FWS Armory: Underwater Firearms by Yoel

Space, also known as the highest frontier - and by the same logic, the seas and oceans could be also called (along with the deepest mining tunnels) the lower frontier. When thinking about the concept of underwater wars & conflicts most people will presume that the combat necessary have to be between submarines or submarines engaging surface warships.. Other form of battle could be involving frogmen fighting against other frogmen or frogmen against some alerted security guard standing on dock or a ship as we have seen in the older Bond films. Fighting such wars requires different weapons than we the 'land-rats' know and use. In this FWS Armory blog article, you will find out everything there is to know about underwater firearms. Well… at least what is commonly known and available to Google search that is. The numerous "SEAL" teams around the globe are likely still holding unknown cards in their scuba suit's sleeves.

Acknowledgment

This article could not have been completed or maintained the accuracy without the help from two individuals:

-Jon Andre Garberg, DSG Technologies' CEO, for is informative answers regarding the supercavitating ammunition DSG is developed, manufacturing and selling worldwide.
http://www.dsgtec.com/

-Mel Carpenter, author of "MBA Gyrojets and Other Ordnance", for is generous help of clarified a lot of the mystery surrounding the Launchjet weapon system and the Gyrojet survival kits.
http://www.gyrojet.net/

-I would also like to thank Yoel for his continued hard work on these FWS Armory blogposts!

Why do Divers Need to be Armed?

Friedrich Nietzsche once said:"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how", and as we'll see in the next segment, there are a lot of "how" to be answered when designing a firearm to operate in this challenging environment of the deeps… so there should be a strong justification for "why" having such weapons. So, why do divers need to shoot someone or something in an aquatic tactical environment?




Aquatic animals

It is a fish-eat-fish world out there under the waves and while the predators of the aquatic habitats have had hundreds of millions of years to adapt to live and hunt in the water, we homo species, are fairly new guests. Down there, even Michael Phelps, is at best no more than a retarded fish! Clearly, we humans going to need to use our big brains and built a bigger gun when we go there in the deep blue.





Fishing

When diving, you can wonder at the variety of aquatic live and one might want to share his experience with others at land by taking shots with a camera to capture the rich tapestry of colors and shapes of the surroundings. Others will use some kind of weapon to shoots and have access to the rich tapestry of tastes of those same animals. In the decades past, both Scuba, snorkel & freedivers been fishing as both hobby and sport using weapons a bit superior to the standard harpoon launchers, especially when it is a "big game" those divers are after.








Human enemy combatants

The primary reason to have anything resemble our dry land guns is to outgun those enemy frogmen of the other side, who are also armed. Several navies' trains & deployed units of defensive frogmen protecting key positions such as ports & harbors from infiltration of "offensive " frogmen trying to booby-trap and explode ships & infrastructures. When the fighting does begin, you don't want to be the only frogman who brought an divers' knife into a gunfight!

Non-human enemy combatants

There are many reports and rumors that both the USA and USSR navies trained several species of marine mammals such as dolphins, seals & sea lion to do their dirty work like mines detection, mines placement and of course replacing defensive frogmen on a hunt & destroy of enemy divers.
While a stroke from a dolphin nose is usually enough to kill a diver, several sources claim that special harness with spears attach were designed for those combatant mammals to strike a fatal blow to their foe.

Such aggressor (if it more than urban myth) have the speed and agility of aquatic predator with the harmful intention of enemy solider is a good motivation to have an automatic underwater rifle and might be the explanation to why the Soviet arm their divers with such weapons...killer dolphins!





The Other Weapons of Divers

Mainly the weapons divers take with them to the great blue aren't firearms by any definition. Both melee weapons and spearguns are basically cold weapons, similar to those used on land. This article excludes those weapons out.


















Knives & spears

Both knives and spears are used by divers for short range protection weapon. Knives are also been used as a tool for underwater works and other such tasks. In many close quarters engagements seen in movies like Thunderball, we see dive-knives being used to cut the air-hoses of their enemy frogmen.





Spearguns

The most common of the range weapons of the deeps is the spearguns. These projectile weapon use either a compressed gas canister or some sort of tensioned tether to launch a spear toward their intended target. Mainly, those spearguns are for fishing and given that usually fish are not killed by a single shot from those guns', the spears are connected by wire to a pulley type mechanism in the speargun, similar to what could be found in fish rods, to enable the diver to captured and retrieve its prey for a yummy dinner.













Depth Charges

Depth charges are a simple explosive devices fused by depth fuse, these bombs are dumped or launched from surface ship with a preset expositive depth. Most of those charges are barrel size dropped against submarines. Smaller versions are anti-frogmen charges, small as a standard hand grenade and can be toss as grenades. Before throwing them one had to specify the desired depth of explosion.









The Challenges of Using Firearms in Aquatic Environment

It is likely that all of FWS readers already know this fact, but I will still clarify the subject – guns CAN fire underwater and do it without oxygen or air! How so? Don't you need oxygen for an fire? Well, yes you need oxygen, but not necessarily from air. Gunpowder composes of both fuel and oxidizer, the saltpeter ingredient act as oxidizer and provides the gunpowder the oxygen it needs. The complete burning of the powder happened inside the cartridge without any external source of oxygen.
The problems in the list below are the problems facing "air-breather" guns when fired underwater and also are the challenges facing weapon engineers when develop underwater firearm.        

