Arms industry

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry

Workers assemble Browning-Inglis Hi-Power pistols at the John Inglis munitions plant, Canada, April 1944

The arms industry, also known as the defence industry, military industry, or the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. Public sector and private sector firms conduct research and development, engineering, production, and servicing of military material, equipment, and facilities. Customers are the armed forces of states, and civilians. An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition – whether privately or publicly owned – are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination. Products of the arms industry include weapons, munitions, weapons platforms, military communications and other electronics, and more. The arms industry also provides other logistical and operational support.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated military expenditures as of 2018 at $1822 billion. This represented a relative decline from 1990, when military expenditures made up 4% of world GDP. Part of the money goes to the procurement of military hardware and services from the military industry. The combined arms-sales of the top 100 largest arms-producing companies and military services companies (excluding China) totaled $420 billion in 2018, according to SIPRI. This was 4.6 percent higher than sales in 2017 and marks the fourth consecutive year of growth in Top 100 arms sales. In 2004, over $30 billion were spent in the international arms-trade (a figure that excludes domestic sales of arms). According to the institute, the five largest exporters in 2014–18 were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China whilst the five biggest importers were Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Australia and Algeria.

Many industrialized countries have a domestic arms-industry to supply their own military forces. Some countries also have a substantial legal or illegal domestic trade in weapons for use by their own citizens, primarily for self-defense, hunting or sporting purposes. Illegal trade in small arms occurs in many countries and regions affected by political instability. The Small Arms Survey estimates that 875 million small arms circulate worldwide, produced by more than 1,000 companies from nearly 100 countries.

Governments award contracts to supply their country's military; such arms contracts can become of substantial political importance. The link between politics and the arms trade can result in the development of what U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described in 1961 as a military–industrial complex, where the armed forces, commerce, and politics become closely linked, similarly to the European multilateral defense procurement. Various corporations, some publicly held, others private, bid for these contracts, which are often worth many billions of dollars. Sometimes, as with the contract for the international Joint Strike Fighter, a competitive tendering process takes place, with the decision made on the merits of the designs submitted by the companies involved. Other times, no bidding or competition takes place.

Unimog truck at the International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF) in 2007

History

Painting shells in a shell filling factory during World War I.

During the early modern period, England, France, the Netherlands and some states in Germany became self-sufficient in arms production, with diffusion and migration of skilled workers to more peripheral countries such as Portugal and Russia.

The modern arms industry emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a product of the creation and expansion of the first large military–industrial companies. As smaller countries (and even newly industrializing countries like Russia and Japan) could no longer produce cutting-edge military equipment with their indigenous resources and capacity, they increasingly began to contract the manufacture of military equipment, such as battleships, artillery pieces and rifles to foreign firms.

In 1854, the British government awarded a contract to the Elswick Ordnance Company to supply the latest breech loading rifled artillery pieces. This galvanized the private sector into weapons production, with the surplus increasingly exported to foreign countries. William Armstrong became one of the first international arms dealers, selling his systems to governments across the world from Brazil to Japan. In 1884, he opened a shipyard at Elswick to specialize in warship production – at the time, it was the only factory in the world that could build a battleship and arm it completely. The factory produced warships for many navies, including the Imperial Japanese Navy. Several Armstrong cruisers played an important role in defeating the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905.

In the American Civil War in 1861 the North had about ten times the manufacturing capacity of the economy of the Confederate States of America. This advantage over the South included the ability to produce (in relatively small numbers) breech-loading rifles for use against the muzzle-loading rifled muskets of the South. This began the transition to industrially produced mechanized weapons such as the Gatling gun.

This industrial innovation in the defense industry was adopted by Prussia in its 1866 and 1870–71 defeats of Austria and France respectively. By this time the machine gun had begun entering arsenals. The first examples of its effectiveness were in 1899 during the Boer War and in 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War. However, Germany led the innovation of weapons and this advantage in the weapons of World War I nearly defeated the allies.

In 1885, France decided to capitalize on this increasingly lucrative trade and repealed its ban on weapon exports. The regulatory framework for the period up to the First World War was characterized by a laissez-faire policy that placed little obstruction in the way of weapons exports. Due to the carnage of World War I, arms traders began to be regarded with odium as "merchants of death" and were accused of having instigated and perpetuated the war in order to maximize their profits from arms sales. An inquiry into these allegations in Britain failed to find evidence to support them. However, the sea change in attitude about war more generally meant that governments began to control and regulate the trade themselves.

Stacks of shells in a shell filling factory during World War I.

The volume of the arms trade greatly increased during the 20th century, and it began to be used as a political tool, especially during the Cold War where the United States and the USSR supplied weapons to their proxies across the world, particularly third world countries (see Nixon Doctrine).

Sectors

The AK series of weapons have been produced in greater numbers than any other firearm and have been used in conflicts all over the world.

Land-based weapon

This category includes everything from light arms to heavy artillery, and the majority of producers are small. Many are located in third world countries. International trade in handguns, machine guns, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other relatively inexpensive weapons is substantial. There is relatively little regulation at the international level, and as a result, many weapons fall into the hands of organized crime, rebel forces, terrorists, or regimes under sanctions.

Small arms

Main article: Small arms trade

The Control Arms Campaign, founded by Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Action Network on Small Arms, estimated in 2003 that there are over 639 million small arms in circulation, and that over 1,135 companies based in more than 98 countries manufacture small arms as well as their various components and ammunition.

Aerospace systems

British Mark V tank

Main article: Aerospace manufacturer

Encompassing military aircraft (both land-based and naval aviation), conventional missiles, and military satellites, this is the most technologically advanced sector of the market. It is also the least competitive from an economic standpoint, with a handful of companies dominating the entire market. The top clients and major producers are virtually all located in the western world and Russia, with the United States easily in the first place. Prominent aerospace firms include Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Saab AB, Dassault Aviation, Sukhoi, Mikoyan, EADS, Leonardo, Thales Group, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, and Boeing. There are also several multinational consortia mostly involved in the manufacturing of fighter jets, such as the Eurofighter. The largest military contract in history, signed in October 2001, involved the development of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Naval systems

Some of the world's great powers maintain substantial naval forces to provide a global presence, with the largest nations possessing aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and advanced anti-air defense systems. The vast majority of military ships are conventionally powered, but some are nuclear-powered. There is also a large global market in second-hand naval vessels, generally purchased by developing countries from Western governments.

