Billed as factual in Blind’s Man Bluff. I have no actual knowledge.
Yes, the map IS of the “Economic Zones” – the 200-mile limit. I recognize that from the lines in the Caribbean, where there ARE “International Waters” in the territorial sense but the whole basin is covered by someone or another’s claim for resources, thanks to some islands Venezuela and Colombia own well off their shores.
One thing’s for sure: the physics of sound propagation in the oceans are so complex and so many variables are involved, that it is a miracle that submariners accomplish as much as they have over the years. It takes a lot of skill to locate and track targets underwater, and even more so with modern silencing technology, advanced screws and similar advances. Unless you have done it yourself (or have really read up on it and conversed with veterans about some of it) you have no clue about how difficult it is and how they go about doing it. Suffice it to say that we civilians will never know the whole story and what we hear is only part of what goes on. I was lucky to have served when the bad guys were noisy and easy to locate. Once the Japanese sold certain large industrial metal milling machines to the Soviets, the Soviets began to build even quieter subs equipped with advanced screws that did not cavitate as much at high speed. Life got a lot tougher for our navy after that. Submarine and Anti-sub warfare continues to be a challenge and everyone is doing their best to be better at it than the other guy.
Plus, a submarine base can be situated in a place that is much further than 12 miles from international waters. For example, the submarine base in New London, CT, is further isolated from international waters because it is located on the coast of Long Island Sound, not just the Atlantic Coast.
My father worked as an engineer at the submarine building skunkworks of a defense contractor during the early 1970’s. If I had to describe his job in one sentence, it would be to come up with ways to reduce the amount of noise made while the sub was compressed by the increase in water pressure as it descended into deeper waters.
Certainly. But robby almost certainly doesn’t keep track of which bits of information have been declassified (or were never classified), and which have not. He could figure this out, if he really wanted to - but it would be a lot of work to say anything more than “Blind Man’s Bluff is well-regarded in the submariner community,” - so it isn’t worth it.
For those interested in seeing what a community forum of current and past submariners like to talk about, check out this site: http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/
Some of the discussions are technical jargon and some are about professional career matters, but if you are patient you will see issues discussed that seldom come up outside of this unique close-mouthed community. They remain sensitive about classified matters but there is still much the interested reader can infer between the lines.
In hindsight, a better way of describing his job is that he tried to find ways to reduce noise while both descending and rising, as common sense would dictate it goes both ways.
If so, it was probably even more important to reduce noise when the sub was rising.
I remember someone else that I know who served on a submarine (probably late 70’s) telling me that a Trident sub could carry seven missiles (w/ multiple independently guided warheads, mind you), but the conventional wisdom was that on average you could expect to squeeze off only three before a Soviet attack sub pinpointed your location and took you out. My numbers might not be exact, but the ratio between capacity and capability would still be about the same.
Boomers are a strategic second strike weapons platform. The second leg of the triad and the air force bombers being the third. During the early phase of nuke boat operations, the boomers and fast attack boats were using the same power plants.
When a boomer sortied on a war patrol, a fast attack boat was sortied with it or rendevoused at some point on a map with one, so the soviet sniffer would end up tracking the fast attack boat , while the boomer made its way to hide with pride.
American fast attack boats on the other hand were able to loiter off the coasts of Russia, as those boomers were sailing, and get really close. So close, that part of the damage that Walker was able to do, was to explain to the startled Russians, exactly how naked their force was, and inventing the crazy ivan as an immediate counter measure.
If you have watched the hunt for red october, this is explained in detail. Until the walker class russian boats started to come online, the soviets went with a more practical plan, with the bastion defense. having the SLBM’s range being long enough, they kept them inside home waters, and used them as mobile missile launchers, rather than their official role.
Declan
They forgot to mention that in Sonar School. Or at any time during the 4 years of sonar watch on a fast attack boat actually tracking Soviet subs.
You track subs by the noise they transmit into the water. Admittedly it got much harder starting with the Typhoon and following classes because their sound profile was much more like ours.
