According to a report on the website of the US Defense News Weekly on December 10, French and Türkiye's naval enterprises are paying close attention to the industry's efforts to manufacture a kinetic torpedo interceptor, and are ready to introduce their own technical methods to the market, provided that the navy has overcome its concerns about this future concept. As is well known, the threat of torpedoes to warships is unpredictable. For decades, navies around the world have tested various countermeasures to interfere, confuse, and strike incoming torpedoes. But so far, the results have been mixed. Nowadays, there is a growing consensus among industry experts that the ability to intercept enemy torpedoes is somewhat like the most difficult step in a cat and mouse game that benefits attackers. At the panel discussion of the European International Naval Equipment Exhibition held in Paris last month, Ahmed Akyol, president of Türkiye Aselsan Company, said: "In the future, due to the development of the torpedo system and its becoming very intelligent, sometimes deception or interference is not enough. At that time, you must have additional capabilities, which may include hard killing measures." Aselsan Company and the French naval group confirmed to the Defense News respectively that they are conducting research and development work to establish hard killing torpedo countermeasures, and this work has its own series of complex situations. Due to the laws of physics, aiming underwater is much more difficult than in the air, and although torpedoes move slower than cruise missiles, finding them still poses a challenge. Antoine Kaufmann, Marketing Manager for Underwater Systems at the Navy Group, said that part of the reason is the exceptional challenges in deep-sea environments, which helps explain why many (anti torpedo) systems are not yet mature enough to be adopted by the military. Although several kinetic torpedo interceptors have been developed, most of their lethality has not been tested, and their reliability is still largely uncertain. The existing system is the "Torpedo Killer" manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. in Israel, which uses universal or customized acoustic signals to lure incoming torpedoes closer to a decoy that will explode at close range. But this mechanism did not convince Kaufman. He told Defense News reporters before the European International Naval Equipment Exhibition, "We don't believe in it at all because it's based on 'temptation'. You need to be able to attract torpedoes to a range of less than 20 meters from countermeasures, and torpedoes will never come so close - because they would have detected abnormalities long ago." The Indian Navy is the only international customer known to have purchased the "torpedo killer," and Rafael announced in May this year a partnership with Indian Power to provide this technology for Indian ships. Kaufman predicts that the concept and design of hard kill torpedo technology will mature around 2030. This schedule is consistent with the schedule of the European Defense Agency's "Anti Torpedo Torpedo" demonstration project. The goal is to achieve a production ready design by 2028- it has been proven that the system can successfully detect incoming torpedoes and subsequently activate anti torpedo torpedoes, indicating that the expected effect can be achieved, "said J ü rgen Skrabak, head of the Maritime Department of the European Defense Agency. The official added that negotiations are currently underway to allow more EU member states to join the project. (New Society)