Cybersecurity industry

Main article: Computer security

The cybersecurity industry is becoming the most important defense industry as cyber attacks are being deemed as one of the greatest risks to defense in the next ten years as cited by the NATO review in 2013. Therefore, high levels of investment has been placed in the cybersecurity industry to produce new software to protect the ever-growing transition to digitally run hardware. For the military industry, it is vital that protections are used for systems used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and intelligence gathering.

Nevertheless, cyber attacks and cyber attackers have become more advanced in their field using techniques such as Dynamic Trojan Horse Network (DTHN) Internet Worm, Zero-Day Attack, and Stealth Bot. As a result, the cybersecurity industry has had to improve the defense technologies to remove any vulnerability to cyber attacks using systems such as the Security of Information (SIM), Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), and DDoS techniques.

As the threat to computers grows, the demand for cyber protection will rise, resulting in the growth of the cybersecurity industry. It is expected that the industry will be dominated by the defense and homeland security agencies that will make up 40% of the industry.

International arms transfers

According to research institute SIPRI, the volume of international transfers of major weapons in 2010–14 was 16 percent higher than in 2005–2009. The five biggest exporters in 2010–2014 were the United States, Russia, China, Germany and France, and the five biggest importers were India, Saudi Arabia, China, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan. The flow of arms to the Middle East increased by 87 percent between 2009–13 and 2014–18, while there was a decrease in flows to all other regions: Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, and Europe.

SIPRI has identified 67 countries as exporters of major weapons in 2014–18. The top 5 exporters during the period were responsible for 75 percent of all arms exports. The composition of the five largest exporters of arms changed between 2014 and 2018 remained unchanged compared to 2009–13, although their combined total exports of major arms were 10 percent higher. In 2014–18 there can be seen significant increases in arms exports from the US, France and Germany, while Chinese exports rose marginally and Russian exports decreased.

In 2014–18, 155 countries (about three-quarters of all countries) imported major weapons. The top 5 recipients accounted for 33 percent of the total arms imports during the period. The top five arms importers - Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt, Australia and Algeria - accounted for 35 percent of total arms imports in 2014–18. Of these, Saudi Arabia and India were among the top five importers in both 2009–13 and 2014–18.

In 2014–18, the volume of major arms international transfers was 7.8 percent higher than in 2009-13 and 23 percent than that in 2004–08. The largest arms importer was Saudi Arabia, importing arms primarily from the United States, United Kingdom and France. Between 2009–13 and 2014–18, the flow of arms to the Middle East increased by 87 percent. Also including India, Egypt, Australia and Algeria, the top five importers received 35 percent of the total arms imports, during 2014–18. Besides, the largest exporters were the United States, Russia, France, Germany and China.

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the National Shooting Sports Foundation members ability to obtain an export license from taking a month to taking just four days. This was due to the United States Department of Commerce and agencies associated with ITAR expediting weapons shipments to Ukraine. In addition, the time it took to obtain a permit to buy a firearm in Ukraine also decreased from a few months to a few days.

World's largest arms exporters

Figures are SIPRI Trend Indicator Values (TIVs) expressed in millions. These numbers may not represent real financial flows as prices for the underlying arms can be as low as zero in the case of military aid. The following are estimates from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

2022 Rank	Supplier	Arms Exp (in million TIV)
1	United States	14,515
2	France	3,021
3	Russia	2,820
4	China	2,017
5	Italy	1,825
6	Germany	1,510
7	United Kingdom	1,504
8	Spain	950
9	Israel	831
10	Poland	452

Sgraffito at the Lambert Sevart weapons factory, in Liege (Belgium) (early 20th century).

Overall global arms exports rose of about 6 per-cent in the last 5 years compared to the period 2010-2014 and increased by 20 per-cent since 2005–2009.

Rankings for exporters below a billion dollars are less meaningful, as they can be swayed by single contracts. A much more accurate picture of export volume, free from yearly fluctuations, is presented by 5-year moving averages.

Next to SIPRI, there are several other sources that provide data on international transfers of arms. These include national reports by national governments about arms exports, the UN register on conventional arms, and an annual publication by the U.S. Congressional Research Service that includes data on arms exports to developing countries as compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies. Due to the different methodologies and definitions used different sources often provide significantly different data.

World's largest postwar arms exporter

Share of arms sales by country in 2013. Source is provided by SIPRI.

SIPRI uses the "trend-indicator values" (TIV). These are based on the known unit production costs of weapons and represent the transfer of military resources rather than the financial value of the transfer.

1950–2019 Rank	Supplier	Arms Exp (in billion TIV)
1	United States	692,123
2	Russia*	598,375
3	United Kingdom	143,205
4	France	125,932
5	Germany	87,431
6	China	56,160
7	Italy	33,296
8	Czech Republic	31,291
9	Netherlands	24,543
10	Israel	17,643

*Soviet Union until 1991

World's largest arms importers

Units are in Trend Indicator Values expressed as millions of U.S. dollars at 1990s prices. These numbers may not represent real financial flows as prices for the underlying arms can be as low as zero in the case of military aid.

2022 Rank	Recipient	Arms Imp (in million TIV)
1	India	3,342
2	Qatar	2,846
3	Ukraine	2,644
4	Saudi Arabia	2,272
5	Kuwait	2,249
6	Pakistan	1,565
7	Japan	1,291
8	Norway	848
9	United States	837
10	Israel	829

Arms import rankings fluctuate heavily as countries enter and exit wars. Export data tend to be less volatile as exporters tend to be more technologically advanced and have stable production flows. 5-year moving averages present a much more accurate picture of import volume, free from yearly fluctuations.

List of major weapon manufacturers

For a more comprehensive list, see List of modern armament manufacturers and List of defense contractors.

This is a list of the world's largest arms manufacturers and other military service companies who profit the most from the War economy, their origin is shown as well. The information is based on a list published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for 2020. The list provided by the SIPRI The numbers are in billions of US dollars.

