I’m pretty certain that a single nuclear torpedo would not take out an entire battlegroup. Carrier battlegroups are quite spread out.
This hypothetical submarine with the nuclear torpedo also has to get within shooting range of the carrier, which again, is difficult to do. Why? Among other factors, because of the U.S. submarine(s) screening the battlegroup.
Incidentally, there are few navies that have effective submarines that could successfully prosecute an attack on a carrier or its battlegroup.
I read somewhere that torpedoes break the spines of ships through cavitation. Basically, they explode under the keel and create a big air bubble the ship collapses into. Any truth to that?
Essentially correct, but not cavitation, and not an air bubble. Others have mentioned the effect previously in this thread.
Cavitation is the vaporization of water due to the lowering of pressure behind the blades of ship’s screws (propellers). The resulting water vapor bubbles subsequently collapse, producing noise and pitting of the surface of the blades. Cavitation may also occur on rudder surfaces, and in pump impellors.
A torpedo exploding beneath a ship vaporizes a large amount of water, producing a huge steam bubble. (Actually, combustion gases make up a good portion of the bubble as well.) If the bubble is beneath the center of the ship, there is no mid-section support for the ship, and the keel breaks. Rapid sinking ensues.
Sorry, but I have a really hard time buying this. The fact that it exploded with enough force to create the bubble at all means it had enough pressure to displace all that water in the first place. That means it is at much higher pressure than the water was. As the bubble expands and loses pressure, water fills the area from the sides and below.
The way torpedoes work is this:
The warhead explodes. Gases and the shockwave from the explosion need to go somewhere. Water is heavy, so the area of the explosion is under a good deal of pressure. Depending on thickness, punching a hole in a piece of steel is likely easier than lifting a 30 or 40 foot column of water. So the hull of the ship is displaced by the explosion, blasting a hole in it. This efficiency increases with depth.
Basically the pressure of the water “contains” the explosion more effectively than air, so more of the blast is directed toward the hull than would be above water.
What’s the yield on a nuke torp? In the film Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie they talk about how an underwater nuke test yielded a far bigger blast than anyone expected at the time. Given that they weren’t into the megaton range at that point, and the film footage shows a mind-boggingly huge blast (you can see ships being carried high into the air by the blast), I can well imagine that a 1 megaton blast could wipe out a carrier group.
I know exactly which one you’re talking about: Operation Crossroads, shot Baker (July 25, 1946). It sank 9 ships at a single whack, including the carrier USS Saratoga (CV 3).
Also, note that eight of the nine ships sunk in Operation Crossroads were within one-half mile of the explosion. The ninth ship was not much farther away. Basically, the entire “battlegroup” was within a area not more than one square mile. Modern carrier groups are spread out over an area of hundreds of square miles. Operational battle groups do not look like the “bulls-eyes” seen in photo shoots.
Also, I don’t believe any nuclear torpedo ever produced was anywhere near the megaton range. Shooting such a weapon would be suicidal. With respect to a battlegroup, the two closest ships to the detonation would be the target ship and the sub firing the torpedo.
In 1944 the U.S.S. Archerfish sunk the Japanese 60,000 ton carrier Shinano with four torpedoes. The Shinano is the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine.
