[107638] in Cypherpunks
Re: [Fwd: C-Subs, a very scary thought]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Wed Jan 20 03:37:06 1999
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 00:10:39 -0800
To: Steve Schear <schear@lvcm.com>, Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
In-Reply-To: <v04003a03b2cadd9524a7@[24.1.50.17]>
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
>>> Concrete would not show up on sonar displays (it looks just like sand
>>>or rocks), so the passing ships would not see the sub lurking below.
If they're not sitting on the bottom, they look like rocks floating
where rocks don't belong and optionally moving, which may show up.
And ferro-cement (cement with wire mesh and/or rebar) may have
enough metal that metal-detecting mines may trigger.
>
>As long as the sub is in the bottom this may be true. However, if their
>mission profile requires they acquire any reasonable speed, the miniscule
>surface wake they create can be detected from Synthetic Aperature Radar
>aboard a constellation of orbiting satellites U.S. satellites. The DoD
>inadvertently discovered this a few years back after they launched such
>satellites for dual-use and were forced to quickly cancel civilian data
>access once our own subs were revealed in the data.
Fascinating - does this mean that nuclear subs are no longer the
well-hidden nuclear deterrent they used to be? (I guess hiding
under the Arctic icecaps is probably still hard to see.)
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
