3 ms·

Well, an obvious proposal would be to send out a drone and transmit the sonar ping from a different location. You're right in that a broadcast is required, but

• Arainach 4y ago
  The threat model isn't a torpedo, it's knowing where the enemy's subs are (and aren't). "There's a sub within half a mile of this point" is likely 90% as bad as "there's a sub exactly here" for most missions. While water motors are not exactly my area of expertise, I would also expect that drone/torpedo motors are significantly louder than submarine engines and that launching or recovering a drone is itself a fairly noisy event that exposes the sub to traditional acoustic tracking.
  • throwaway09223 4y ago
    Sure, all valid issues. It for sure would expose the general vicinity. In terms of noise, keep in mind that submarines have all sorts of concessions already. A diesel-electric sub is quieter than a nuclear sub, but it has to surface every two days or so to get air to run its very noisy diesel generators. I think a battery powered electric drone should be far quieter than any sub technology we have (steam/nuke is loud, diesel is louder). The quiet systems we have are all electric and therefore have limited energy capacity.
• maxwindiff 4y ago
  Wouldn't the sub itself also reflect the ping and give itself away?