I’m not a naval mariner, but it seems to me that the Ukrainian Uncrewed Service Vessels (USV) used in the Sevastopol mission serve in a similar role to manned torpedoes, which were used to attack ships in harbors during WWII, where regular torpedoes might not be suitable.
Here’s a video on the Ukrainian USVs:
The torpedo talk reminds me of the book The Eagle Has Landed. The German soldiers used to assassinate Churchill are taken from a penal battalion that rode torpedoes with another torpedo slung underneath them. The theory was to release the bottom torpedo and ride to safety on the top one. Didn’t work so well in practice.
What gave them the legal standing to invade Ukraine and annex its territory?
This is about Russia taking, about Russia attempting to impose its will on other nations.
@Hypno-Toad’s explanation was incomplete.
The image most people have of torpedoes come from WWII where a sub sneaks up to an unsuspecting ship and fires a salvo which they hope one or a couple will hit. The torpedo hits the hull and punches in a hole which the ship then counters by sealing off compartments and counter flooding the other side if necessary.
Battleships could withstand a number of torpedo hits without getting sunk, but aircraft carriers were more vulnerable. When the Japanese battleship Yamato was sunk by American planes, they purposely attacked from one side to maximize the torpedo damage. Attacks by both sides tended to equalize the damage in terms of flooding.
Modern torpedoes work by exploding under the keel of the ship, which breaks the keel and destroys the ship’s structural integrity. One shot, one ship sunk. I haven’t found any estimates of the size of the warhead in the Ukraine USV, but I suspect they are much less than the 647 lb (293 kg) in the current US torpedo.
The US Navy’s Mark 48 torpedo has both active and passive sonar systems as well as wire guidance. They are expensive, Wiki gives a unit cost of $5.39 million but also reports that Taiwan purchased 18 torpedoes at a cost of $180 million.
Other advantage of the Mark 48 is that they run much deeper and have measures to avoid detection by the enemy.
You are correct, this amount of money would purchase an insane number of USV. The worry for the US Navy is operating around Iran where they already have hundreds of small boats and USV, and it’s anticipated that they can overwhelm the ship’s defenses.
Ukraine faces a very grim winter. Russia’s plan to wipe out the electrical grid with Iranian drones has been quiet effective.
I hope NATO has already brought in experts to coordinate the logistics to send generators and making the most efficent use. For example, I would setup a large generator in the lobby of a apartment building. Setup a central kitchen, warming stations and laundry. I couldn’t heat individual apartments. Takes too much fuel.
It would require a lot of planning and implemented city by city. It should have been planned months ago. Generators and fuel staged in Poland.
“blackamoor”?!
Who on earth wrote that Wikipedia entry?
I don’t know what NATO’s plans are, but a dozen countries have already stepped forward to provide direct assistance in restoring and maintaining Ukraine’s grid. Many of the countries coordinating assistance are NATO members.
Repairing the grid is the best choice.
Provide generators only where quick repairs arent possible
I haven’t seen many articles about donations.i did see Japan is helping with transformers.
Heh, it looks like since no-one else was paying any attention to Russia saying the grain deal was off, Russia decided it was back on again.
And they would know a thing or two about restoring electrical infrastructure.
If you’re comparing historical usage/equivalence, that’s a perfectly valid term.
I would disagree. It’s an obnoxious term that doesn’t need to be used in a modern encyclopedia. And in any event, the wikilink was to the ornamental meaning, of statuettes of Black people as decorative objects, typically in a servant position.
It may have been that the article was an English version of an equivalent article from the German Wikipedia. I’ve found that in those cases, of articles that rely on articles from other languages, the translation isn’t always accurate or may be a bit tone-deaf in cases.
In any event, I’ve fixed it. The article now reads “…whose surname in German also stands for Negro in the racial sense.” Thanks for flagging it, @thorny_locust .
Why not just say that that it translates to Moor?
isnt there also the difference that an EDB can be “loitering/floating” for hours/days, whereas a torpedo is basically a “underwater rocket” running at (relatively) high speed for a very limited time
Thanks, @Northern_Piper.
“Negro” isn’t any longer in common use, of course, but at least it was the polite term when it was in use.
@Bootb, the article didn’t seem to me to be a discussion of historical usage of various terms for the human category of “Black”. It was discussing the history of the word for the torpedo, true; but that could easily have been done without using derogatory words. If the point was to explain the connection with the name “Mohr”, using “Moor” would have both been clearer and used a more neutral term.
ETA: agreeing with @hajario just above.
Because it’s used in that article to explain the name of the torpedo, “Negre”. Using “Moor” would then need another explanation, to make the link between “Moor” to “Negre”.
Plus, I don’t know German, so not sure of the exact equivalence of “Mohr”.
Paging @Schnitte and @EinsteinsHund !
There’s also the point that “Moor” (at least in English) is more of a term referring to Muslims, not necessarily skin colour, although it certainly has that association (probably because of Othello). See the Wikipedia article:
Better to use a less ambiguous term, I think.
But since this thread isn’t about the best term to use in Wikipedia, I don’t want to post further and start a hijack.
I didn’t follow this thread and couldn’t find the wiki article you’re all referring to, so I have no context, but generally I would agree that “Mohr” in German is equivalent to the English “moor” and shouldn’t be used anymore for any POC, except for when relating to its historical use. There’s a rather current discussion about the renaming of the Berliner street and subway station “Mohrenstraße”.
I heard yesterday the IRIS-T systems deployed to Ukraine had a 100% shoot down success rate. They need to get more of these systems in place ASAP around their critical civilian infrastructure.
IRIS-T shows 100% success today, more of these systems needed, Air Force says (yahoo.com)