[107645] in Cypherpunks
Re: [Fwd: C-Subs, a very scary thought]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Frederick Burroughs)
Wed Jan 20 08:18:47 1999
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1999 07:40:46 -0500
From: Frederick Burroughs <riburr@shentel.net>
To: Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@ns.minder.net>
Reply-To: Frederick Burroughs <riburr@shentel.net>
Bill Stewart wrote:
> >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).
Ice caps, wakes of surface ships, ocean currents, choppy seas; all provide
cover for subsurface shenanigans. But, sonabouys and other subsurface
sensoring paraphernalia pepper the depths, sensing sounds, fluctuations in
pressure and magnetic strength, neutron flux, etc. The utility of submarines
is not their stealthiness, but their being large, mobile launching platforms.
Concrete hulls may be practical in a mine deployment system.
