AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 7 – Panorama CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 301 of 332 20 Bhag Torpedo Bhag Capt (IN) N Vijayasarathy Genre: Weapons of War modern torpedo is an underwater weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, such a device was called an automotive, automobile, locomotive or fish torpedo; colloquially a fish. The term torpedo originally applied to a variety of devices, most of which would today be called mines. From about 1900, torpedo has been used to designate a self-propelled underwater explosive device. One can divide modern torpedoes into lightweight and heavyweight classes and further into straight-running, autonomous homers, and wire-guided types. They can be launched from a variety of platforms. From submarines, surface ships, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and unmanned naval mines. They are also used in conjunction with other weapons; for example the Mark 46 torpedo used by the United States is the warhead section of the ASROC (Anti-Submarine ROCket) and the CAPTOR mine (CAPsulated TORpedo) is a submerged sensor platform which releases a torpedo when a hostile contact is detected. In 1979, I was selected to undergo one year TAS (Torpedo and Anti-Submarine) specialisation course. The TAS School was located at INS Venduruthy in Cochin. Those of us selected to man Soviet Origin ships were trained at INS Satavahana in Vizag for four months. Apart from class room instructions, we used to visit Kamorta (Soviet Petyas) class ships in harbour. The training included sailing on these ships to witness weapon firings etc. On one occasion we sailed on INS Kiltan which was to fire a practice Anti-Submarine Passive Homing Torpedo. A