Gun fatigue

It is dangerous thing to have is a gun blow up in your hand and that is what can happen when you firing a gun when it is submerged, especially the barrel. When the gun barrel is full of water, the firing charge has to push the bullet along with the water, out. This results in an higher pressure that last longer than what the gun was originally designed to withstand. When the interior of the weapon is submerged in water, it could result in more rapid wear-and-tear of the gun and shorten its overall operational life expectancy and fatally blowing up in your face.

Auto loading cycling problems

Auto loading gun is a precise balance of returning spring tension and firing chamber/bolt piston pressure, when the balance is disrupted, due to the presence of water in the interior, the auto cycling could be disrupted too.  







Bullet range & accuracy

Water is 1000 time denser and 50 times more viscous than air. A bullet fired underwater is subject to enormous drag force slowing the bullet quickly to a full stop after ridiculously short travel. Accuracy also goes out the window cause the high drag tumble the projectile out of its course.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL8p05EpTtE


Noise

Water is an excellent conductor for sound and firing noises could easily damage the shooter's hearing and the same time revealing his present location to his foes.











Optical

Visibility underwater is very low, at best no more than 40 meters. Also bullet firing leaves a distinctive bubble like trail revealing the shooter's present location.










Corrosive environment

Water, especially saltwater, is highly corrosive son of a bitch which can rapidly corrode even the most resistive materials.









Using Gloved Palms with Trigger Guards

Guns' trigger is usually covered by a narrow strip called trigger guard. The job of the guard is to prevent any accidental pull of the trigger. Using thick gloves like divers wears can be problematic… some guns like the M-16 have a removable trigger guard for gloved palm. Guns designed to operate underwater are already have larger trigger guard.  





Magnetic interference

Navigating underwater isn't an easy job, minimal visibility even when the sky is clear and no GPS signals coming through. To navigate the divers use a magnetic compass on their wrist. Of course, magnetic compasses are disturbed by the presence of ferromagnetic materials such as iron or steel. The usual scuba gear doesn't contain iron or steel but guns do...    





Refraction & replication

One of the most serious problems to anyone who want to shoot from above the water at a submerged target or for some submerged diver to shoot at sentry on the decks is the fact that light bend when passing from air to water or vice versa. According to Snell's Law, when a beam of light passes between two different mediums with different light speeds, the beam is bent. The practical result is when you shoot your target, it is not really where it appears to be. Other problem is what called the "Total internal reflection"; in shallow angles the water surface acts like a mirror for observers underwater prevents them to observe and shoot those annoying sentries.  

Powerhead

Powerhead is a crude, but effective device; it’s a single shot zip-gun design to carry and fire regular cartridges. To offset the pathetic short range & low accuracy of regular bullets when fired underwater, the powerhead is fired at point blank range and the weapon muzzle is pressed against the target to activate it and fire the bullet. Those types of weapons are almost exclusively civilian market guns, specifically for the "big game" fishing community.

There is no "regular" gun companies selling those types of guns and any company making powerhead-like firearms are  so called "boutique" gunsmithing shop often establish and run by some "big game" fisherman type.The powerheads are attached to the tip of a spear; the smaller caliber powerheads can be mounted to small speargun's bolts and could be launch like common speargun's bolt. The large caliber models are mount to the tip of a handheld lance. The handheld powerheads versions are usually called bang stick (THIS is my BANGSTICK!)

Structure and triggering

Composed of very short smoothbore "barrel" that houses the cartridge attach to a fix "breach" with a fix firing fin via a compression spring. When the powerhead hits the target, the barrel section is retracting backward against the spring and the cartridge's primer is been hit by the firing fin. Usually, a safety pin is in place to prevent unwanted firing and needs to be removed before firing. Reloading is done by separate (usually unscrewing) the barrel from the breach, removing the spent case, place fresh cartridge in the barrel and assemble the powerhead back.

Round protective coating

The use of dry-land cartridges poses a problem when they submerged. Seawater could enter into the case through the primer or the crimp rims around the bullet. To protect the cartridges, it is common practice to use coating material, like nail polish or varnish, around those soft spots for protection.  
Speargun Slip Tip

The powerhead isn't a weapon of war, but for hunting and like their land hunter cousins, the divers want to bring back home something to eat. A slip tip is a barbed head dart placed inside the powerhead barrel. The cartridge blast propels it into the target. The slip tip is connected with be wire to the bang stick or the speargun, so the diver can retrieve the prey.
 
Seaway Bang Stick

In 1977, a company name Aqua Craft from San Diego, developed for the US Navy THE ultimate bang stick that has ever been. Unlike the other amateur bang sticks designed around standard rounds, the Seaway bang stick was the only MILSPEC grade powerhead ever made and had it own designated cartridges (bangridges?). The Seaway bang stick was designed to give US Navy divers supreme protection against sharks by emitted the most appreciated part in the gun – the bullet! It turn out that the slug effect against targets like sharks is minimal, unless you hit it in the head the shark could still survive for the needed time to eat you.

