/sci/ - Science & Math

>>3930873

That's basically just VASIMR, but for submarines. Just like VASIMR it needs a nuclear reactor to produce useful thrust. The reason subs don't use it is because despite the lack of moving parts, the turbulence it creates in the water is noisy. Focus has shifted since then to supercav drives, basically exotic rocket chemistries that use salt water as half of the reaction. This makes them especially long-burning, and by forcing some of the exhaust out of pores in the nosecone, the entire rocket-shaped sub 'flies' like a missile in a pocket of air at speeds of 115mph, with supercav torpedos reaching speeds of 300mph.

This is so incredibly noisy, it's useful only for emergency escape, and in the case of torpedos a surprise attack when you have line of sight and can afford to give away your position.

There have actually been incidents of UUOs, unidentified underwater objects, traveling many many times what (at the time) were believed to be a maximum practical speed.

Of course this let nutters to claim that aliens have outposts in the deep sea that are shielded from protection. Pretty sure that was the plot of Abyss.

But the discovery of the Russian Shkval torpedo program neatly explains those sightings. Must've been quite a shock for the few Navy officers to notice something moving around on sonar at 300mph.