Thread 64495384

Why bother with torpedoes when missiles are so much more reliable and long ranged? For anti submarines sure but against ships? Nah man.

harder to defend against, more lethal

>>64495384 (OP)
Torpedoes are several times more deadly than missiles are when they hit. Missiles are generally only useful for damaging ships enough to make them mostly combat ineffective, torpedoes will actually sink a ship in one go. Torpedoes are also significantly more difficult to counter, as you generally are not going to be very likely to detect the submarine that is firing one unless you have a lot of ASW ships operating and sweeping simultaneously. A ship large enough to fire a missile that would be a serious threat to a ship is probably going to at least be detected before it fires. There is also the aspect of torpedoes being significantly harder to intercept than missiles, as most missiles that are fast have poor range which means they're easier to interdict as per prior point, and the ones that are longer ranged tend to be slower, which makes them easier to directly destroy. Overall it's way likelier to kill a ship with a torpedo than a missile, but torpedoes have a short enough range that they are not used as often except on subs

>>64495384 (OP)
a torpedo breaks a frigate in half in one hit
a missile damages primary CIC or propulsion but only if you're lucky

>>64495415
But the goal is to render combat ineffective rather than to sink no? Id imagine a ship thats missing a bridge and radars will be useless in the open waters.

>>64495470
a disabled ship can be recovered and repaired if you let them. sinking isn't the highest priority but you'd generally still follow through with it if you're disabling it, unless you take them prisoner instead or something.

>>64495470
those are the best outcomes and the ship would return to service in months to years with marginal crew loss
in the realistic case you hit some non important space, damage repair teams patch up the leaks and no serious loss of capability occurs
china and russia to this day have nuclear capable anti ship missiles because several conventional hits on a carrier group really don't do enough damage

>>64495470
It can still fire missiles that will be guided by radars on planes or other ships (Cooperative engagement capability).

>>64495384 (OP)
There are far less torpedo countermeasures than there are missile countermeasures, and a torpedo isn't going to fail because the wind blew too hard that day.

>>64495489
>because several conventional hits on a carrier group really don't do enough damage
a lot of it is because they guarantee a hit so a near miss with a nuke would work too.

russia used to rely on salvos of inertially guided missiles into a target area, without any terminal guidance at all alongside radar guided missiles, which had notorious issues themselves also.

china relies on their ballistic missiles which can only maneuver at the very end of their trajectory and have a short timeframe for finding and targeting a ship, especially if it's maneuvering and is in a different place than what was plotted and expected during missile launch.

>>64495470
Maybe? Japan "sunk" some American ships 3+ times during WW2

>>64495470
In a glorified policing action perhaps, but in a shooting war a disabled ship is a ship that if left to its own devices might eventually un-disable itself enough to fight back, which is especially bad if it does this in your back line.

>>64495384 (OP)
ashm, especially those big nigga missiles the soviet built back then were just cope, since their SSN were so noisy(and to a certain extent, even modern russian SSN/SSBN still is).
and the like of diesel-electric boats like kilo can be very quiet, but once they run out of battery power, it's free kill for everyone

Why not both?