More lethal than the slug is the shockwave of the massive gas expansion causing tissue damage.To applying damage via shockwave, Aqua Craft invent the weirdest blank cartridge in history. The cartridge is a Chimera assembly of modified .30-30 Winchester blank round with a .38 S&W blank cartridge insert backward into the .30-30 cartridge were the .30-30 bullet should have been. The .30-30 primer had been replaced by thin diaphragm. This peculiar round appears like two ends cartridge with no front side.The powerhead itself is a single piece of stainless steel tube, open from the front and close in the rear with fix firing fin.

Around the firing fin there are six radial holes.The Seaway is muzzle loaded, the diver strip a cartridge from 6 rounds bandolier on the diver's belt and place it into the muzzle with the .38 end pacing the pin. The cartridge structure prevents it to slide all the way to the firing fin and instead it stacks 1/2 inch sticking out of the tube. When contacting the target the cartridge slips in and ignited. The .30-30 diaphragm is blasted and the target receives its deadly dose of shockwave. After the initial blast there is a short period of low pressure in the front area of the spent cartridge and water flow thru the six holes to push the spent cartridge out of the powerhead and it ready to be loaded with a fresh cartridge again. As stated. the Seaway is superior to civilian bang stick in any way:

• Lethality – according to some reports the Seaway could cut a shark into two halves!
• Loading speed - don't need to disassemble the powerhead, remove spent case, place new one & assemble; just place new round in place.
• Safety – the diver don't hangout with a loaded stick until he/she face a danger.
• Angle of approach – the front side of the cartridge has concentric circular ridges, when contacting with target at a shallow angle those ridges prevents the bangstick from slipping out and instead provides good traction for the cartridge to slip into the firing pin.  

So, if it so good why isn't it the leading bang-stick in the market? Although the US Navy did test it and with good results, only a small number been purchase and the civilian market wasn't (and still isn't) large enough to justify manufacturing of such a custom-made rounds.                

Shark Darts

 In the mid 1960's, the US Navy had a need for a new weapon for their divers. During the 1960's, it was the Navy SEALs job to secure and retrieve the astronauts from their splashdown capsules and the weapon needed also for the SEALs regular low profile operations. The Navy SEALs needed a weapon to repel shark attack quietly without cause the target bleeding, which only attract more sharks to the site. The solution was the shark darts and it was developed by scuba equipment company name Farallon Industries. Their solution was to use an small canister of compressed CO2 with a syringe needle that simply injected the gas into the shark body. The idea behind it was to apply "forced bouncy" to the shark, making it leave the area while the rapid release of CO2 freezes the penetration wound to prevent any blood spill. Farallon made several models including dagger-like needle, a pike and speargun's bolts. 
Although those shark darts was intended as a less-lethal opinion, the field tests results were a bit gorier than expected, according to few eye eyewitness, the rapid release of gas to the shark's body results with the launch of the sharks' guts out of their mouths… yeah, so much for a silent discreet soft kill  that the Navy fantasized about. Farallon Industries made & delivered an small number of shark darts to the Navy which apparently prepared bad protection to none. The age of the shark darts ended in the mid 1970's after the Apollo program was cancelled and the need to rescue astronaut was gone. In addition, it been discovered that the danger of sharks was overly exaggerated. There was not a single encounter with a hostile shark during any of the retrieval missions or the training. So much for Jaws.       

Farallon Repeater

When the Apollo program coming to an end, Farallon industries set their sight toward the diver civilian market. Besides their cartridge-based darts Farallon produce an new  new type, cartridge free dart known as "Farallon Repeater"in 1974. There were a few models, some dagger like other pike shaped, all based upon build in rechargeable small pressure tank. The tank could be recharge using any source of compressed air and according to some accounts, it could produce several "shots" before deflated.

WASP injection Knife

Farallon Industries stopped making their shark darts a long time ago and as far as I could find, went bankrupt four years ago. Today, the closest thing to shark dart can be found in the WASP injection knife. This innocent looking knife contain CO2 canister inside the handle and a thumb bottom to release the compressed gas into the target when needed. As with Farallon's shark darts, the purpose of this knife is to bleed and then seal the wound in the target with forced bouncy, driving the threat animal away from the diver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=13&v=j4WfNH4s4sY

Underwater Firearm List
Identify and classify underwater firearms isn’t an easy task. The shadowy world of SEALs-like teams around the globe is rarely revealed to public eye and the fact that very small numbers of those guns are manufactured and issued, making the task even harder. Most of the information regarding the guns listed below should be taken with a grain of salt (sea salt?) since both the history & specifications of the guns are usually estimations.

