Shkval Rocket Torpedo (m)
Modeled by the Norseman (Thanks to Popular Mechanics, April 2001)
Range:
Shift-Z (400+ areas)Price: Mn
Damage: Sh-Y Nuclear explosive.
Speed: ShY+ (about 230 mph, underwater)
Material: Rm
Tracking: Rm
Description: High-Speed, heap-big-powerful, sub-launched torpedo.
Range: Assumed to be greater than 10 miles
Date Deployed: Sometime during the cold-war
Services: Bought (unconfirmed) by China from Russia
Background: This weapon would logically be used against naval task forces. One such weapon, detonated near the center of the task force would produce devastating effects.
Intelligence experts believe that China has struck a deal with Russia to buy the high-speed Shkval torpedo, the most powerful Cold War naval weapon developed by the former Soviet Union. Powered by a rocket motor, the torpedo can travel underwater at an incredible 230 mph, approximately five times faster than the torpedoes currently used by Western navies. Frictional drag significantly slows any bodies moving underwater. The Shkval torpedo gets around this adverse physics by using redirected thrust ejected from its nose and skin, and moving through the water in a semi-vacuum bubble—or super-cavity. The torpedo figured prominently in last fall’s arrest of Edmond Pope by the Russians. A former U.S. Navy officer, Pope was convicted of stealing secrets related to the newest Shkval. He was later pardoned.