They idea that they block out biological or other ambients is like saying a car parked on the other side of your block “makes a hole” in the noise of the of all the cicadas and tree frogs.
I remember reading Blind Man’s Bluff, I don’t remember many details. The authors crafted their story from research of formerly classified documents and from interviews. The fact that you put forward never came from any official document, perhaps an interview. The tendency of former service members to embellish their stories probably doesn’t need any cite.
I seem to remember that “hole in the noise” scenario being part of Hunt for Red October. Clancy is a fictionist, a word I hope I just coined, I don’t know why people accept him as an authority on these things.
ETA: Oh, and smithsb I wasn’t attacking you for repeating hooey. I was just trying to let you know it was hooey.
It was actually in “The Sum of All Fears,” in which a Soviet attack sub is able to track an American boomer out in the deep waters. However, in the story it isn’t because the Ohio-class is noisy or silent in any particular way. It happens because the skipper is an asshole who is trying to impress the brass. Well, and also because the Russian skipper was a student of Ramius’ Vilnius Academy.
But as regards the “hole in the ocean” idea, I think it’s a brilliant bit of disinformation. Sure you can track a boomer! Just stick your head in the water and listen for the quiet spot! What does a whoosh sound like underwater?
OK, Cold war era submariner here. Finally, a GQ that I know something about!
The Soviets used to put a “trawler” just outside the national limits. The supposed trawler never caught a fish and had enough antennas on it to look like NASA and the CIA combined. They also carried some kind of basic sonar, probably under the guise of it being a “fish finder” or navigational aid. These were called AGIs and could occasionally be a real PITA.
The AGIs generally knew when we’d be leaving and would be as close as they could legally get. Obviously, the limits on international waters were enforced very strictly on these guys. If they were in a position to track us, a fast attack boat would accompany us and screen us from the AGI. If necessary, the fast attack could actually surface and get between us to hold them in place for the few minutes we needed to get away.
Once we had enough water under the keel to go deep, there was no way in the world they could regain us on sonar.
In addition to gathering intel (sonar signatures) and trying to track us, they would occasionally try to put us in a position where we could either violate the navigational rules or run aground. They could be quite aggressive. Supposedly a US boomer Captain shot a flare pistol at one of them off the coast of Scotland once. No idea if that actually happened but it was a good story on the boats.
Regards
Testy
skdo23;15161674
I was on the boats between '74 and '80.
The bit about the boat making noise when it was descending or rising is a very good point. All kinds of things made noise and the sound of a 3" thick steel hull compressing was creepy to say the least. On the first deep dive of a patrol, we would occasionally get a locker or something with pop-rivets that would get flexed by the compressing hull. When that happened, one or more of the pop-rivets would break or snap back out with a loud noise and then ricochet around a bit. Nothing that would hurt anyone but it was tense and very quiet then and the sudden noise was absolutely ball-shriveling.:eek:
Lots of cool stuff on deep dives. One man found himself locked in a bathroom stall when the hull flexed and wedged the door shut. He told me that he just couldn’t bear the thought of dying on the crapper with his pants around his ankles.
As far as firing missiles goes, we didn’t actually fire any of course but were very careful to make sure no one was around for the drills. There were requirements in the way of maximum speed and depth that we had to observe but there would be no way for another sub to tell a drill from the real thing until we either fired or didn’t. The missile tube doors didn’t open for a drill but he wouldn’t know their status if he was submerged. In any event, we generally knew if there were any Soviet vessels around. Boomers had killer sonar suites. The other fleet we dreaded was the French. Always uncertain what they’d do.
We usually planned on firing one to three missiles, closing the doors and then going to flank speed and test depth to clear the area as rapidly as possible. Everyone and their dog would be able to track those things back to where they came from and we wanted to be far far away when they came looking.
Then go somewhere else and do it all again.
And tell your dad one of his customers says thanks.
