Mark 45 Nuclear Torpedo

Mark 45 Nuclear Torpedo, originally uploaded by cliff1066.

The Mark 45 anti-submarine torpedo (aka ASTOR) was a weapon of the United States Navy designed for combat against high-speed, deep-diving enemy submarines, which incorporated a nuclear warhead. The warhead used in ASTOR had an explosive yield of 11 kilotons. Development of ASTOR was completed in 1960 and it entered service in 1963. The requirements of positive control of nuclear warheads meant that the weapon could only be detonated by a deliberate signal sent over the control wire linking the torpedo to the launching submarine. Given the requirement for the wire link, the torpedo could use a relatively primitive design: the weapon had no homing capability; all guidance and target tracking was provided by the launching submarine. In 1976, the Mark 48 torpedo replaced the Mark 45