Rank	Company name	Defense Revenue (US$ billions)	% of Total Revenue from Defense
1	Lockheed Martin	53.2	89%
2	Boeing	33.5	44%
3	Northrop Grumman	29.2	86%
4	Raytheon Technologies	25.3	87%
5	General Dynamics	24.5	62%
6	Aviation Industry Corporation of China	22.4	34%
7	BAE Systems	22.2	95%
8	China Electronics Technology Group	15.0	46%
9	Norinco	14.5	22%
10	L3Harris Technologies	13.9	77%
11	United Technologies (since April 2020 Raytheon Technologies)	13.1	17%
12	Leonardo S.p.A.	11.1	72%
13	Airbus	11.0	14%
14	Thales Group	9.4	46%
15	Almaz-Antey	9.4	98%

Arms control

Main article: Arms control

Arms control refers to international restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and usage of small arms, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. It is typically exercised through the use of diplomacy, which seeks to persuade governments to accept such limitations through agreements and treaties, although it may also be forced upon non-consenting governments.

Notable international arms control treaties

Global weapons sales from 1950 to 2006

• Geneva Protocol on chemical and biological weapons, 1925
• Outer Space Treaty, signed and entered into force 1967
• Biological Weapons Convention, signed 1972, entered into force 1975
• Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), 1987
• Chemical Weapons Convention, signed 1993, entered into force 1997
• Ottawa Treaty on anti-personnel land mines, signed 1997, entered into force 1999
• New START Treaty, signed by Russia and the United States in April 2010, entered into force in February 2011
• Arms Trade Treaty, concluded in 2013, entered into force on 24 December 2014.

Myth of the flat Earth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

The famous "Flat Earth" Flammarion engraving originates with Flammarion's 1888 L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire (p. 163).

The myth of the flat Earth, or the flat-Earth error, is a modern historical misconception that European scholars and educated people during the Middle Ages believed the Earth to be flat.

The earliest clear documentation of the idea of a spherical Earth comes from the ancient Greeks (5th century BC). The belief was widespread in the Greek world when Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of Earth around 240 BC. This knowledge spread with Greek influence such that during the Early Middle Ages (~600–1000 AD), most European and Middle Eastern scholars espoused Earth's sphericity. Belief in a flat Earth among educated Europeans was almost nonexistent from the Late Middle Ages onward, though fanciful depictions appear in art, such as the exterior panels of Hieronymus Bosch's famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, in which a disc-shaped Earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.

According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat Earth darkness' among scholars, regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now. Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the Earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology." Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat-Earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over biological evolution. Russell claims "with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat", and ascribes popularization of the flat-Earth myth to histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving.

History

In Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians, Jeffrey Russell describes the Flat Earth theory as a fable used to impugn pre-modern civilization and creationism.

James Hannam wrote:

The myth that people in the Middle Ages thought the Earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching. But it gained currency in the 19th century, thanks to inaccurate histories such as John William Draper's History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Atheists and agnostics championed the conflict thesis for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked in eternal conflict.

Early modern period

French dramatist Cyrano de Bergerac in chapter 5 of his Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (published two years posthumously in 1657) quotes Augustine of Hippo as saying "that in his day and age the Earth was as flat as a stove lid and that it floated on water like half of a sliced orange." Robert Burton, in his The Anatomy of Melancholy wrote:

Virgil, sometime bishop of Salzburg (as Aventinus anno 745 relates), by Bonifacius, bishop of Mentz, was therefore called in question, because he held antipodes (which they made a doubt whether Christ died for) and so by that means took away the seat of hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to heaven, and contradicted that opinion of Austin [St. Augustine], Basil, Lactantius, that held the Earth round as a trencher (whom Acosta and common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball.

Thus, there is evidence that accusations of Flat Earthism, though somewhat whimsical (Burton ends his digression with a legitimate quotation of Augustine: "Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend about uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire"), were used to discredit opposing authorities several centuries before the 19th. Another early mention in literature is Ludvig Holberg's comedy Erasmus Montanus (1723). Erasmus Montanus meets considerable opposition when he claims the Earth is round, since all the peasants hold it to be flat. He is not allowed to marry his fiancée until he cries "The Earth is flat as a pancake". In Thomas Jefferson's book Notes on the State of Virginia (1784), framed as answers to a series of questions (queries), Jefferson uses the "Query" regarding religion to attack the idea of state-sponsored official religions. In the chapter, Jefferson relates a series of official erroneous beliefs about nature forced upon people by authority. One of these is the episode of Galileo's struggles with authority, which Jefferson erroneously frames in terms of the shape of the globe:

Government is just as infallible too when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the Earth was a sphere: the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error however at length prevailed, the Earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex.

19th century

The 19th century was a period in which the perception of an antagonism between religion and science was especially strong. The disputes surrounding the Darwinian revolution contributed to the birth of the conflict thesis, a view of history according to which any interaction between religion and science would almost inevitably lead to open hostility.

Irving's biography of Columbus

See also: Timeline of European exploration

In 1828, Washington Irving's highly romanticized biography, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, was published and mistaken by many for a scholarly work. In Book II, Chapter IV of this biography, Irving gave a largely fictional account of the meetings of a commission established by the Spanish sovereigns to examine Columbus's proposals. One of his more fanciful embellishments was a highly unlikely tale that the more ignorant and bigoted members on the commission had raised scriptural objections to Columbus's assertions that the Earth was spherical.

The issue in the 1490s was not the shape of the Earth, but its size, and the position of the east coast of Asia, as Irving in fact points out. Historical estimates from Ptolemy onward placed the coast of Asia about 180° east of the Canary Islands. Columbus adopted an earlier (and rejected) distance of 225°, added 28° (based on Marco Polo's travels), and then placed Japan another 30° further east. Starting from Cape St. Vincent in Portugal, Columbus made Eurasia stretch 283° to the east, leaving the Atlantic as only 77° wide. Since he planned to leave from the Canaries (9° further west), his trip to Japan would only need to cover 68° of longitude.

