Suggestion: Torpedo Crush Depth

[captinjoehenry]

It would be nice if torpedos had a crush depth as a few deep diving soviet subs can survive a fair bit deeper than the torpedos that are launched at them. This wouldn't be a huge deal in most situations but it would be a nice feature for those subs that can make the deep dive.

[shipkiller1]

Originally Posted by captinjoehenry

It would be nice if torpedos had a crush depth as a few deep diving soviet subs can survive a fair bit deeper than the torpedos that are launched at them. This wouldn't be a huge deal in most situations but it would be a nice feature for those subs that can make the deep dive.

MK48's have a max depth greater than the Alpha.

[cj95]

I thought that was only the ADCAPs.

I thought the whole point behind the upgrade programs was a responce to the untouchable Alfas after one cruised under a carrier group at 40kts.

[shipkiller1]

No change to Max depth. Alphas were not a big threat anyways. They only made five and one was made nonoperational inside of two years. So in all actuality there were only four.

[The Bandit]

Originally Posted by shipkiller1

No change to Max depth. Alphas were not a big threat anyways. They only made five and one was made nonoperational inside of two years. So in all actuality there were only four.

Also comparatively the Alfa couldn't dive nearly as deep as was suspected (neighborhood of 2000ft which really isn't that far off from Permit/Sturgeon territory). As I understand it, the whole "reason for living" as far as the Alfa went was to be a light, fast and maneuverable design that would be used to make hit-and-run attacks on carrier battle groups. Aside from the relative difficulties they had with production (titanium hull, liquid metal cooled reactor, high-degree of automation) there is a reason that they persisted with the Victor III class and ultimately the Akula over continuing to refine the Alfa design.

Before the advent of cruise missiles (and you can easily argue this is still true today although missiles are getting more convenient), the main way that the USN would project power (think Yankee Station off North Vietnam) was the Aircraft Carrier. The Soviets were smart enough to know that they could not win a contest of airpower so they invested heavily in missiles and submarines.

There are arguments as to whether other titanium hulled boats were stressed for deep diving (Papa class probably wasn't, Sierra probably was) but the one that left no doubt was the Mike. 3500ft test depth (although I think it was something like 1400 ft. was the limit to where torpedoes could be fired).

[shipkiller1]

There is also the consideration that Titanium is a brittle metal and that the titanium boats had a certain number of depth cycles they could perform before the hull had to be completely inspected (time consuming). This was one of the reasons that the Soviet submarine fleet very seldom operated deep.

Another reason is that in most areas of the world, based on the Sound Velocity Profile (SVP), you almost never evaded deep anyway...

One of the only tactical reasons to go deep is to run a torpedo out of fuel faster than you would shallow, unless the SVP showed that it was beneficial to go there.