by Yevgeny SHAKHIDZHANOV, Dr. Sc. (Tech.), Chief Scientific Worker of R&D "Region", Anatoly RODIONOV, Dr. Sc. (Tech.), Chairman of the Research Council for the Problems of Fundamental and Applied Hydrophysics, St. Petersburg Research Center, RAS, Vasily POLCHENKO, Cand. Sc. (Tech.), Head of the FSI Department of the Ist Research Institute of RF MP Thirty years ago our country, the first in the world, created unique samples of underwater weapons, which ensured a breakthrough in military technical competition at sea. Owing to target-oriented politics of the state in the sphere of science and technology, self-sacrificing work of scientists, engineers and military sailors, the Navy received underwater missiles with the speed of about 200 knots (over 100 m/sec). Back in the second half of the 20th century, the rapid growth of tactical and technical characteristics of atomic submarines (speed, depth of submergence, range of hydroacoustic indication of the target, etc.)* resulted in the fact that efficiency of torpedo weapons and bombing which had been applied earlier to destroy submarines, proved to be insufficient. This served as a spur to design new types of combat weaponry, which guarantee sharp reduction of time to deliver a charge to the target and an increase of fire accuracy. However, to create such * See: Zh. Alferov et al., "Main Strike Force of Russian Navy", Science in Russia, No. 1, 2006. -Ed. стр. 77 high-speed underwater missiles, it was necessary to cope with a number of fundamental problems in the sphere of hydrodynamics and power supply of long steady controlled movement at cavitational flow of the body. The employees of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute Branch (Moscow) started a search in late 1940s under the guidance of Academician Leonid Sedov (1907 - 1999), as well as Navy specialists and, first of all, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian Soviet Socia ... Read more