B-V1-307 Underwater Handgun (Б-VI-307)

The first (known) attempt to produce underwater firearm was design and produced by the Central Research Institute for Precision Machine (ЦНИИТочмаш) in the mid 1960's. The B-V1-307 was the USSR Navy test-bed pistol for new armament for their frogmen.Twelve copies were made and delivered to the USSR Navy in 1969. The B-V1-307 pistols were composed of four smoothbore barrels with single double-action rotating striker. Each trigger pull, instead of rotating a cylinder and cock an hammer as in revolvers , the B-V1-307 cock a striker and align with the new fresh cartridge in the next barrel.

The gun loading and reloading be done by open the gun like hinged-break shotgun. As the Red Navy's test-bed gun, several different ammunitions types were tested, including 6mm mini-rockets darts. The rocket darts nose was specially designed shape to generate cavitation bubble around the dart to reduce water drag.While the gun design been favorable by the Russian Navy's brass, the innovative rocket darts idea been rejected in favor of the more traditional gunpowder ammunition variants.
   

SPP-1 Underwater Pistol

After tinkering and testing the B-V1-307, the Russkies adapt the mature SPP-1 pistol to their service and exported it to a few eastern blocs' navies.The gun is similar in design to its progenitor: four barrels hinge-break gun with DA rotating striker.The gun loaded with needle like cartridges clustered in four round moon clips.The cartridges have watertight shells though the sealing isn't impregnable, long duration exposure will contaminate the gunpowder. The solution is to hold those quadruplets in a small sealed case. Th SPP-1 is still in use at the hands of former eastern bloc's frogmen.  

Mark 1 Model 0/Mk.1 Mod.0 Underwater Defense Gun Pistol

The Mk.1 Mod.0 pistol was the first gun the US Navy adopted for the use of its combat divers. Developed and adopted in the 1970's and was used until the mid 1980's when it was replaced by the German H&K P11.Technically, Mk.1 Mod.0 is the every diver's trusty six-gun… the gun is a pepperbox configuration, double-action trigger; gun is fire from 6 o’clock position (bottom barrel). Unlike its Russian counterparts, the Mk.1 Mod.0 barrel cluster rotates and the trigger unit is fixed. Six smoothbore barrels are arranged as single long cylinder, gun reloading is done by replacing spent cylinder by fresh one. Spent cylinder can be reloaded with fresh barrels. The barrels structure themselves is interesting and unique, when ignition occur the expanding gas push forward a piston inside the barrel which push and eject 100mm length on 2.54mm diameter needle, the fine needle diameter is smaller than the constriction in at the barrel muzzle. The result – the needle is been launched while the piston and the gunpowder burning gases kept enclosed in the barrel. As a result the Mk.1 Mod.0 firing is totally quiet and with no giveaway bubbles stream.
   
Heckler& Koch P11 Underwater Pistol

The name Heckler & Koch is no stranger to any gun enthusiasts, but very few know about their underwater pistol: the P11. Developed in the early 1970's, the P11 become the standard armament of all western navies' combat divers and it still in service today. The pistol's distinctive feature is its five barrels cluster, each barrel contain powder charge and small needle. The clusters are factory loaded and any cluster which all of its rounds been fired need to be sent to back to H&K for reload. Reloading the pistol itself is by simply removing spent cluster and replacing it with fresh. Two 9V batteries in the pistol grip provide the energy for electrically Ignition of the charges. For every single trigger full the system ignites a different barrel.
 


Underwater Lancejet Speargun
The company MBA is most memorable for their revolutionary, but short lived, attempt to produce rocket-based small-arm system, commonly known as the Gryojet. While their Gyrojet pistol & carbine are well known MBA also had large number of experimental guns never gone to full serial manufacturing. One of those eye candies was the Launchjet speargun. The launchjet program has one of many MBA attempts to enter the military market, the initial intention was an anti-mine system designed to lance salvos of long and narrow launchjet rockets into the ground to deliver small explosive charge and dislodge the mines. The launchjets projectiles weren’t stabilized by fins like MBA's Finjets or be gyroscopic spin like MBA's gyrojets. Launchjet stability was due to its relative heavy nose that kept it from tumbling. The launchjet were fairly accurate for the role of showering Soviet minefields, but it been rejected by the US Army for been ineffective against the newer Soviet mines. MBA then decide to try to apply their launchjet technology for the use of divers.

At least three launchers were built and they were single-shot guns, loaded from the muzzle with launchjet rocket and fire using single action striker. Cocking the striker was done by pulling backward a large knob in the gun's rear. Constructed from light non-magnetite materials and had "natural buoyancy" to prevent it from sinking or floating if dropped from the diver hand. The launchjet's rockets themselves could be made in various configurations & lengths by screwing the needed nose to the rocket motor. Different noses include plain pointy spear, spear with barbed flanges, barbered flanges head with wire attach so it could retrieve a fish etc. The launchjet been tested by the US Navy and more interesting, by the CIA; both reject it. There is no known reason for this rejection but either way the launchjet like most of MBA's products disappear to the dustbin of history. Pity.

