Word: antisub
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...under the china-blue Straits of Florida last week prowled a black and sinister shadow: the U.S. nuclear submarine Skate. Since Skate is almost as fast as any surface vessel and can dodge like a rabbit, the U.S. destroyer leader Norfolk had little chance of touching her with conventional antisub weapons. But on the Norfolk's afterdeck a clumsy-looking box swung like a gun turret. A section of it tilted, doors popped open, and with a screaming roar a slender rocket slanted upward, trailing a feather of flame. Near the top of the climb the engine section separated...
Nimble Prey. ASROC (antisubmarine rocket) is a foresighted Navy provision against hostile copies of its own nuclear submarines, which have made the antisub weapons of World War II as obsolete as blunderbusses. Non-nuclear submarines, depending on storage batteries for underwater propulsion, can move at full speed for only a few miles, then have to slow down to a walk to save electricity. A destroyer that makes sonar contact can hover over such a sub for hours, dropping slow-sinking depth charges. But the nuclear submarines-called "nukes"-can cruise underwater for weeks at top speed. When a destroyer makes...
...mission of three destroyers. The sonar's ping indicated a solid object moving slowly 90 ft. below the surface of the 30 mi. by 40 mi. Golfo Nuevo. The sonar target outsped the attacking destroyers, and out went a call for planes. A few hours later, a Neptune antisub plane reported spotting a submarine; ships and planes attacked, but the target disappeared...
...Episcopalian. Born: Boulder, Colo.; graduated University of Colorado, '49 (aeronautical engineering). Scott Carpenter went back into the Navy in 1949 to complete flight training interrupted at World War II's end, logged part of his 2,800 flight hours (300 in jets) in Korean combat (aerial mining, antisub patrols), then went through Navy Test Pilot School, General Line School, Air Intelligence School, became air intelligence officer of the carrier Hornet. He recalls: "When I was notified that I was being considered [for Mercury], I was at sea, and so my wife called Washington and volunteered...
...purpose: "Study of the ocean's physical, biological, geological and chemical characteristics." Trieste's real mission may be more urgent: submarine warfare is clearly going deep, deep, deeper. Conventional subs now dive about 750 ft., and some advanced models are capable of 1,000 ft. One growing antisub problem is that present sound gear penetrates accurately to only about 800 ft. Another is that depth charges sink too slowly (14 ft. per second) to hit a fast sub sailing deep at high speed, and the explosion is reduced by pressure. U.S. submariners are also reportedly anxious to design...