Columbus mistakenly assumed that the mile referred to in the Arabic estimate of 56⅔ miles for the size of a degree matched the Italian mile of about 1,480 meters, when it was about 30% longer. His estimate for the size of the degree and for the circumference of the Earth was therefore about 25% too small. The combined effect of these mistakes was that Columbus estimated the distance to Japan to be only about 5,000 km (or only to the eastern edge of the Caribbean) while the true figure is about 20,000 km. The Spanish scholars may not have known the exact distance to the east coast of Asia, but they believed that it was significantly further than Columbus's projection; and this was the basis of the criticism in Spain and Portugal, whether academic or among mariners, of the proposed voyage.

The disputed point was not the shape of the Earth, nor the idea that going west would eventually lead to Japan and China, but the ability of European ships to sail that far across open seas. The small ships of the day (Columbus's three ships varied between 20.5 and 23.5 m – or 67 to 77 feet – in length and carried about 90 men) simply could not carry enough food and water to reach Japan. The ships barely reached the eastern Caribbean islands. Already the crews were mutinous, not because of some fear of "sailing off the edge", but because they were running out of food and water with no chance of any new supplies within sailing distance. They were on the edge of starvation. What saved Columbus was the unknown existence of the Americas precisely at the point he thought he would reach Japan. His ability to resupply with food and water from the Caribbean islands allowed him to return safely to Europe. Otherwise his crews would have died, and the ships foundered.

Advocates for science

In 1834, a few years after the publication of Irving's book, Jean Antoine Letronne, a French academic of strong antireligious ideas, misrepresented the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat Earth in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers. Then in 1837, the English philosopher of science William Whewell, in his History of the Inductive Sciences, identified Lactantius, author of Institutiones Divinae (c. 310), and Cosmas Indicopleustes, author of Christian Topography (c. 548), as evidence of a medieval belief in a Flat Earth. Lactantius had been ridiculed much earlier by Copernicus in De revolutionibus of 1543 as someone who "Speaks quite childishly about the Earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the Earth has the form of a globe".

Other historians quickly followed Whewell, although they could identify few other examples. The American chemist John William Draper wrote a History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), employing the claim that the early Church fathers thought the Earth was flat as evidence of the hostility of the Church to the advancement of science. The story of widespread religious belief in the flat Earth was repeated by Andrew Dickson White in his 1876 The Warfare of Science and elaborated twenty years later in his two-volume History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, which exaggerated the number and significance of medieval flat-Earthers to support White's model of warfare between dogmatic theology and scientific progress. As Draper and White's metaphor of ongoing warfare between the scientific progress of the Enlightenment and the religious obscurantism of the "Dark Ages" became widely accepted, it spread the idea of medieval belief in the flat Earth.

The widely circulated engraving of a man poking his head through the firmament surrounding the Earth to view the Empyrean, executed in the style of the 16th century, was published in Camille Flammarion's L'Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888, p. 163). The engraving illustrates the statement in the text that a medieval missionary claimed that "he reached the horizon where the Earth and the heavens met". In its original form, the engraving included a decorative border that places it in the 19th century. In later publications, some of which claimed that the engraving dates to the 16th century, the border was removed.

20th century and onward

Since the early 20th century, a number of books and articles have documented the flat-Earth error as one of a number of widespread misconceptions in popular views of the Middle Ages. Both E. M. W. Tillyard's book The Elizabethan World Picture and C. S. Lewis' The Discarded Image are devoted to a broad survey of how the universe was viewed in Renaissance and medieval times, and both extensively discuss how the educated classes knew the world was round. Lewis draws attention to the fact that in Dante's The Divine Comedy, about an epic voyage through hell, purgatory and heaven, the Earth is spherical with gravity being towards the center of the Earth. As the Devil is frozen in a block of ice in the center of the Earth, Dante and Virgil climb down the Devil's torso, but up from the Devil's waist to his feet, as his waist is at the center of the Earth.

Jeffrey Burton Russell rebutted the prevalence of belief in the flat Earth in a monograph and two papers. Louise Bishop states that virtually every thinker and writer of the 1000-year medieval period affirmed the spherical shape of the Earth.

Although the misconception was frequently refuted in historical scholarship since at least 1920, it persisted in popular culture and in some school textbooks into the 21st century. An American schoolbook by Emma Miller Bolenius published in 1919 has this introduction to the suggested reading for Columbus Day (12 October):

When Columbus lived, people thought that the Earth was flat. They believed the Atlantic Ocean to be filled with monsters large enough to devour their ships, and with fearful waterfalls over which their frail vessels would plunge to destruction. Columbus had to fight these foolish beliefs in order to get men to sail with him. He felt sure the Earth was round.

Previous editions of Thomas Bailey's The American Pageant stated that "The superstitious sailors [of Columbus's crew] ... grew increasingly mutinous ... because they were fearful of sailing over the edge of the world"; however, no such historical account is known.

A 2009 survey of schoolbooks from Austria and Germany showed that the Flat Earth myth became dominant in the second half of the 20th century and persists in most historical textbooks for German and Austrian schools.

As recently as 1983 Daniel Boorstin published a historical survey, The Discoverers, which presented the Flammarion engraving on its cover and proclaimed that "from AD 300 to at least 1300 ... Christian faith and dogma suppressed the useful image of the world that had been so ... scrupulously drawn by ancient geographers." Boorstin dedicated a chapter to the flat Earth, in which he portrayed Cosmas Indicopleustes as the founder of Christian geography. The flat Earth model has often been incorrectly supposed to be church doctrine by those who wish to portray the Catholic Church as being anti-progress or hostile to scientific inquiry. This narrative has been repeated even in academic circles, such as in April 2016, when Boston College theology professor and ex-priest Thomas Groome erroneously stated that "the Catholic Church never said the Earth is round, but just stopped saying it was flat."

The 1937 popular song "They All Laughed" contains the couplet "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus/When he said the world was round". In the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon Hare We Go (1951) Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand the Catholic quarrel about the shape of the Earth; the king states the Earth is flat. In Walt Disney's 1963 animation The Sword in the Stone, wizard Merlin (who has traveled into the future) explains to a young Arthur that "man will discover in centuries to come" that the Earth is round, and rotates.