Mark I Model B Gyrojet Pistol Survival Kit

More than a thousand Gyrojet pistols were made and one of the models was a survival pistol for pilot and air crewmen. Along with the gun MBA intended to sell, there was an small survival kit that includes various types of projectiles for "survival" like rocket flares and small spears for fishing your next dinner until rescue comes. There are at least two versions of this kit and its spears: The first type is motorized spear with a cup that sits on the Gyroget muzzle. When the trigger is pulled a standard gyroget round is capture by the cup and propels the spear like a bullet propels rifle grenade. The second type has its own launchjet rocket engine that ignites from the stroking of the gyrojet rocket on its rear end. None of those survival kits were sold to either the Navy or the civilian market.
 
APS Underwater Assault Rifle

The first autoloader of the deeps, the APS was developed in the early 1970's at the Central Research Institute for Precision Machine Building (ЦНИИТочмаш) by a team led by Vladimir Simonov (despite the similar surname and profession, he is no relative of Sergei Simonov, inventor of the SKS carbine). The weapon adapted by the Soviet Navy in 1975 and later been sold to other navies of the Warsaw Pact.

Both externally and internally, the APS resembles the good ol' AK-47. The gun is long piston gas operated, rotary bolt, selective fire and fed from box magazine.APS's cartridges construct of regular 5.45x39mm cartrigde, sealed from seawater, and 120 mm long needle bullet. Housing the monstrous rounds is a monstrous long (front 2 bottom) magazine contains 26 rounds. Although called assault rifle, the APS isn't really a "rifle" in the true sense of the word since its barrel isn't rifled. The gun automatic cycling at different depths and above the water (fired only in emergency) is achieved using self-adjusting gas valve. Fire ranges vary widely depends on the depth but no more than 30 meters, firing above the water is practically useless since the projectiles are spin stabilized. This weapon became widely known in the West via Call of Duty: Ghosts. 

QBS-06 underwater assault rifle

In 2010, the Chinese revealed their own copy for the Russian APS (surprise, surprise!). The QBS-06 is almost identical to the old APS. The minor changes are a different caliber around the new Chinese cases of 5.8x42mm with long needle as bullet resulting in a slightly more powerful shot but reduce the number of rounds in the magazine to 25. Keep it creative, China.


Dual Medium Firearm List

All of those underwater firearms mention are best suitable for firing down under, above the water, their accuracy, range and durability decreases dramatically.When an amphibian operation is been conducted and there is a demand to tackle enemies both on land and at sea. Those SOF members had to carry (at least) two guns for the two very different environments. But, what if there could be a versatile gun? Like a shotgun, that could be loaded with both kinds of ammo: regular and harpoon like? Well that was exactly what the Russian and Yugoslavians set to devolve – an amphibian gun that eliminates the need of two separate guns!

ASM-DT

During the 90's Tula Institute had been converting & testing modified versions of the APS for achieving amphibian capabilities. The smoothbore barrel replaced by barrel with shallow rifling and the sliding magazine catch. By sliding the magazine catch back and forth, the weapon can fire both standard 5.45x39mm cartridges out of standard AK-74 magazine and APS cartridges out of APS magazine. The shallow rifling provides the standard 5.45 x 39mm some minimal spin stabilized for above the water fire accuracy.Other features distinguish from the APS are frame mounting points for accessories like grenade launcher, bayonet, optics etc.The ASM-DT has been in service of the Russian Navy since 2000.

ADS Dual-Medium

 The holy grail of amphibian guns is the all new Russian ADS dual-medium rifle. While previous guns had to compromise with their above-water performance of accuracy and durability, the ADS perform above water as good as any modern assault rifle. The gun basic layout and mechanism is drowned from the regular bullpup assault rifle A-91 with several changes including self-adjusting gas valve for the different environments, corrosive resistance materials etc. Tula Institute cleverly designed new type of cartridge for this gun, the 5.45x39mm PSP, and while externally it similar to old AK-74 rounds out counts is its internal side.
The 5.45mm bullet extended way into the cartridge. The bullet length is 53mm out of the total of 57mm cartridge length. Having similar external dimensions as regular cartridge allows the PSP ammo to be stacked into a regular AK-74 magazine and avoids the need to have sliding the magazine catch. Changing the weapon work environment is done simply by replacing one magazine loaded with PSP ammo with magazine loaded with standard ammo. As with the ASM-DT all of the Russian accessories like grenade launcher, bayonet optics could be attached to the gun. Adopted into Russian Naval  service in 2010.

Underwater gun SSU

At the end of the 1980s, the Yugoslavian Navy was in search of a universal weapon suitable for the application of its special amphibious units. Although part of the Eastern bloc, Yugoslavia manage to stay partially independent when it come to weapons design. The Self Suppressed Unit or SSU was developed by an foreigner company, the Austrian EBW. The technical requirements were: possibility of firing effectively above and under the water totally silenced, waterproof up to a depths of 40 meters, ability to pierce the scuba tanks and ability to fire signal flares. The idea behind those demands was to have a gun for clandestine operations where the amphibious commando can take its opponents, both under and above the water, quietly and when the commandos' mission done or been screwed up the flare signal calls the waiting boats to either finish the job or extract the commandos out. The SSU itself isn't that impressive, it is no more than a retrofit flare launcher.

