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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Powell writes:
> Why wouldn't *sonic* weapons be ideal
> > for a fluid medium?
>
> Yes, except for one small problem.
>
>
> > If you can work out the dynamics
> > and the power, wave propigation should be well in your
> > favour. They are, of course, less useful in the air,
> > but underwater they'd be magnificent.
>
>
> Wave propigation (sp for both of us!). Even if you focus the energy more than
> present methods do, _off_ the transmitter, you will run into the limit of
> boiling water. US active Sonar can and does do this, under some
> situations...the SONAR is powerful enough to boil the water off from around • the
> transducer, which produces a lot of steam, but not much in the way of
> detection. The SONAR which is certanly capable of doing this is the one on LA
> class subs, because when you are deep you can put much more power into the
> water than at shallow depths without this happening (because of
> pressure/boiling temp relationship). IIRC, the active array on a LA can get • to
> about 220 dB on the face of a transducer.
>
>
> > BTW, isn't there a German SMG designed to fire underwater
> > or in exceptionally "dirty" environments...? Range would
> > suffer, doubtless, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn't
> > hallucinating.
>
> the caseless (G7?) I _think_ is the only one that could do that, because no
> case to eject after firing. It's still under development AFAK, and may never
> see service.
>
> James
Heckler & Koch built the P11 - an underwater firing 5 shot pistol that fires
darts to 10-15m effective range under water and 30m above. From the info on
the page, there are a handful of national militaries using it, including
Germany (no shock here), Denmark (For some reason this was interesting to me.
Maybe I'm just tired), Israel (again no real surprise considering their
affinity for high tech reliability) the British SAS and some branch(es) of US
SpecOps (I'd wager the SEALS for obvious reasons).
It has been around since the '70's so who knows what else has been created
since then. Especially since this model required spent cartridges to be sent
back to HK for reloading. doh.
http://www.hkpro.com/peleven.htm
Caseless would certainly be another potential candidate from the standpoint of
minimizing exposure to sea water (other than down the barrel when not firing
the weapon of course). The gun that HK is working is the G11 actually:
http://www.hkpro.com/g11.htm
There are some pretty impessive tidbits on both weapons on this site as well
as pretty much any weapon known to be HK stock.
The video clips on the G11 are pretty impressive as are the details of the
firing and chambering mechanisms.
The P11's design is probably about the only one for any sort ballistic
ordinance that would work reliably - fire once, then disassemble for proper
cleaning and inspection, etc. It would hardly be practical for many
applications but self defense underwater. Certainly not for much in the way of
offensive tactics, especially on any vehicle or Mecha where low maintenance is
a priority in the field and in peace time.
Joel
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Bridget
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| Why wouldn't *sonic* weapons be ideal (...) Yes, except for one small problem. (...) Wave propigation (sp for both of us!). Even if you focus the energy more than present methods do, _off_ the transmitter, you will run into the limit of boiling (...) (24 years ago, 4-Sep-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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