In 2019, CNN published an article on the modern flat earth movement featuring the Flammarion engraving with an inaccurate caption "A medieval engraving of a scientist leaving the world, representing the change in conceptions of the world in the 16th century".

Historiography of the flat Earth myth

Ornamental door (1871) at the US Capitol depicting the Council at Salamanca

Historical writers have identified a number of historical circumstances that contributed to the origin and widespread acceptance of the flat-Earth myth. American historian Jeffrey Burton Russell traced the nineteenth-century origins of what he called the Flat Error to a group of anticlerical French scholars, particularly to Antoine-Jean Letronne and, indirectly, to his teachers Jean-Baptiste Gail and Edme Mentelle. Mentelle had described the Middle Ages as twelve ignorant centuries of "profound night", a theme exemplified by the flat-Earth myth in Letronne's "On the Cosmological Opinions of the Church Fathers".

Historian of science Edward Grant makes a case that the flat-Earth myth developed in the context of a more general assault upon the Middle Ages and upon scholastic thought, which can be traced back to Francesco Petrarch in the fourteenth century. Grant sees "one of the most extreme assaults against the Middle Ages" in Draper's History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, which appeared a decade before Draper presented the flat-Earth myth in his History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science.

Andrew Dickson White's motives were more complex. As the first president of Cornell University, he had advocated that it be established without any religious ties but be "an asylum for science". In addition, he was a strong advocate for Darwinism, saw religious figures as the main opponents of the Darwinian evolution, and sought to project that conflict of theology and science back through the entire Christian Era. But as some historians have pointed out, the nineteenth-century conflict over Darwinism incorporated disputes over the relative authority of professional scientists and clergy in the fields of science and education. White made this concern manifest in the preface to his History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom, where he explained the lack of advanced instruction in many American colleges and universities by their "sectarian character".

The flat-Earth myth, like other myths, took on artistic form in the many works of art displaying Columbus defending the sphericity of the Earth before the Council of Salamanca. American artists depicted a forceful Columbus challenging the "prejudices, the mingled ignorance and erudition, and the pedantic bigotry" of the churchmen. Abrams sees this image of a Romantic hero, a practical man of business, and a Yankee go-getter as crafted to appeal to nineteenth-century Americans.

Russell suggests that the flat-Earth error was able to take such deep hold on the modern imagination because of prejudice and presentism. He specifically mentions "the Protestant prejudice against the Middle Ages for Being Catholic ... the Rationalist prejudice against Judeo-Christianity as a whole", and "the assumption of the superiority of 'our' views to those of older cultures".

Machine vision

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_vision

Early Automatix (now part of Omron) machine vision system Autovision II from 1983 being demonstrated at a trade show. Camera on tripod is pointing down at a light table to produce backlit image shown on screen, which is then subjected to blob extraction.

Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance, usually in industry. Machine vision refers to many technologies, software and hardware products, integrated systems, actions, methods and expertise. Machine vision as a systems engineering discipline can be considered distinct from computer vision, a form of computer science. It attempts to integrate existing technologies in new ways and apply them to solve real world problems. The term is the prevalent one for these functions in industrial automation environments but is also used for these functions in other environment vehicle guidance.

The overall machine vision process includes planning the details of the requirements and project, and then creating a solution. During run-time, the process starts with imaging, followed by automated analysis of the image and extraction of the required information.

Definition

Definitions of the term "Machine vision" vary, but all include the technology and methods used to extract information from an image on an automated basis, as opposed to image processing, where the output is another image. The information extracted can be a simple good-part/bad-part signal, or more a complex set of data such as the identity, position and orientation of each object in an image. The information can be used for such applications as automatic inspection and robot and process guidance in industry, for security monitoring and vehicle guidance. This field encompasses a large number of technologies, software and hardware products, integrated systems, actions, methods and expertise. Machine vision is practically the only term used for these functions in industrial automation applications; the term is less universal for these functions in other environments such as security and vehicle guidance. Machine vision as a systems engineering discipline can be considered distinct from computer vision, a form of basic computer science; machine vision attempts to integrate existing technologies in new ways and apply them to solve real world problems in a way that meets the requirements of industrial automation and similar application areas. The term is also used in a broader sense by trade shows and trade groups such as the Automated Imaging Association and the European Machine Vision Association. This broader definition also encompasses products and applications most often associated with image processing. The primary uses for machine vision are automatic inspection and industrial robot/process guidance. See glossary of machine vision.

Imaging based automatic inspection and sorting

The primary uses for machine vision are imaging-based automatic inspection and sorting and robot guidance; in this section the former is abbreviated as "automatic inspection". The overall process includes planning the details of the requirements and project, and then creating a solution. This section describes the technical process that occurs during the operation of the solution.

Methods and sequence of operation

The first step in the automatic inspection sequence of operation is acquisition of an image, typically using cameras, lenses, and lighting that has been designed to provide the differentiation required by subsequent processing. MV software packages and programs developed in them then employ various digital image processing techniques to extract the required information, and often make decisions (such as pass/fail) based on the extracted information.

Equipment

The components of an automatic inspection system usually include lighting, a camera or other imager, a processor, software, and output devices.

Imaging

The imaging device (e.g. camera) can either be separate from the main image processing unit or combined with it in which case the combination is generally called a smart camera or smart sensor. Inclusion of the full processing function into the same enclosure as the camera is often referred to as embedded processing. When separated, the connection may be made to specialized intermediate hardware, a custom processing appliance, or a frame grabber within a computer using either an analog or standardized digital interface (Camera Link, CoaXPress). MV implementations also use digital cameras capable of direct connections (without a framegrabber) to a computer via FireWire, USB or Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.

While conventional (2D visible light) imaging is most commonly used in MV, alternatives include multispectral imaging, hyperspectral imaging, imaging various infrared bands, line scan imaging, 3D imaging of surfaces and X-ray imaging. Key differentiations within MV 2D visible light imaging are monochromatic vs. color, frame rate, resolution, and whether or not the imaging process is simultaneous over the entire image, making it suitable for moving processes.