What makes the difference is the ammo. The cartridge itself is a combine smooth bore barrel, massive single dart and fully encapsulated piston. Loading/reloading done by simply replacing "barrels" and manually cocking expose hammer, trigger is single action only. When fired the gun powder capsule ignite and push the piston which in turn launch the 122x8.7mm dart out to its way, like the American Mk.1 Mod.0, the piston itself remains inside the barrel and the gun powder gases remain locked ,making the gun almost completely noiseless.The darts are aluminum rods with stainless steel noses, like the Launchjet the SSU darts are not fined or gyroscopic stabilized achieve their stability thanks to the relatively heavy nose. Those steel tips also serve as "armor piercing" duty to jag a hole in someone else scuba tank. Five Prototypes been made by EBW and tested with good results; but in 1991 after Slovenia declared independence out of Yugoslavia and the country entered a series of bloody civil wars, the project was naturally cancelled.

Supercavitation Ammunition

The Russians got their try with the B-V1-307 rocket spears, but achieving stable supercavitation wasn't an easy task. Today, two companies are still working developing projectiles encapsulates inside supercavitation bubble, both companies developing their supercavitation base on bullets rather than rockets





DSG Technologies Ammunition

An Norwegian company, Defense & Security Group (DSG,) introduced back in 2011 a real game changer armament for any combat diver or Navy SEAL, who would be happy to call this is their very own. DSG introduced a full family of supercavitation ammunition under the name Multi-Environment Ammunition (MEA). According to DSG their MEA generate its own supercavitation bubble allows it to travel underwater several tens of meters, depend on the caliber.
In addition, the bullets have the ability to enters water when shot outside of the water or emerge from water when shot underwater without any diffraction in the bullet trajectory even at low angle of attack.

The company offers ammunition at 5.56x45mm NATO, 7.62x51mm NATO and .50 BMG.
To insure proper automatic cycling of the DST, it can offer tailor-made cartridge with the right amount of gunpowder required. The MEA outer dimensions are identical to regular ammunition and could be stack in magazine and loaded without any modifications. Currently, emphasize on currently, DSG doesn't produce or design optics for compensation refraction. Mr. Garberg explanation is that a skill shooter could easily compensate without any aid, but he claims that future development in that field is possible. Other than small arms, DSG is also design their ammunition for platforms such as naval turrets against mines and incoming torpedoes and for unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) against aerial targets. So…when will those MEA hit your local gun stores' shelves? Well, unfortunately while in the process of manufacturing and selling MEA to various coast guard agencies and park rangers for taking down aquatic animals like sharks & alligators, DSG does not have any plans entering the civilian market for the foreseen future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogfrLKriB7k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xbIaCZNv30

 Northrop Grumman Rapid Airborne Mine Clearance System (RAMICS)

The RAMICS was developed by Northrop Grumman for the US Navy for neutralizing mines in hostile waters. The system includes Airborne Laser Mine Detection System (ALMDS) for detection and aiming the 30mm Mk. 44 Bushmaster II auto-cannon placed onboard MH-60S helicopter. The gun uses special Mk. 258 Mod 1 armor-piercing, fin-stabilized rounds, like DSG ammo, the RAMICS's slugs create supercavitation bubble around when penetrate the water. According to few sources, unlike DSG armament, RAMICS's bullets can't enter the water at a low angle of attack rendering any future possibility of placing similar system onboard an ship's as turret gun.
 
Has There Ever been an Underwater Gunfight between Frogmen?

While writing this article, William ask a question I already asked myself – with all this arsenal of underwater guns is there ever been underwater gunfight? While there are rumors on the web, there is no known battle between frogmen, of course even if such battle were occurred it is unlikely we would not know about it. My guess is that such battle never happened...yet. The likely scenario for such an engagement in which two groups of combat divers fighting each other is when one group is trying to booby-trap ships or other hardware while the other group, the defensive combat divers, is trying to stop them. Such attack on multi-billion worth of assets and thousands of sailor's lives on the line can only occurs as part of full scale war. There was never a full scale war between US and USSR; otherwise you wouldn’t be read this article. This means that the underwater arsenal of the world as still never been tested in real-world combat.
       
The Future of Underwater Weapons

At present, underwater firearms are only a niche filler and the number of guns manufactured around the world is so small that it will be unlikely any nation will shift large budgetary funding for new and breaking technologies without any good reason to do so. If we see humanity heading to the big blue and colonize the deeps as we witnessed in SeaQuest: DSV, then such weapons be needed against the local habitats and against each other; which will spark new investment in underwater firearms.

Near Future

Propulsion - the renaissance of the rockets. 

Rocket propulsion has many advantages over the conventional slug thrower makes it more suited to aquatic environment. For starter, rocket bullets don't leave the muzzle with a loud ear-piercing bang that deafening the shooter and expose its location for any tangos. Second, rocket builds it velocity gradually and provides a solid impact at longer distances than a bullet that dissipates its velocity quickly once left the barrel. Third, slow acceleration means the projectile is subject to lower G's enabling "smart-up" the projectile; add explosives, fusing and guidance. Fourth, the low gun's pressures and temperatures associate with rocket guns allows the weapon engineers the privilege to choose from wider range of possible materials for construction like non-corrosive & non- ferromagnetic metals.        

