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I got this Idea from a show on the History channel where they thought that bubbles caused the Bermuda triangle. They said that huge methane bubbles released from the ocean floor had enough force to sink ships upon breaking the surface. And then the rising methane also messed with the air intakes of
planes as well. So they concluded that methane deposits may have caused the Bermuda triangle. But my Idea is to set up large (possibly treasure chest looking)tanks on the sea floor just inside of international waters. The tanks will be empty to start. (This will make then easier to place.) Once down there they will be turned on. First they'll boil the water inside of them and seperate it from the salt. (The salt can then be dispursed into the water or sold for profit back on the surface.) But then using Electroylsis the tanks will seperate the hydrogen and oxygen in the water. After a large bubble of hydrogen or oxygen is formed the weapon is armed. (To save power and money on that arming process I was thinking that the ocean tide could be used to push and pull pistons and create extra power.) Finally when enemy ships appear on radar the BDS(Bubble Defense System) will be activated. Submarines will be surfaced with violent force. Battleships and Carriers will be topsized. Just to make for a more lethal blast floating spark plugs can be placed on the surface to ignite the hydrogen or oxygen as the bubble surfaces. I expect jet engines will have the same explosive results.
But in the end I have one fear and that is that the surfacing bubbles will act like land slides. In this way they could displace so much water they would cause giant tidal waves. And though that would be a cool attack it would be a terrible defense system.
So the real goal with this system would be to make it so hard to attack you that your enemies give up altogether. I mean they would have to attack from space.
You Sank My Battleship
You_20Sank_20My_20Battleship
Sorry, redundant with this idea [theircompetitor, Mar 31 2006]
British Bubble weapon destroys Paris
http://www.bbc.co.u...gallery/18pic.shtml
[ConsulFlaminicus, Apr 01 2006]
[link]
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Um... theircompetitor your idea sounds like a torpedo launched out of a sub at another sub. ( That's water to water combat.) My plan in a force field style hot tub bubble system. It would be ocean floor to water and then hopefully beyond. But since you seem to know alot on the subject maybe you could answer the tidal wave question. |
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Why would submarines be pushed *up* while surface ships are sunk? |
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sp: capsized, landslides, |
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Bad science: magic electrolysis without recombination, boiling off salt in an enclosed pressurised space, floating spark plugs... oh god that's enough. |
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good idea, but bad science. I wish people would just stop trying with electrolysis machines though. This would be a really good weapon if instead of the electrolysis machine you ran a little pipe to the surface. Final thing: a submarine going over one of these would sink, not float, because the air in the water would make it less dense, causing more dense objects to sink. |
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P.S. take out the electolysis machine and I'll give it a bun. |
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Take this with a grain of salt because it's just by memory but...
I think I've read that salt water is easier to electrolyze than fresh because it has less electrical resistance than fresh water, so removing the salt first is probably not what you would want. Also I have read that splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen can occur without having to generate a current, or at least an external source of electricity. By dividing salt water in a glass container with a non conductive substance, leaving a gap at the bottom, and placing different rods of metal from far ends of the periodic table of elements into either side, electrolysis happens on its own. Hydrogen bubbles collect on one side and oxygen bubbles collect on the other, more rods = more bubbles.
Depth charges and under water mine fields work by filling the water with bubbles but they do not cause anything to rise to the surface and they don't sink boats in the way that you are thinking either, the bubbles cause the ships or subs to break in half because they are suddenly supported only by their ends. |
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Somebody more well read please correct me if I am wrong on any of this. |
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My understanding is that the Methane bubbles(small) caused ships to sink by changing the density of the water around the ship which then caused the ship to lose bouyancy and swamp, thus filling said ship with water and causing it to sink. Im not sure it is possible to creat one bubble big enough to do the job by gravity. I think the ship would just slide off to the side as the buuble came up(with all the water that is being displaced by the giat bubble) |
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Depth charges on the other hand do not use bubbles to do thier duty. They use presure shock waves to damage submarines. The Explosive charge works kind of like under water lightning and thunder. The charge blows a large "hole" in the water(lightning) that suddenly can no longer support itself as the Gases cool and then Implodes on itself (thunder) This action causes a very powerful shockwave pulse that is trasmitted at very high speed through the water(though its energy is rapidly diminished with distance as the energy produced is finite and spreads evenly outward in a spherical pattern that gets larger and larger and so the energy transmitted per unit of area decreases rapidly). When this presure shockwave runs into something inflexible like the hull of a submarine the item can not deform sufficiently and is literally ripped apart by the shock wave. (Please note when i use the term "shockwave" here it does not imply a compression wave as it would in an atmospheric situation(as Fluids are by thier very nature not compressible) but rather a Force wave in which water molecules are moving at variable and extremely high rate of speed and upon striking a Submarine impart upon the hull the force that they were carrying. The Submarine and all its contents are on the other hand very compresible and are thus damaged) |
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Underwater Mines utilize a slightly different approach however, most Mines are proximity fused so they explode upon contact or in close proximity of a ships hull(through use of a magnetometer for example) In this situation the inital expansion Pulse acts directly on the hull of the ship. In general the mass of a ship is much less than the mass of the water surrounding it and so the force of the blast is channeled into the ship much like a shaped charge is directed(claymore anti personnel charge). Many times in Videos and pictures it appears as if the ship was supported on its ends but rather the ship was lifted upwards by a tightly focused explosion at its keel thus breaking its back and causing it to settle into the water at the center with the bouyant ends still floating on the surface. |
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Another way to envision this is to think about a stick of dynamite laying on the ground. if it goes off it will make a little divot and a lot of noise as the blast moves outward in all directions. however if you place the stick of dynamite in a 1 foot deep 1 foot wide hole you see the blast directeded straight up out of the hole. If you cover the hole with a wash basin it will throw the washbasin into the air. |
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PS please do forgive if I have misstated something here. |
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jhomrigas, you are correct on many points there. |
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You also have many random capitalizations, and horrible spelling. Pedantry aside, yes, you have it absolutely right. |
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The little annotation box makes it hard to read and see what I have typed. Also it was 1am so I was a little punchy. |
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ok, craziness, and ConsulFlaminicus you can fet rid of the electrolysis machine if you want. But what I really want to know is if this system could make tidal waves if all the scientific errors where solved. Does anybody know? |
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Tries to hum/vocalise the theme tune to The Prisoner...gives up. |
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Doesn't Portmeirion have one of these? |
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Umm, I think the electrolysis should stay. I could be wrong, but I think the enormous pressure of the water at internationnal sea lane levels would make pumping air down all that way rather difficult. It might be easier to make containers of air with enormously thick, and heavy walls, and just dump them from above. |
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I read about a lake with a huge amount of dissolved carbon dioxide; there was a water shift n suddenly the heavy carbon dioxide gas covered a near village lots of people died |
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Thus its possible that a kaboom followed with mucho hydrogen buibbles could break ships then kill the survivors |
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