Soviet Superscience: Difference between revisions

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* The Soviet Union, apart from creating apemen, was actively working on [[wikipedia:Flying tank|flying tanks]] and [http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/03/12/ekranoplan/ flying] [[wikipedia:Ground effect vehicle|ships]] built to skim over the surface of the ocean as fast heavy transports that would work below radar.
* The Soviet Union, apart from creating apemen, was actively working on [[wikipedia:Flying tank|flying tanks]] and [http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/03/12/ekranoplan/ flying] [[wikipedia:Ground effect vehicle|ships]] built to skim over the surface of the ocean as fast heavy transports that would work below radar.
** US worked on flying submarines too. But the Soviets took it [[Up to Eleven]] when they actually started cutting steel for a nuclear submarine aircraft carrier/amphibious warfare ship. Sadly, it was canceled immediately afterwards.
** US worked on flying submarines too. But the Soviets took it [[Up to Eleven]] when they actually started cutting steel for a nuclear submarine aircraft carrier/amphibious warfare ship. Sadly, it was canceled immediately afterwards.
** WIG are mostly known in Anglosphere for "Caspian Sea Monster" photographs taken by American spy satellites, which was a test platform built in 1966. Later designs with actual purpose were built:
** [//military.wikia.org/wiki/A-90_Orlyonok A-90 Orlyonok] ("Eaglet") transport from Alexeyev. "S-23 crashed during testing" (in the link), while true, is an understatement: what happened was that it had the hull cracked on a rock when landing, returned to the base normally, but during the next test, impact of a wave during takeoff broke off the whole tail… and then the chief designer personally piloted the forward half back using takeoff engines (the cruising engine was on the tail, and as such under the sea at the time) and landed it "properly". The Minister of Shipbuilding Industry used the incident to demote him, while military shared his view that this level of survivability is awesome, and the political tug-o-war over the project continued.
** [//military.wikia.org/wiki/Lun-class_ekranoplan Lun] ("Harrier"; NATO [[Reporting Name]] Duck) missile boat from Alexeyev (later medical variant was developed, but that's when the funding ended);
** [//military.wikia.org/wiki/Bartini_Beriev_VVA-14 Bartini Beriev VVA-14], submarine hunter prototype from another design bureau. Was optimistically planned to be full VTOL, but due to takeoff engines being not up to the task didn't go beyond prototypes. Featured in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3''.
* The world's only extant modern balanced ternary computer, a design that allows for more efficient handling of many computational algorithms (including basic addition and multiplication), is a Soviet design from the late 50s (Setun). Designs and theories have appeared in the West as well as one of the world's first computing devices, a 19th century wooden calculating machine, but no ternary computers have been actually built outside of the Soviet Union due to general lack of interest and the ubiquity of binary hardware.
* The world's only extant modern balanced ternary computer, a design that allows for more efficient handling of many computational algorithms (including basic addition and multiplication), is a Soviet design from the late 50s (Setun). Designs and theories have appeared in the West as well as one of the world's first computing devices, a 19th century wooden calculating machine, but no ternary computers have been actually built outside of the Soviet Union due to general lack of interest and the ubiquity of binary hardware.
* Possibly worthy of mention is the use of supercavitation for torpedoes. Water creates quite a lot of drag and severely limits the top speed that a projectile travelling through it may achieve. With supercavitation, a bubble of water vapour forms around the projectile, greatly reducing drag. The Soviets started experimenting with the phenomenon in the 60s, and by 1972 a supercavitating torpedo, the VA-111 Shkval, was put into service. Its top speed is in excess of 370 km/h (in comparison, 50 km/h is at the top end of what a nuclear submarine may reach as of this writing; the US made Mk-54 torpedo achieves about 75 km/h). Eventually other countries got in on the act: since the 90s the US Navy has also been developing its own roster of supercavitating projectiles, DARPA is thinking of supercavitating troop carriers, Germany has deployed the creatively named "Superkavitierender Unterwasserlaufkörper" in 2004, and even Iran claims to have tested a supercavitating torpedo in 2006. Superscience marches on.
* Possibly worthy of mention is the use of supercavitation for torpedoes. Water creates quite a lot of drag and severely limits the top speed that a projectile travelling through it may achieve. With supercavitation, a bubble of water vapour forms around the projectile, greatly reducing drag. The Soviets started experimenting with the phenomenon in the 60s, and by 1972 a supercavitating torpedo, the VA-111 Shkval, was put into service. Its top speed is in excess of 370 km/h (in comparison, 50 km/h is at the top end of what a nuclear submarine may reach as of this writing; the US made Mk-54 torpedo achieves about 75 km/h). Eventually other countries got in on the act: since the 90s the US Navy has also been developing its own roster of supercavitating projectiles, DARPA is thinking of supercavitating troop carriers, Germany has deployed the creatively named "Superkavitierender Unterwasserlaufkörper" in 2004, and even Iran claims to have tested a supercavitating torpedo in 2006. Superscience marches on.
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