste of time to try and fire at each other underwater. Now I have heard tales recently of experiments with blue-green lasers to see if they can be utilized as an underwater weapon

Originally Posted by dmwyant

A cannon IS very simple. You take a tube, you place an amount of propellant charge in the tube, then you place the object you want propelled in the tube then BANG, the object is launched from the tube at high velocity. The reason a system like this will NOT work under water is drag. The item launched from the cannon will be subject to drag and drop rapidly in velocity. The reason a torpedo will always be more effective in underwater combat is that it has its own propulsion and guidance systems otherwise it would be a waste of time to try and fire at each other underwater. Now I have heard tales recently of experiments with blue-green lasers to see if they can be utilized as an underwater weapon

What about rockets? Missiles? I have ever heard of a tiny torpedoes that can act as a sort of CIWS system underwater, and destroy incoming larger torpedoes, Perhaps act as a sort of flak shield

What part of a cannon underwater will not work do you not understand?