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Manpad-type missiles like the British Blowpipe have been mounted on submarine masks. A major threat to a submarine is all the helicopters and patrol aircraft w
by willvarfar 7y ago
Manpad-type missiles like the British Blowpipe have been mounted on submarine masks.
A major threat to a submarine is all the helicopters and patrol aircraft with their dipping sonars etc. There are some really great pics taken from periscopes of opposition helicopters during the cold war. Nothing you'd want to see in a hot war neither.
It seems good to throw a little missile at the helicopter you've just spotted approaching, to give them something to evade and worry about as you make your escape?
- angry_octet 7y agoA helo would have to be much more careful if it thought it might be shot at by a missile, so some deterrence effect. OTOH if you shot at it and missed it would active dip right on top of you and then launch some LWTs, and you'd be blasted. If they could leave an autonomous missile pod floating just below the surface, with a submarine-like ESM mast, that would be more interesting. You couldn't get in dip range to verify subsurface contacts without being in MANPAD (BOTPAD?) range. Really the same idea as autonomous mines, which have a magnificent power of area denial.
- ashtonkem 7y agoI think if I just dodged a short range missile launched from the mast of a submarine, I’d drop a torpedo immediately to force the sub to dive.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoThe current tactical solution to people taking potshots at helicopters is flying in pairs. Whoever gets shot at evades. Whoever doesn't get shot at shoots at wherever the shot came from. The Navy doesn't use this tactic much because the ocean is relatively free of people hiding in apartment buildings and bushes with RPGs but they could quickly adopt it if needed at the expense of effectively halving the size of their helicopter fleet.
- exar0815 7y agoThere are now wire-guided AA-missiles that are launched from torpedo tubes while the sub is underwater.