Regards
Testy
What about the navies of smaller nations-like Sweden, Norway,India-who cannot afford nuclear subs? The modern diesel-electric subs are very quiet-have any ever been rammed by mistake?
OK, I got bored and didn’t read all of the previous entries.
First, look up anechoic coatings. THAT started during WWII, with rubber tiles that reflected sonar pulses of certain frequencies, it’s been HUGELY improved today to operate over vast frequencies, hence make active sonar not very effective OR passive sonar effective (indeed, FAR less effective).
Then, the notion was proved that a submarine could create a bulge in the water, due to its movement, hence expose it. It’s a well proved technology, but there are counters to THAT as well.
As for DWMarch’s objections, a hole in the water refers to silence where noise is EXPECTED. That is a PROXIMITY issue, not a distance issue! If one were cruising along and found a sudden silent patch of water, one can assume one of two things:
A mountain is in one’s path.
A submarine is in one’s path and REAL close.
Yes but consider the vast scale of the ocean and the relative size of a submarine. Consider all the things moving in the ocean that might cause noise. Consider how sound can travel for enormous distances underwater. In the middle of all this there’s a quiet spot (which is moving around independently) and all one has to do to find it is filter out all the ambient noise? I’ll believe it when I (don’t) hear it.
Also, although this comes from Tom Clancy I have no reason to disbelieve it. When a boomer detects someone coming their way they move. They hide with pride and are not supposed to get close enough to anyone else’s submarines to be detected by any systems, active or passive. This was the reason the Ohio was detected in SoAF- the skipper was showing off by sneaking up on another US sub which was in turn being tailed by a Soviet sub.
Why would an anechoic coating have any significant effect on passive sonar?
Medicated
Sure it would have an effect. Anything that cuts the sound level coming from your boat will help against enemy sonar.
Regards
Testy
DWMarch
Boomers do indeed listen for anyone and anything and then quietly motor off somewhere else at about 4 knots. I was up North in the Berents sea and similar places so in the Winter there was very little traffic. The guys who really had a bad time were those in the Med. Soviets and their buddys running around all over the place and not nearly enough room.
Even up North where I was, we would occasionally have to rig for silent running and shut off all the fans while anyone not on watch had to get in their bunks and be quiet. Made me feel like someone in a WWII movie.
Most of the soviet subs and ships were very loud and we could hear them at some amazing ranges so we had plenty of time to determine their course and then just be somewhere else. One of the sonar guys compared it to avoiding a blind and deaf guy.
Regards
Testy
Having made the passage from Singapore to Thailand at periscope depth, I can assure you that forcing a sub to complete a significant portion of her voyage on the surface does indeed make the submariners miserable.
To expand on this – the anechoic coating (a long-chain polymer of classified composition) absorbs a percentage of kinetic energy – including vibration and sound energy. The energy doesn’t “go away,” of course, but I believe the polymers become warmer and swell up instead of reflecting energy.
How efficient is it? No one will say. But long before I heard anything about anechoic coatings, I saw press releases about sorbothane, a “miracle” long-chain polymer that was claimed to absorb 90-95% of kinetic energy. The inventor demonstrated it by placing a “rubber donut” of sorbothane on a hard surface, placing a hen’s egg upright in the ring, and placing another ring on top of the egg – then inviting the audience to smash the assembly with a sledgehammer. The egg never broke.
Presumably sorbothane or something very like it became the basis for military anechoic coatings. Whether these are even more efficient than the commercial version, or whether they had to compromise their absorption ability somewhat in order to endure the rigors of submarine immersion, I have no idea – but expect that they are pretty good at absorbing sound energy and vibration.
Such coatings will indeed reduce the echo returning to an active sonar’s receiver. But certainly they also reduce the intensity of internal submarine noises that escape for passive sonars to track (nuclear boats typically have some minimum level of coolant circulation noises), which probably helps a great deal in avoiding passive sonars, although they likely don’t do much about whatever noise is generated by external water flow along the outside of hull itself.