Payload - Explosive Warhead

The Powerheads demonstrate the power of a small explosive charge underwater. Water is non-compressible fluid and therefore a great transmitting medium of explosive. An small explosive charge at the tip of a spear propelled by gunpowder, rocket, compressed air or tether bow could effects number of targets in its blast radius.







Fusing

Explosive needs some kind of fuse, the simplest one is contact fuse- spear hit target and warhead explodes. A more sophisticated fuse could be mixed contact-time fuse; the warhead will arm itself after small period of time (and distance) past since the launch, insuring the spear distanced enough from the shooter to not jeopardize him when the warhead explodes. An truly developed weapon system could have computerized fuse's projectiles capable of mid flight explosive (AKA air-bursting).

Guidance

Self-propelled, explosive warhead with programmable fuse… If our little projectile start to appear more like a mini-torpedo why not go full ahead and add some guidance? Hope by the time we humans will fight using personal torpedoes' launchers that someone figure out how to avoid those pesky things from making a U-turn and return back at the shooter! You know… like what they do in every submarine's movie.


Supercavitation - Gas Injective Nose

All the current and past attempts to produce supercavitation bullets are similar in one aspect – the supercavitation bubble generated by the bullet's nose shape. However, there is one other way to generate supercavitation bubble, the Russian torpedo Shkval emits small portion of its rocket engine's exhaust gas through an injection holes in the nose, those gases creates a bubble around the torpedo and eliminate the water friction. The result is that the Shkval can travel at supersonic speeds. Miniaturize that system for small arms is possible too.  











Optics
As  stated above, firing from above the water at a submerged target or for an submerge diver to shot at sentry on the decks going to be a problem without optics for compensation refraction. Could we see specialized optical systems for underwater firearms? Not unless there is demand and the funding to do so.






The Far Future

Gauss Gun/Railgun

The usage of electromagnetic fields to accelerate projectiles isn't limited only to dry land but also could be used for underwater combat duties. Specialized versions of regular Gaussguns & Railguns could be used for combat divers if and when the need arises. The obvious change need be build the guns waterproof because water and electricity are bad mix…very bad.  




Science Fiction and Underwater weapons

The field of underwater science fiction in general and underwater military science fiction in particular, is largely underdeveloped and ignored by writers, game designers, movie producers etc. As a result we barely see underwater weaponry in action, when disputes need to be resolved the blow exchanges are between some sorts of futurist submarines. There two possible futures where underwater firearm could be used, both appeared in science fiction. The first is the good ol' alien invasion trope with aquatic alien splashing to the sea and trying to colonize our blue oceans, the 1995 PC Game  X-COM: Terror from Deep revolve around such scenario, and we homo-sapiens taking the battle to the aliens in the new territory. This was also seen in the awful Battleship film from 2012. The second, is that humanity set its collective sights from space to the oceans and the new wars and conflicts will be between nations, corporations, pirates etc. the prime example was the 1990's NBC TV show SeaQuest DSV, although, oddly, no underwater firearm were seen on the entire show.

Full Underwater Arsenal in James Cameron AVATAR 2?!

Avatar 2 is the long awaited sequel to one of the most successful science fiction films of all time and is due to hit the cinemas at around 2017. One of the revealed data pieces we have is that the movie full name will be "Avatar 2, The Lost Ocean" and parts of the movie will take place underwater...much like Cameron's 1989 film The Abyss.  In fact, the primary reason this movie been frequently delayed is the challenge of underwater 3D motion capture, and you can bet your bottom dollar that what James Cameron is trying to shoot down, there isn't a bunch of human and sea-Na'vi chatting and singing Cumbia! Will we see a full scale underwater firearm arsenal? Giving that Cameron is a living MSF-films god I'm very excited to see what he will come up for this one…

Examples:

The Electric Pellet Guns from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1871)

One of the first ever science fiction works involving underwater adventures is the first place to search and find to first underwater firearm: Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Those guns are an compressed air guns like modern speargun, but their bolts aren't mere spears. According to Captain Nemo, the Nautilus's standard gun fires small 18th century ball-shaped supercapacitor (roughly based on the real world Leyden jar). 

When impact a target those balls discharge a deadly electrical shock to the target. In the 1954 film adaption to the novel the speargun appears to fire reddish regular spear instead of those electric balls. This idea of underwater electric weaponry could come from the electric eel.

UNEF Jet propelled spears with Explosive warheads from The Forever War Novel

After the failed Tet-2 campaign, Mandella & Potter, both lose limbs, they shipped to the military hospital on Heaven for rehabilitation and limb regeneration. While spending their time there, William joins an little hunting party to kill na native aquatic predator that infiltrated from the ocean through the hospital repulsive field and into the hospital's resort beach. The party members are equipped with scuba gear and armed with Jet Propelled spears with explosive warheads and they blow the utter shit out of that buster but not before it cut the legs of one of the party's members, no worries – the rehabilitation hospital isn't faraway…This scene was featured in the second volume of the Belgium The Forever War graphic novel published by Dupuis and NBM with art done by Marvano.

