Anti-Ship Missiles Thread

GarryB wrote:Have you seen the videos of Soviet ASROC equivalents

Recently came across the following pic, apparently from a Pr 941 Akula (Typhoon) SSBN. I believe the weapons shown are RPK-6 Vodopad (533mm) & RPK-7 Veter (650mm). The RPK-7 is frigging HUGE

Anyone able to confirm?

This is the video I was talking about:



As ALAMO points out the sub launched RPK is fired through the torpedo tubes... there were two versions... one 533mm and one the 650mm for the different sized tubes that were used. The video above is the 533mm calibre sub launched weapon being fired from a ship. The normal ship launched model is vertically launched and is just rocket powered all the way.

The advantage of using this weapon from a ship is that a ship can carry a huge bow mounted sonar and a towed array and can also send helicopters with dipping sonars to detect enemy subs significant distances away. If it launched a conventional torpedo it would take a very very long time to reach a target even 50km away, but by using this ballistic rocket delivered torpedo the torpedo will arrive within a few kilometres for the target in less than two minutes and start chasing down the target sub.

The sub would get very little to no warning it is under attack.

Recently came across the following pic,

Nice pic...

Plus there is no reason why they couldn't upgrade them by using improved more modern torpedo payloads.

The current Otvet or Ovtet system uses a APR-3M missile that is supposed to have a range of 20km on its own, and there are suggestions that the ballistic range of the rocket used to launch the weapon can reach 100km.

From the sales information for export 91RE1 and 91RE2, the former being torpedo tube launched in 533mm tubes and the latter compatible with 650mm torpedo tubes and UKSK vertical launch tubes... the first is said to have a range of up to 50km while the larger weapon is described as a range of 5 to 40km.

Both use the same payload of one MPT-1ME 324mm torpedo.

It is an area of technology they don't like to talk about a lot...

I would think the nuclear depth charge model could be simpler and with a much lighter payload which would give it rather better ballistic flight range.

I guess that this system is a dead end.
Sure they can use some existing missiles, but 650mm cal will fade away pretty soon leaving only 533mm.
There are no advantages if compared to Kalibr system missiles that 91R series payload other than adding ammo load.

If it was a dead end system there would be no replacements, and the 91R series has a 533mm and a 650mm version... the former for subs and the latter for ships (the former for torpedo tubes and the latter for vertical launch tubes of the UKSK system).

I suspect the 650mm is hampered by the fact that even at 60 knots a 100km + range torpedo is going to take an hour to reach its target, which by then has probably moved on because sound moves about 4 times faster through water so the noise from the torpedo moves at 1.6km/s in water, which means at just over 62 seconds time after launch the target might have heard the launch. Obviously being 100km away it might not realise it is under attack just yet but over time it will work out which direction the weapon is heading and to start taking steps to evade the attack.

In comparison the 650mm Ovtet would fly the 100km and land in the water within a kilometre or so of the target... giving the target very little time to evade or react.

I can see why ballistic weapons would be used against enemy subs, but air defence systems should be able to knock down ballistic rockets like that fairly easily so attack on surface ships would need to be by torpedo and missile.

By having a range of different attack options you can customise an attack for the situation and the target.

For a strong target use everything... high flying hypersonic missiles to hit carriers and air defence cruisers and low flying supersonic and subsonic missiles to sink everything that is still above water when they get there, and of course time your torpedo attack to hit anything with an engine running half an hour later.

533mm calibre weapons will only get better as electronics become tiny and electric motors only get more powerful and more efficient and of course as batteries get lighter and smaller and more powerful...

The Ovtet family seems to be replacing the 91R family, or is Ovtet the name of the 91R family?

For the missiles there is no need to keep 650mm missiles, unless they make a fatty kalibr with a 3500km range. Possible with some stealthy shapes.

The 650mm missiles are missiles and not torpedoes right now AFAIK and are intended to be launched from UKSK launch tubes on ships of all types and sizes.

Having 650mm torpedo tubes on subs would allow them to launch all sorts of new weapons designed for the UKSK, but equally subs will have their own UKSK type launchers anyway... vertical launch cells means all the weapons are ready to fire and don't need to be loaded.

Having 533mm 91R means they can put them on any ship or sub with a 533mm torpedo launch tube on it... which means the vast majority of them.

The Americans did the same with ASROC and made it compatible with some versions of the Mk-41 vertical launch systems.

The difference is that Soviet and Russian quietening technology for their subs led to them cancelling their Ovtet called Sea Lance because they realised that the Russian subs were getting so quiet the extra range and cost of the new system became meaningless because they were not likely to detect a sub at distances greater than ASROC can reach so the improvement was meaningless.

Hole wrote:The 650mm torpedo was retired after the Kursk incident.

They are planning to bring it back.

91R is a missile set for the Kalibr system, making it a 533mm caliber.
It can be fired both from torpedo tubes and 3S14 universal VLS.

The 91RE1is the 533mm missile fired through a torpedo tube in subs and presumably also from ship mounted torpedo tubes, and the 91RTE2 is a 645mm missile fired from a ramp or vertical launch tube from ships.

(They are the export models from the Club family)

One missile has grid fins like the R-77 AAM and the other has conventional triangular fins:

My guess is, that a 50 km limit is for "E" export versions only because there is perfectly no reason for a 2.1t Ma2.5 missile to fly so short a distance

Would have to agree there...

The general conclusion is a fact, that even in the modified 65-76A version, it is not so much impressive anymore.
At 50 kt speed, it's range is limited to 50 km.
Full range of 100 km can be achieved only at 30kt speed, making it easy to outmaneuver.

The volume of space available inside the weapon means that performance should be rather easy to dramatically improve with better electric motors and more power dense batteries and of course the electronics size shrunk down to the size of a cellphone...

Not to mention the fact that if you are carrying divers that a 650mm tube is rather easier to get in and out of than a 533mm tube...

Garry when I say a fatty kalibr missile qi think of a ground attack versionwith bigger body and more fuel to reach further away.

My understanding is that there are two families of calibre... one was for 533mm torpedo tubes and newer ones with increased diameter and rocket boosted launch for use from UKSK launch tubes from ships.

The land attack cruise missile called Kalibr that they use has a range of about 3,000km already but they were talking about an enlarged missile based on the Kh-101/102 design to extend flight range to 5,000km, which would makes sense because the current 6m long 533mm calibre Kalibr is not really filling up the UKSK tube fully... there is about 3 m in length free and quite a bit of width in the tube that is not being used.

With modern tech you could propably achieve a 50+kn speed for 100km. Maybe a little more.
Only problem is the proper guidance.

If the target is a group of ships in a carrier group that is moving to an operational area at speed then delivering 650mm torpedoes in numbers ahead of the ships would be a useful tactic... especially if you could be smart and slow down and be quiet and wait in ambush for the large group of ships heading your way at speed.

To do so with a 533mm torpedo the warhead would have to be nuclear to be effective.

Timing the arrival of long range torpedoes with the arrival of anti ship missiles could achieve mobility kills at a time the ships will be wanting to turn to present the smallest possible target to the incoming missiles.

Compounding the problems for the enemy ships is the goal.