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The Mk 24 Tigerfish torpedo was a heavyweight acoustic homing torpedo used by the Royal Navy (RN) for several years. The early Mod0 and Mod1 variants were unreliable and unsuccessful, but were issued to the RN even though they failed Fleet Weapon Acceptance. Reliability was significantly improved in the Mod2 variant as a result of the Consolidation Programme which addressed the complete weapon system i.e. the on-board fire control system (TCSS10 and DCB) and the Mk24 torpedo. The Consolidation Programme was initiated following the torpedo's reliability failures during the Falklands War. It was headed by Marconi Underwater Systems as prime contractor with Ferranti Computer Systems and Gresham Lion as major sub-contractors. The Tigerfish was eventually replaced in-service by the more capable Spearfish torpedo. The Tigerfish was fitted with both active and passive sonar and could be remotely controlled through a thin wire which connected it to the launching submarine. Wire guidance permits a torpedo to be launched on-first-warning, i.e. when a target is first detected at long range. This permits the torpedo the time needed to close the range while target course and speed is being updated by the submarine's superior sensors and transmitted 'down-the-wire'. The torpedo can also be reassigned to another target or recalled. Typically, wire-guided torpedoes initially run at low speed (in order to maximize their range and to minimize their self-generated noise) while they close the range (the approach speed) and speed up during the attack phase (the attack speed). ==Design and development== The initial concept developed in the mid-1950s was for a fast, , deep-diving torpedo driven by an internal combustion engine, carrying high pressure oxygen as oxidant, guided by a wire system developed from the Mackle wire-guidance study dated 1952〔Public Record Office, London (PRO) ADM 1/24164〕〔PRO. ADM 285/3〕 using data transmitted from the firing submarine sonars and using an autonomous active/passive sonar developed from the abandoned 1950s UK PENTANE torpedo project. The weapon was known as Project ONGAR〔PRO. ADM 290/289〕 because Ongar railway station was, until 1994, the last on the Central line of the London Underground system. The engineers developing this weapon were confident that it would be so advanced that it would be "...the end of the line for torpedo development". The programme ran into serious problems in the late 1950s because the technology required was too advanced to meet an in-service target date of 1969. In addition, the closure of the Torpedo Experimental Establishment, Greenock, Scotland in 1959 and the transfer of its staff to Portland in Dorset disrupted the pace of development.〔PRO. ADM 290〕 In the early 1960s a series of wide-ranging reviews (one report was titled "Whither ONGAR?" - the pun being intentional) led to a greatly reduced performance specification which was realistically expected to achieve an in-service date of 1969. The propulsion system was changed from an internal combustion engine to an electric motor with a silver zinc battery as the power source. This reduced the planned speed of the weapon from 55 knots to with a short final-attack-phase capability at . The homing system was simplified by the exclusion of the anti-surface ship capability in the Mod 0 weapon. Only the wire-guidance system was retained relatively unchanged. This was similar to the system used on the earlier Mk 23 torpedo. The original requirement for a crush depth of 〔PRO. ADM 1/27582, ''GROG wire-guided torpedo'', 1953-59.〕 was overtaken by rapid advances in SSN deep-diving performance and the requirement was progressively increased to and then . 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tigerfish (torpedo)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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