You all know what I’m talking about. Whenever there are movies set in a submarine and there are outside shots of the vessel gliding through the depths of the ocean, you can bet the background soundtrack features some bing-like sound repeated periodically. What’s it? I suppose it could have something to do with the SONAR or the echosounder.
Is this sound genuine or dreamt up by Hollywood dramatists?
It’s the subs active sonar, which almost NEVER gets used. They’d hardly be the stealthiest thing on the planet is they went around "ping"ing everywhere.
Surface ships have no such problems with active SONAR, and use it to try and locate subs. I think in a lot of those movies, the sub is trying to be super quiet, and the noise you hear is the surface ship’s active sonar pings travelling through the water and being audible inside the sub.
I don’t know, however, whether a person on a sub could actually hear the SONAR ping from a destroyer. Anyone know the answer to that question?
They’re rather loud. My old office used to be across the river from a sub squadron attached to a tender. Every once in a while they would do active tests and I could hear it in my office. Not hugely loud or anything, more of a high-frequency squeak. I would imagine that on a sub it would be another story.
It’s a mistake.
The sound is active sonar pings, something that no sub driver would ever allow to be emitted from his boat in any circumstance where he wanted to remain hidden and alive. Active sonar, while it has its uses on subs, is also a way of saying, “Here I am in my sub. Won’t somebody please shoot me?”
The sound is often there because directors abhor silence. There’s got to be some noise, whether it’s the background score, sonar pings, or Rosie Perez’ voice. It’s also their way of saying, “This is a submerged submarine, not a spaceship or a film of Truman Capote’s large intestine.”
Preview shows that other, less long-winded people have beaten me to the punch.
I could never hear a thing when our submarine (a 70’s-era Sturgeon class) pinged with its own sonar for testing, but that may have been at low power.
All together now and repeat after me. Movies are entertainment. One must suspend disbelief, stop analyzing and just get into the story being told. If that isn’t possible, the movie maker has not done a good job.
That’s why I never enjoy a war movie that I’m forced to attend.
Former Submariner here.
The “pinging” you hear in the movies is nothing more than Hollywood saying “Hey everybody! Listen-up! That’s a SUBMARINE on the screen!”
In other words, it’s Hollywood treating you like an idiot.
Submarines, as already pointed out, almost always listen. On the rare occaisions that they go “active”, it isn’t a “ping” you hear, but a high-pitched warbling, whistling noise, at least from US boats, most of the time. Some Sonar equipment will allow you to change the pitch and frequency quite a bit, but it’s usually the whistle. Some Russian sonar can sound like an out of tune guitar. Sonar operates in differing fequncies, depending on purpose and navy: Very high pitched, very low pitched, or anywhere in between.
So regardless of Hollywood’s intent, you (in a submarine) would hear someone else actively pinging you from another ship or sub, with unaided ears. Correct?
I have read (purportedly) non-fictional histories of submarines in WWII, where the crew reported hearing even the splash of depth charges on the surface and the click of the detonator igniting a moment before the main charge.
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I don’t have personal experience in this, but I’m fairly well read. If it’s a strong signal, and close enough, the crew could most likely hear it - especially those closer to the hull.
Water is a good sound carrier. While I don’t think anyone on the sub could hear the splash, there was always someone manning a hydrophone listening for ship engines and such - and that guy could usually detect the splash.