Click to enlarge. Hamas has revealed a new torpedo-like weapon which it claims has been used against Israel.
Naval News reports on a new naval weapon reportedly used by Hamas against Israel. It is a type of weapon that might be used in a terrorist attack on a port, so perhaps the Coast Guard should be interested. It is not particularly sophisticated, but as we have seen in Ukraine, unsophisticated weapons can work in some circumstances.
I will take a wag (wild ass guess) at its size and weight. Looks about six feet long and about twelve inches in diameter. The way it is being carried, I would say it is probably less than 300 pounds, probably closer to 200. That makes it about half the weight of a light weight ASW torpedo like the Mk46 which weighs 508 pounds and has 96.8 lb (43.9 kg) warhead. This probably means the weapon is buoyant while torpedoes are typically negatively buoyant. The proportion of the weapon’s weight devoted to warhead may be more than the case of the Mk46, so warhead weight might be more than 50 pounds, but almost certainly less than 100 pounds. That is far less powerful than typical WWII torpedoes, but even 50 pounds exploded against the hull would probably mission kill or sink any small vessel. The Mk27 torpedo, a small passive acoustic homing torpedo with a 95 pound warhead, used by US submarines against Japanese escort vessels in the latter part of WWII, scored 33 hits and 24 of those resulted in a sinking.