Though the vast majority of machine vision applications are solved using two-dimensional imaging, machine vision applications utilizing 3D imaging are a growing niche within the industry. The most commonly used method for 3D imaging is scanning based triangulation which utilizes motion of the product or image during the imaging process. A laser is projected onto the surfaces of an object. In machine vision this is accomplished with a scanning motion, either by moving the workpiece, or by moving the camera & laser imaging system. The line is viewed by a camera from a different angle; the deviation of the line represents shape variations. Lines from multiple scans are assembled into a depth map or point cloud. Stereoscopic vision is used in special cases involving unique features present in both views of a pair of cameras. Other 3D methods used for machine vision are time of flight and grid based. One method is grid array based systems using pseudorandom structured light system as employed by the Microsoft Kinect system circa 2012.

Image processing

After an image is acquired, it is processed. Central processing functions are generally done by a CPU, a GPU, a FPGA or a combination of these. Deep learning training and inference impose higher processing performance requirements. Multiple stages of processing are generally used in a sequence that ends up as a desired result. A typical sequence might start with tools such as filters which modify the image, followed by extraction of objects, then extraction (e.g. measurements, reading of codes) of data from those objects, followed by communicating that data, or comparing it against target values to create and communicate "pass/fail" results. Machine vision image processing methods include;

• Stitching/Registration: Combining of adjacent 2D or 3D images.
• Filtering (e.g. morphological filtering)
• Thresholding: Thresholding starts with setting or determining a gray value that will be useful for the following steps. The value is then used to separate portions of the image, and sometimes to transform each portion of the image to simply black and white based on whether it is below or above that grayscale value.
• Pixel counting: counts the number of light or dark pixels
• Segmentation: Partitioning a digital image into multiple segments to simplify and/or change the representation of an image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze.
• Edge detection: finding object edges 
• Color Analysis: Identify parts, products and items using color, assess quality from color, and isolate features using color.
• Blob detection and extraction: inspecting an image for discrete blobs of connected pixels (e.g. a black hole in a grey object) as image landmarks.
• Neural net / deep learning / machine learning processing: weighted and self-training multi-variable decision making.  Circa 2019 there is a large expansion of this, using deep learning and machine learning to significantly expand machine vision capabilities. The most common result of such processing is classification. Examples of classification are object identification,"pass fail" classification of identified objects and OCR.
• Pattern recognition including template matching. Finding, matching, and/or counting specific patterns. This may include location of an object that may be rotated, partially hidden by another object, or varying in size.
• Barcode, Data Matrix and "2D barcode" reading 
• Optical character recognition: automated reading of text such as serial numbers 
• Gauging/Metrology: measurement of object dimensions (e.g. in pixels, inches or millimeters) 
• Comparison against target values to determine a "pass or fail" or "go/no go" result. For example, with code or bar code verification, the read value is compared to the stored target value. For gauging, a measurement is compared against the proper value and tolerances. For verification of alpha-numberic codes, the OCR'd value is compared to the proper or target value. For inspection for blemishes, the measured size of the blemishes may be compared to the maximums allowed by quality standards.

Outputs

A common output from automatic inspection systems is pass/fail decisions. These decisions may in turn trigger mechanisms that reject failed items or sound an alarm. Other common outputs include object position and orientation information for robot guidance systems. Additionally, output types include numerical measurement data, data read from codes and characters, counts and classification of objects, displays of the process or results, stored images, alarms from automated space monitoring MV systems, and process control signals. This also includes user interfaces, interfaces for the integration of multi-component systems and automated data interchange.

Deep Learning

The term "Deep Learning" has variable meanings, most of which can be applied to techniques used in machine vision for over 20 years. However the usage of the term in Machine Vision began in the later 2010s with the advent of the capability to successfully apply such techniques to entire images in the industrial machine vision space. Conventional machine vision usually requires the "physics" phase of a machine vision automatic inspection solution to create reliable simple differentiation of defects. An example of "simple" differentiation is that the defects are dark and the good parts of the product are light. A common reason why some applications were not doable was when it was impossible to achieve the "simple"; deep learning removes this requirement, in essence "seeing" the object more as a human does, making it now possible to accomplish those automatic applications. The system learns from a large amount of images during a training phase and then executes the inspection during run-time use which is called "inference".

Imaging based robot guidance

Machine vision commonly provides location and orientation information to a robot to allow the robot to properly grasp the product. This capability is also used to guide motion that is simpler than robots, such as a 1 or 2 axis motion controller. The overall process includes planning the details of the requirements and project, and then creating a solution. This section describes the technical process that occurs during the operation of the solution. Many of the process steps are the same as with automatic inspection except with a focus on providing position and orientation information as the result.

Market

As recently as 2006, one industry consultant reported that MV represented a $1.5 billion market in North America. However, the editor-in-chief of an MV trade magazine asserted that "machine vision is not an industry per se" but rather "the integration of technologies and products that provide services or applications that benefit true industries such as automotive or consumer goods manufacturing, agriculture, and defense."

Nuclear torpedo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_torpedo

A nuclear torpedo is a torpedo armed with a nuclear warhead. The idea behind the nuclear warheads in a torpedo was to create a much bigger explosive blast. Later analysis suggested that smaller, more accurate, and faster torpedoes were more efficient and effective.

During the Cold War, nuclear torpedoes replaced some conventionally armed torpedoes on submarines of both the Soviet and American navies.

The USSR developed the T15, the T5 and the ASB-30. The only nuclear warhead torpedo used by the United States was the Mark 45 torpedo. The Soviet Union widely deployed T5 nuclear torpedoes in 1958 and the U.S. deployed its Mark 45 torpedo in 1963. In 2015, there were rumors that Russia was developing a new nuclear torpedo, the Status-6.

Soviet Union

T-15

The Soviet Union's development of nuclear weapons began in the late 1940s. The Navy had put itself forward as the most suitable branch of the Soviet armed forces to deliver a nuclear strike, believing its submarine technology and tactics to be superior to the rest of the world. In theory, long-range submarines that can surface just prior to launching a nuclear weapon offer a large tactical advantage in comparison to deploying weapons by long range bomber planes that can be shot down.

