war fish by jack grider (???) is a ww2 submariner’s book that captivated me. he served on the legendary Wahoo, and did the recon of Wewak harbor. i read it 25 years ago & this thread brought back memories.
great post submariners.
Stranger, most excellent post.
I’m just a humble civilian, but have been OD’ing on sub-trivia since I was a kid. Watched Das Boot, Red October, and Enemy Beneath a bunch of times.
Also read Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising, which made me google such wonderful things as 688-class Subs, SSBMs, Mark-46 torpedos, ‘Control Wires on the Fish’, Yankee Search, Victor Class, Akula Class, Papas, Russian Bears, Russian Badgers, Passive Sonar,
Submariners in this thread - if you’ve read Red Storm Rising, could you offer any thoughts or criticisms you’d like to share about the submarine chapters in the book, or was Clancy more or less accurate with his research?
Um STRANGER ON A TRAIN… You may want to be really careful when posting capabilities of our adcap torpedos or just about any capabilities when it comes to the submarine force. Im checking now but Im 99% sure that those speeds you just posted are classified. At any rate we keep these things classified to protect submariners, myself included (STS1 12years).
That analogy did seem apt to me.
“Pinging” a submarine repeatedly to get it to surface or move out of the area, was it ever done to simply drive the crew a bit mad? I can imagine just the noise underwater would be enough (never mind knowing it meant you were detectable) if it was made over and over again.
I can asure you that this is not a tactic employed by the US Navy. I cant speak for WWII submarine tactics but modern tactics would never allow this. As it has been explained earlier, going active gives away your position. Spend anough time going active to drive a crew mad and your going to alert every sub within miles as to where to aim ther torpedo.
I was wondering if the surface ships would ever do this, if they thought an enemy submarine was nearby when on of their own boats was going out on patrol.
How loud is a ping inside a submarine (on the receiving end of one)?
You can usually hear the ping through the hull if they have the power up enough or they are close enough. It isnt very loud though.
Surface ships usually do just drive around going active like mad as their search routine. They arent very good at detecting much in my experience.
I wouldn’t sweat it, d1a1s1. People speculate on platform and weapon capabilities all the time. If they actually knew the correct figures, they would know enough not to post it. The best response to such speculation is to just ignore it, and to never confirm anything.
Check out the specs for our submarines in Jane’s Fighting Ships sometime. (This or a similar publication is STRANGER’s likely source.) Some figures are pretty close; others are wildly off the mark. Again, those in the know just ignore them.
If those numbers are classified someone ought to notify Janes, FAS, and every other source which publishes them. (Interestingly, though, both of those sources quote a 55kt max speed, while the FAS article on the Alfa from which I uncritically took the speed quotes a 63kt capability. Shame on me for not double-checking.) I only work on stuff that flies through the air (and occasionally above it), not swims through the water, so about torpedos I only know of what is in the public domain.
Stranger
This isn’t necessary. As I noted above, such publications are just making educated guesses. And in my experience, the accuracy of the specs in such publications is nowhere near 100%. Even if they happen to get something right, those who know the classified figures will not provide confirmation of this.
Not a buble head, but another sub junkie checking in. Back in the late 80s I met a guy who worked on sonar systems for one of the large defense contractors (I forget which). Anyway we got on the subject of how accurate is Clancy’s stuff. His comment was that when Hunt for Red October was published, the sonar stuff was only about 5 years out of date from what the real capabilities were.
On the subject of what is classified. One of the guys that works at our headquarters was an officer on the Baton Rouge. I was reading Blind Man’s Bluff when I was back working at headquarters. When I read that the Baton Rouge had bumped a Russian sub, I was sure he must have been the OOD. So the next day here is what the conversation went like:
Me: You were driving that day
Him: What?
Me: You you were driving the sub that day weren’t you?
Him: Huh?
Me: You were driving the sub that day weren’t you, admit it.
Him: ::: Light dawns::: No no! I was in line for chow honest!
Me: Sure anything you say. :dubious: I still think you were driving and took a wrong turn.
Him: Wait a minute I thought that was still classified.
Me: ::: shrug::: Its in the book
Anyway I loaned him the book, and he claimed there were several stories in there that were / are still classified.