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Speaking of war, I suspect the Navy already has maps that good or better than for a variety of reasons can't be publicly released. A better application of mone

by VLM 10y ago

Speaking of war, I suspect the Navy already has maps that good or better than for a variety of reasons can't be publicly released. A better application of money than redoing work already done, might be talking the navy into releasing their data. Declassification isn't cheap, but its cheaper than having civilians re-run the mission.

moioci 10y ago
At least in 2005, that was demonstrably not true of the US Navy: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a24158/uss-san-francisco-mountain-incident/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a24158/u...
- VLM 10y ago
  That's confusing large scale with small scale. You can prove that one time there existed one mistake on one map (or that story is covering up that there was a navigation and/or helm error, or it covering up an even crazier story like hitting a submerged shipping crate or mine or enemy sub). Certainly no one has proven the public map is error free and flawless, and given that this is possibly the first time anything like this has ever happened to a nazy sub, every other map the navy has must be error free to a fairly high level.
jofer 10y ago
Actually, they probably don't. The vast majority of the ocean hasn't been mapped with multibeam, civilian or military. Unless it's an area that's of strategic interest (i.e. mostly costal areas), it's very unlikely that the military has mapped it in detail. That having been said, getting the military to declassify more of its magnetic anomaly data for the ocean basins would be immensely helpful for understanding global tectonic evolution. They have mapped it in quite a bit of detail from airborne and marine platforms. However, an accurate and detailed map of magnetic anomalies gives a huge edge in submarine detection, so it's unlikely they'll declassify all of it anytime soon.
- late2part 10y ago
  My understanding from some old nukes I know is that the subs are continually remapping the floor as they travel.
  - JshWright 10y ago
    They certainly collect data they can get passively (like the magnetic anomaly data mentioned above). They almost certainly do not routinely drive around updating sonar maps (as that would completely defeat the purpose of keeping the location of the sub a secret...)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

by VLM 10y ago

moioci 10y ago

At least in 2005, that was demonstrably not true of the US Navy: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a24158/uss-san-francisco-mountain-incident/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a24158/u...

VLM 10y ago
That's confusing large scale with small scale. You can prove that one time there existed one mistake on one map (or that story is covering up that there was a navigation and/or helm error, or it covering up an even crazier story like hitting a submerged shipping crate or mine or enemy sub). Certainly no one has proven the public map is error free and flawless, and given that this is possibly the first time anything like this has ever happened to a nazy sub, every other map the navy has must be error free to a fairly high level.

jofer 10y ago

Actually, they probably don't. The vast majority of the ocean hasn't been mapped with multibeam, civilian or military. Unless it's an area that's of strategic interest (i.e. mostly costal areas), it's very unlikely that the military has mapped it in detail. That having been said, getting the military to declassify more of its magnetic anomaly data for the ocean basins would be immensely helpful for understanding global tectonic evolution. They have mapped it in quite a bit of detail from airborne and marine platforms. However, an accurate and detailed map of magnetic anomalies gives a huge edge in submarine detection, so it's unlikely they'll declassify all of it anytime soon.

late2part 10y ago
My understanding from some old nukes I know is that the subs are continually remapping the floor as they travel.
- JshWright 10y ago
  They certainly collect data they can get passively (like the magnetic anomaly data mentioned above). They almost certainly do not routinely drive around updating sonar maps (as that would completely defeat the purpose of keeping the location of the sub a secret...)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]