In the early 1950s, the Soviet Ministry of Medium Machine Building secretly initiated plans for incorporating nuclear warheads into submarine warfare. One concept, the T-15 project, aimed to provide a nuclear warhead with a diameter of 1,550 mm (61 in), which was completely incompatible with the traditional caliber torpedo already used in Soviet diesel-powered submarines. The T-15 project began in strict secrecy in 1951. Research and testing was contemporaneous with the other concept, the much smaller and lighter 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo referred to as the T-5. Stalin and the armed forces saw benefits to both calibers of torpedo: the T-5 was a superior tactical option, but the T-15 had a larger blast. Meetings at the Kremlin were so highly classified that the Navy was not informed. The plans for the T-15 torpedo and for an appropriately redesigned submarine, named project 627, were authorized on September 12, 1952, but were not officially approved until 1953, surprising the Navy, which had been unaware of the central government activity. The T-15 project developed a torpedo that could travel 16 miles (26 km) with a thermonuclear warhead. The 1550 mm T-15 design was 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter and weighed 36,000 kg (40 short tons). The large size of the weapon limited the capacity of a modified submarine to a single torpedo that could only travel at a speed of 56 km/h (30 kn). The torpedo speed was hindered by the usage of an electric propelled motor to launch the warhead.

Discontinuation

The T-15 was intended to destroy naval bases and coastal towns by an underwater explosion that resulted in massive tsunami waves. The front compartment of the T-15 submarines held the massive torpedo, which occupied 22% of the length of the submarine. A submarine could only hold one T-15 at a time, but it was also equipped with two 533-mm torpedo tubes intended for self-defense. In 1953, the T-15 project presented its conclusions to the Central Council of the Communist Party, where it was determined that the project would be managed by the Navy. In 1954, a committee of naval experts disagreed with continuing the T-15 nuclear torpedoes. Their criticisms centered on a lack of need when considered along with existing weapons in the submarine fleet, as well as skepticism that submarines would be able to approach launch points close enough to the coastline to hit targets within 40 km (25 mi).

Project 627 was modified to provide reactors for a new vessel that would be capable of deploying 533 mm caliber torpedoes in the T-5 project. However, the termination of the T-15 program in 1954 was not the last time a large torpedo would be considered as means of deployment. In 1961, Andrei Sakharov revisited the idea after the successful testing of his new 52 megaton bomb, which was too large for aircraft. When he introduced the concept to the navy they did not welcome the idea, being turned off by the wide area effect which would kill so many innocent people. Technological advances led to the weapon selection process favoring more tactical approaches that were amenable to quicker execution. After years of decline and reduction of stockpiles the Russian Federation in recent years seems to tend to lean toward an increase of its stockpile in terms of quantity and yield of nuclear weapons.

T-5

Main article: Soviet atomic bomb project § RDS-9

From the early 1950s, when the Soviets successfully engineered their own form of a nuclear bomb, an effective means of delivery was sought. The T-5 torpedo was tipped by a RDS-9 nuclear warhead which had a 5 kiloton payload. The first T-5 test in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, on 10 October 1954 was unsuccessful. A year later, after further development, a test at Novaya Zemlya on 21 September 1955 succeeded. On 10 October 1957, in another test at Novaya Zemlya, S-144, a Whiskey class submarine, launched a T-5. The test weapon, code named Korall, detonated with a force of 4.8 kilotons 20 m (66 ft) under the surface of the bay sending a huge plume of highly radioactive water high into the air. Three decommissioned submarines were used as targets at a distance of 10.5 km (6.5 mi). Both S-20 and S-34 sank completely, and S-19 was critically damaged.

In 1958, the T-5 became fully operational as the Type 53-58 torpedo. The weapon, which could be deployed on most Soviet submarines, had an interchangeable warhead for either nuclear or high explosive. This permitted quick tactical decisions on deployment. The T-5, like the US Mark 45 torpedo, was not designed to make direct hits but to maximize a blast kill zone in the water. The detonation would create shock waves powerful enough to crack the hull of a submerged submarine. However, like the U.S. Mark 45 torpedo, the T-5 was not optimized for deep diving and had limited guidance capability. As its thermal operational range was between 5 and 25 °C (41 and 77 °F), this decreased its effectiveness in the waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic.

On 27 October 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet submarine B-59 was pursued in the Atlantic Ocean by the U.S. Navy. When the Soviet vessel failed to surface, American destroyers began dropping training depth charges. The B-59 was armed with a T-5. The Soviet captain, believing that World War III was under way wished to launch the nuclear weapon. However, his flotilla commander, Vasili Arkhipov, who by happenstance was using the boat as his command vessel, refused to endorse the command. After an argument, it was agreed that the submarine would surface and await orders from Moscow. It was not until after the fall of the Soviet Union that it was made known that the submarine was armed with a T-5. A fictional Soviet nuclear torpedo was deployed in the 1965 Cold War film The Bedford Incident.

ASB-30

The ASB-30 was a nuclear warhead, deployed by the Soviet Navy in 1962, which could replace high-explosive warheads on 533 mm (21-inch) torpedoes while the submarine was at sea.

VA-111 Shkval

Supercavitating torpedo VA-111 Shkval is allegedly able to carry nuclear-fissile warheads.

Russian Federation

Status-6

Main article: Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System

In 2015, information emerged that Russia may be developing a new up to 100 MT thermonuclear torpedo, the Status-6 Oceanic Multipurpose System, codenamed "Kanyon" by Pentagon officials. This weapon is designed to create a tsunami wave up to 500 m (1,600 ft) tall that will radioactively contaminate a wide area on an enemy coasts with cobalt-60, and to be immune to anti-missile defense systems such as anti-ballistic missiles, laser weapons and railguns that might disable an ICBM or a SLBM. Two potential carrier submarines, the Project 09852 Oscar-class submarine Belgorod, and the Project 09851 Yasen-class submarine Khabarovsk, are new boats laid down in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Status 6 appears to be a deterrent weapon of last resort. It appears to be a torpedo-shaped robotic mini-submarine, that can travel at speeds of 190 km/h (100 kn). More recent information suggests a top speed of 104 km/h (56 kn), with a range of 10,000 km (6,200 mi) and a depth maximum of 1,000 m (3,300 ft). This underwater drone is cloaked by stealth technology to elude acoustic tracking devices. However many commentators doubt that this is a real project, and see it as more likely to be a staged leak to intimidate the US. Amongst other comments on it, Edward Moore Geist wrote a paper in which he says that "Russian decision makers would have little confidence that these areas would be in the intended locations" and Russian military experts are cited as saying that "Robotic torpedo shown could have other purposes, such as delivering deep-sea equipment or installing surveillance devices".

