[Frame57]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Well when people think of nuclear blasts they think of huge city blasting explosions blasting wooden buildings to matchsticks.


But underwater its diffrent. The SUBROC only had a 5kt nuclear depth bomb, even for a tactical nuke that is tiny. Water helps to decrease the effects of the blast, the deeper the less effective the blast (which is why Russian subs were always being made to go deeper) and the blast is spread out over the entire hull of the sub rather than just one part as with a torpedo warhead or a depth charge so a sub is better able to survive a nuclear blast than a depth charge attack. Just to give you an idea how small a punch the SUBROC delivered here is a pic of a live test of a ASROC with a 10kt W44 warhead. Not that big of a blast (the ship is no more than 5 nm away.) Now imagin that much deeper at half the yeld, and you don't have a fancy BSY-1 fire control computer to help you do TMA (All OHP style DRTs). You miss judge the solution and you've got a really ticked off Russian sub out there possably with his own SUBROC getting ready to launch.

I respectfully disagree on this point. Commodore Ward my ex CO spoke of this on occaison. Russian Subs were designed to go deeper to flee the MK-48. The threshold of a conventional torp is affected by water pressure. But a nuclear warhead it actually aids its intention and design. It dramatically increases water pressure. The goal is to implode the enemy with pressure produced by shock waves. Not to incinerate them.