3 ms·

For 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

• dredmorbius 5y ago
  Sure, but if you're conducting the survey from a submarine you're 1) very nearly as detectable (the sonar is pinging like mad, China likely have hydrophones throughout the region) and 2) as noted, your consts, complications, and vulnerabilties have gone up markedly. Given circumstances, something like a drone ship might be a better option. Slightly less detectable, cheap, and can be deployed in quantity if desired. https://youtube.com/watch?v=9XoTAvcKgOE https://youtube.com/watch?v=9XoTAvcKgOE Toward the end of the video (beginning about 4:30) the VP of ocean mapping talks about bathymetry as a major future mission. I note that whilst the surveyor craft has an international-orange sail as the other droneships, the body is battleship grey. I suspect there may be alternatively-liveried mission sails as well. More on that here: https://www.saildrone.com/tag/bathymetry https://www.saildrone.com/tag/bathymetry Connan seems to be USN Ret.: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/brian-connon https://www.crunchbase.com/person/brian-connon In fact, I'd put reasonable money on that being a chief mission consideration for the technology. Drop a bunch of these in bad weather --- they'll make good coverage, and it's going to be difficult as heck to get out, spot them, and take countermeasures. Give it a grey paint-job and maybe drop some radar-absorbing material on it, and they'll be fairly stealthy.