In January 2018 the Pentagon confirmed the existence of Status-6.

United States

Main article: Mark 45 torpedo

Rationale

U.S. interest in a nuclear torpedo can be traced to 1943, when Captain William S. Parsons, head of the ordnance division of the Manhattan Project, proposed an air-launched uranium-type nuclear warhead torpedo. This concept never advanced. It was not until the late 1950s, when deep-diving, fast Soviet nuclear submarines appeared, that heavier weaponry was needed. In 1960, the United States revealed its development of nuclear warheads that could be dropped from the delta-winged Convair B-58 Hustler, the first operational supersonic bomber, over target points detected by sonar systems.

Mark 45

The Mark 45 torpedo, also known as ASTOR, was a United States Navy (USN) nuclear weapon. The Mark 45 replaced the Mark 44 torpedo, which was appreciably smaller, weighing about 193 kg (425 lb) and 250 cm (100 in) in length. The Mark 44 range was around 5,500 m (6,000 yd) and it could reach speeds of 56 km/h (30 kn). The initial design was undertaken in 1959 or 1960 by the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash., and the Westinghouse Electric Corp., Baltimore, Md. The torpedo entered service in 1963.

The Mark 45 was a submarine-launched, antisubmarine, antisurface ship torpedo with wire guidance capabilities. The warhead was a W34 low-yield tactical nuclear warhead, whose extensive blast radius would destroy an enemy boat by a proximity detonation, rather than precision delivery. To ensure full control was maintained over the nuclear weapon, a wire control carried out the detonation. The warhead was detonated only by a signal sent along the wire; there was no contact or influence exploder in the torpedo. Target guidance signals, informed by a gyro and depth gear, could also be sent via the wire connection, as the torpedo had no onboard homing ability. It was 480 mm (19 in) in diameter, and was launched silently from a standard 530 mm (21 in) tube by allowing it to swim out. It was 580 cm (227 in) and weighed 1,000 to 1,100 kg (2,300 to 2,400 lb). There were 2 mods of the Mark 45. The first one, mod 0, was the original nuclear armed version. Mod 1 was a conventionally armed version, refitted from retired mod 0 versions and offered for sale to allied navies as the Mk45 Mod 1 Freedom torpedo. The nuclear warhead offered a large explosion that could destroy high speed, deep diving submarines. Powered by a seawater battery and a 160 ehp electric motor, it could reach 74 km/h (40 kn) and had a maximum range of 14,000 m (15,000 yd). Approximately 600 Mark 45 torpedoes were built from 1963 to 1976.

Replacement

The size and weight of the Mark 45's nuclear warhead greatly interfered with the speed the torpedo could reach. From 1972 to 1976, the Mark 45 was replaced by the Mark 48 torpedo, the current USN submarine torpedo. The Mark 48 is a very fast, deep-diving, acoustic-homing torpedo with a high performance guidance system. The Mark 48 is 530 mm (21 in) in diameter, has a length of just over 5.8 m (19 ft), and carries a warhead of approximately 290 kg (650 lb) of high explosives. The weapon is estimated to have a speed of 102 km/h (55 kn) and a range of 32,000 m (35,000 yd). A guidance wire spools out simultaneously from the submarine and the torpedo, enabling the submarine to control the "fish" using the larger and more powerful passive sonar of the submarine. The torpedo's gyro places it on an initial bearing to the target. The wire only comes into play if the target's position and movement suggest a change is needed to correct the torpedo's gyro course. In such case, the fire control technician makes the alteration through the wire. The wire is then cut and the torpedo's active homing sonar seeks out the target. Subsequent advances to the Mark 48 include the Mark 48 Mod 3, with advances to the homing system, using TELECOM, which provides two-way data transmissions between the submarine and the torpedo, enabling the torpedo to transmit acoustic data back to the submarine. Over 5,000 Mark 48 torpedoes have been produced.

The decommissioned Mark 45 torpedoes were refashioned, replacing the nuclear warheads with conventional warheads. These "Freedom" torpedoes were offered for foreign sale without much success.

weapon	type	range (yards)	speed (knots)	warhead
Mk 37	torpedo	8,000–18,000	various	330 lb HBX-3
Mk 45	torpedo	30,000–40,000	various	nuclear capable
Mk 48	torpedo	30,000–40,000	various	800 lb HBX-3
Mk 48 ADCAP	torpedo	30,000–40,000	various	800 lb HBX-3
Subroc UUM-44	rocket	30 nm	N/A	nuclear capable
UGM 84a/c	anti-ship missile	75 nm	600	488 lb WDU18

Cuban Missile Crisis

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. was unaware that the U.S.S.R. possessed nuclear-armed-torpedoes. Before the crisis, the U.S. had been stalking and documenting most Soviet submarines. During the crisis, the U.S. imposed a blockade to eradicate all Soviet presence in the Caribbean Sea. A dangerous incident may have occurred on Soviet submarine B-59, although some doubts have been raised. Vadim Orlov, who was a communications intelligence officer, stated that on 27 October, U.S. destroyers lobbed practice depth charges at B-59. Captain Valentin Savitsky, unable to establish communications with Moscow, with a crew suffering from heat and high levels of carbon dioxide, ordered the T5 nuclear torpedo to be assembled for firing. The Deputy Brigade Commander Second Captain Vasili Arkhipov calmed Savitsky down and they made the decision to surface the submarine. This narrative is controversial, as other submarine commanders have found it improbable that Savitsky would have given such an order.