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Don’t submarines detect echos? When I walk into a room eyes closed, I know whether it is big or not, furnished or not depending on how the ambient noise gets re
by laurent92 5y ago
Don’t submarines detect echos? When I walk into a room eyes closed, I know whether it is big or not, furnished or not depending on how the ambient noise gets reflected. Surely the sea must be full of noises and even a black spot of noise should be perceivable?
Especially since detection sensibility hs gotten so high with new tech that countries don’t try to hide anymore, but they try to produce fake sounds in other places in the ocean to disturb the detection.
- ashtonkem 5y agoDetecting echoes requires that they’re running active sonar, which announces their presence to everyone and somewhat ruins the raison d’être for submarines. Running passive they can detect surface ships, but not mountains per se.
- jdavis703 5y agoTo further clarify, unlike the ships of WW II, today US subs mostly exist for a nuclear second strike capability. The strategy assumes the enemy doesn’t know where all the submarine nukes are, so they’re guaranteed to face nuclear retribution if they initiate an attack.
- oivey 5y agoThis isn’t true, and, as the article states, this submarine is specifically a fast attack sub. It attacks other submarines and ships. That’s still related to nuclear deterrence, but not in the way you’re saying.
- krisoft 5y ago> today US subs mostly exist for a nuclear second strike capability. I understand that you say “mostly”, but it is not quite true. There are many other mission types US submarines serve. There are US submarines which provide nuclear second strike capability yes. There are US submarines which carry land attack cruise missiles. These are mostly used to surpess enemy air defences. There are US submarines clearly optimised for “special missions” such as insertion of special force units or taping underwater cables. Then there are US submarines designed to hunt other submarines. For example the USS Connecticut is a Seawolf-class nuclear powered fast attack submarine. Nuclear powered means that the energy used to propel it forward and power its systems come from a nuclear reactor, it doesn’t necessarily means that it has nuclear armed weapons. ( Some might think that I am stating the obvious here but it is surpisingly common to confuse the terms “nuclear armed” and “nuclear powered”. ) In any case she does not carry the kind of nuclear armed ballistic missiles one would associate with a second strike role.
- Multicomp 5y agoI know it's not very economical, but perhaps someone could start a submarine cruise? You get some vacationers, use a relatively large submarine so they have some measure of comfort, then sonar your way around a pre-planned public route. Then you have navigational data and sonar scans you can release to the world. Or, even better than releasing (the bankers say to themselves), selling the data.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoWhy bother even going anywhere? It's a sealed box without windows—who'd know the difference?
- ashtonkem 5y agoSubmarines are notoriously bad places to be. The navy actually sets very long enlistment terms for its submarine crews, because the re-enlistment rate is extremely low. Even with nuclear reactors submarines are cramped, noisy, and unpleasant. Removing the weaponry might make it suck less, but it’s not gonna be “luxury”.
- dredmorbius 5y agoSurface soundings or a towed array are vastly more economical.
- ashtonkem 5y agoFor uncontested waters, yes. The problems start when one military starts trying to make charts in waters claimed by another country. That tends to become a bit of a problem.
- oblib 5y agoThere's no other way than sonar to detect things like mountains underwater? That's interesting. Seems by now we might have something else that does that. A way to use sonar that obfuscates the source of a ping, underwater lidar, submarine drones, something?
- ohyeshedid 5y agoWhat signal would you send that isn't detectable by anyone but you?
- tikwidd 5y agoAn array of tactile antennae/feelers?
- jazzyjackson 5y agonow you’re thinking like a catfish! i like it
- SomewhatLikely 5y agoEntertaining the idea of a probe sticking out the front led to a realization. The problem is you're never going to stop in time if you're at speed. You need to know well in advance that something's there.
- PeterisP 5y agoPerhaps a sound signal that's a copy of something naturally occurring, e.g. by sea animals.
- oblib 5y agoThat came to mind for me too.
- jakear 5y agoFleet of small scale autonomous drones? Bonus points if they're water soluble.