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The Sinking of the Kursk, Russia’s
Super-Torpedo and the New Threat from China
“There are no known countermeasures to
such a weapon.”
compiled by John Vennari
 The Kursk
which sank in 354 feet of water in the Barents Sea on August 12 with 118 on
board, was an Oscar II-type nuclear cruise missile submarine — the leading
submarine participating in the largest naval exercise the Russian North Fleet
had staged in a decade.
The vessel,
according to the London-based Soviet Analyst, was engaged in the mock
sinking of US submarines and aircraft carriers, and was under observation by
two US submarines located some 50 miles from the scene, together with several
other allied monitoring vessels.
The Kursk
was also testing a new weapons system, a superfast torpedo that travels at
speeds of over 230 mph.
Scientific
American reported in its May edition that the supersophisticated torpedoes
have been linked to the sinking of the Kursk last August, and even to
the arrest and imprisonment of Edmond Pope.
Pope, an
American businessman, was charged by Russian authorities with spying,
specifically that he had sought to buy plans for the “ultrahigh-speed
torpedo.”
“Evidence
does suggest” said Scientific American, “ that both incidents
revolved around an amazing and little-reported technology that allows naval
weapons and vessels to travel submerged at hundreds of miles per hour – in
some cases, faster than the speed of sound in water.”
The new
technology that allows for these superfast torpedoes “is based on the
physical phenomenon of supercavitation.”
According to
Scientific American, the new generation of torpedoes, some believed
capable of carrying nuclear warheads, are surrounded by a “renewable
envelope of gas so that the liquid wets very little of the body's surface,
thereby drastically reducing the viscous drag” on the torpedo.
The new
technology “could mean a quantum leap in naval warfare that is analogous
in some ways to the move from prop planes to jets or even to rockets and
missiles.”
In 1997 Russia
announced that it had developed a high-speed unguided underwater torpedo, which
has no equivalent in the West. Code-named the Shkval or “Squall,” the
Russian torpedo reportedly travels so fast that no U.S. defense can stop
it.
In
late 2000, after the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk, new reports began
circulating that the Chinese navy had bought the Shkval torpedo.
“The
Shkval” stated Richard Fisher, a defense analyst and senior fellow at the
Jamestown Foundation, “was designed to give Soviet subs with less capable
sonar the ability to kill U.S. submarines before U.S. wire-guided anti-sub
torpedoes could reach their target. The Chinese navy would certainly want to
have this kind of advantage over U.S. subs in the future. At the speed that it
travels, the Shkval could literally punch a hole in most U.S. ships, with
little need for an explosive warhead.”
“This
torpedo travels at a speed of 200 knots, or five to six times the speed of a
normal torpedo, and is especially suited for attacking large ships such as
aircraft carriers,” Fisher said.
Though the exact
cause of the sinking of the Kursk was never officially stated, the
Associated Press reported in January that seismic analysis of shock
waves suggests that two successive onboard explosions destroyed the submarine.
“The first explosion was relatively small, consistent with a misfiring
torpedo aboard the submarine Kursk” said a report by Arizona and
New Mexico researchers published in the January 23 geophysical journal Eos. The
blast was followed about two minutes later by a second blast 250 times larger
than the first”, the researchers said.
“The size
of the second explosion was so great” said the study, “that it is
unlikely any submariner could have survived the corresponding pressure
pulse.”
As for the
Shkval, it is a 6,000-pound rocket torpedo, about 27 feet long with a range of
about 7,500 yards. It can fly through the water at more than 230 miles an
hour.
The solid-rocket-propelled “torpedo” achieves this high speed by
producing a high-pressure stream of bubbles from its nose and skin, which coats
the weapon in a thin layer of gas. The Shkval flies underwater inside a giant
“envelope” of gas bubbles in a process called
“supercavitation.”
The Shkval is so
fast that it is guided by an autopilot rather than by a homing head as on most
torpedoes. The original Shkval was designed to carry a tactical nuclear warhead
detonated by a simple timer clock. However, the Russians recently began
advertising a homing version, which runs out at very high speed, then slows to
search for its target.
“As there
are no known countermeasures to such a weapon,” stated David Miler in an
April 1995 article “Supercavitation Going to War in a Bubble”
(Jane’s Intelligence Review) “its development could have
significant effect on future maritime operations, both surface and subsurface,
and could put Western naval forces at a considerable disadvantage.”
Scientific American reports that China has purchased around 40 Shkval
torpedoes from Kazakstan, “raising the possibility that Beijing could
threaten American naval forces in a future confrontation in the Taiwan
Strait.” The magazine also says that a Chinese submarine officer was on
board the ill-fated Kursk “to observe the test of the new version of the
Shkval.”
This report
makes clear that Russia has not converted, nor is the world on the threshold
of the peace that will mark the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
On the contrary,
Russia is perfecting cutting-edge weaponry of which the West has no equivalent.
It sells this weaponry to Communist China, a nation whose military arsenal is
growing at an alarming rate. See "China to Test Mobile Ballistic
Missile Capable of Striking Western U.S.A"
The need for the
Pope, in union with the world’s bishops, to consecrate Russia to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary is more urgent than ever. Only by this means, said Our
Lady of Fatima, will Russia be converted, the threat of the annihilation of
nations be averted, and a period of peace granted to the world.
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