Explosive Warhead from the novel The Sphere (1987)

This novel is using a fictional speargun with spears equipped with powerful explosive warheads which navy officer Barnes refers as "J-9 exploding head spears loaded with Taglin-50 charges". When fight the giant squid, the character of Norman use this gun to decapitated one of the squid tentacles. A fantastic book, but misguide film.

The APS Underwater Assault Rifle from Call of Duty: Ghosts

The APS appear in two aquatic missions during the Ghosts Single-player mode. Both the player and its bot enemies carry those Russian assault rifles. This was one of the most unique levels in any COD game, and unlike previous COD games with underwater levels, you actually engage in underwater combat against other frogmen and even sharks.


The Dual-Medium Crossbow from Half-Life

The original Half-life was one of the first 3D shooter that presented specialized underwater firearms ever.The crossbow fires bolts both underwater and above water with great effect. The bolts are covers with deadly neuro-toxic poison and could be fired underwater or as a sniper rifle for long range killing above water.







The H&K P11 from Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003

While exploring submerge ancient temple Lara carry a protection gun with her – the H&K P11. The gun is never been used against any underwater targets but used against her completing tomb raiders inside the air pocket of the temple. Tomb Raider II video game featured our favorite British archaeologist wielding an standard speargun and a tight wetsuit...ah, the 90's!











The Shark-Dart Repeater and Cartridge Base from Jaws (1975)

One of THE defining classics of Hollywood has two of Farallon's products in it. In a movie centers around hunting a killer shark some shark dart have to be placed by the prop master… both cartridge fed and repeater shark-darts appear in the movie but none of them are used against the Great White Jaws. Only the repeater is seen held by Hooper in the famous cage scene when it dropped to the sea floor when the shark attacks the cage.









The Cartridge based Shark-Darts from Deepstar Six (1989)

Haven't heard of this B-movie before? No worries you didn't miss much. In their attempts to kill some unidentified monster attacking their underwater research station/missile base the soon-to-die-crew try to use shark-darts against the beast, but, it did them little good by the way…This film came during a rash of underwater thrillers like the much better The Abyss and the also B-Film Leviathan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZT9gA_ljfE










Shark-Gun & CO2 Bullers from 007 James Bond Live and Let Die (1973)
As always, good old Q Branch equipped our favorite British Secret agent 007 with the right tools for the mission, this time Bond get a shark-gun fires bullets contains compressed CO2 propelled by a compressed CO2 cartridge in the gun grip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBncb56Z_xI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX7NH4y93FU








The Gryojet Pistol Survivor Kit from Murderer's Row (1966)

In this B-movie spy film that was inspirited by the Bond Films, the villain uses an Gyrojet pistol with spears of a survival kit to threaten the daughter of Dr. Solaris and force him to use his invention: a mighty city-killer laser, according with the villain plans. The spears are never been used against submerge targets. This is a rare on-screen appearance of the Gryojet weapon.


The Incinerator "Flamer" from ALIEN: Resurrection (1997)

They can ran, jump, crawl and climb; yes the Xenomorph is one stubborn son of a bitch! But can they swim? If you seen ALIEN Resurrection than you know the answer don't you? When diving through the flooded kitchen onboard the military research ship, the Auriga, the survivors encounter two Xenomorphs. Johner use the Flamer's grenade launcher to blow one of the hell out of the creatures. The grenade itself left the tube without big blow and traveled in a slow and constant velocity indicating it to be a rocket propelled grenade. A great scene in a terrible movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv7_7dSbaOk

The Seatrooper's & AquaticTrooper's blasters from the Star Wars Universe

Both the Grand Army of the Republic and the Galactic Empire had their own specialized troopers for underwater clashes against aquatic species. Both the Republic's aquatic trooper and the Imperial Seatrooper wore state-of-the-art light body armor that was totally protected against the water and equipped with  breathing equipment, backpack propulsion system and of course, their own version of blaster. This underwater gun was an blaster-speargun hybrid capable of performing both above and under the water. There have been several versions of the Seatroopers seen throughout the Star Wars "Legends" universe. Most fans of 1980's RPGs first saw the Seatroopers in the West End Games Imperial Sourcebook.          
Next FWS Armory Article...Encounters of the Close & Personal Kind
Chris Rock once said that:"every punk can fire from across the room, but it takes a man to get close enough to stab", but why not both? Firearms sometimes can be use as a melee weapon and as a tool. Bayonet stabbing, Buttstoke kick, barber wire cutter, window breaker… in the next installment of FWS Armory, we'll examine closely the different ways a firearm can cause harm without any trigger pull whatsoever.










Next Time on FWS...

One of the most common types of hostile alien species seen in science fiction is the Reptilian (AKA Space Lizards). From conspiracy theories to mainstream science fiction, these space lizards have been a fixture...but why? In the next installment of the continuing FWS serial Our Enemies, we will exploring and explaining the Reptilian races and why they are one of the most popular alien racial types.

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