[107667] in Cypherpunks
Re: CDR: Re: [Fwd: C-Subs, a very scary thought] (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Wed Jan 20 18:37:38 1999
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 00:21:42 +0100
From: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
Reply-To: Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>
>Or, if the sonar is that sensitive, and the hiding submarine is sitting on
>the floor, it will look like a suspiciously long, cylindrical "rock".
In order to do that, the searching submarine will have to be pinging away. I
don't recall whether submarines can actually identify the precise class of
vessel from active sonar. I know they can from passive.
"Conn, sonar, commencing pinging..."
"Conn, sonar, new contact bear---TORPEDO IN THE WATER, BEARING ZERO ZERO
ZERO! POINT BLANK!"
"All ahead flank! Snapshot 2 and 4! Right full rudder! Release
countermeasures---" *BOOM*
Actually, these days with wire guided torpedos they could launch a torpedo
and take it off-beam, say 2000 yards to the starboard bow of the hiding
submarine, and have it just sit there. When the USN sub comes up and starts
pinging away, the torpedo is activated. The snapshot will probably be sent
off that way and never find the hiding sub, since it's just a big "rock"
1500 yards off the starboard bow.
|
|
|(hiding submarine)
Torpedo
|
|
|
(searching submarine)
Boom.
And since submarines rarely use active sonar for obvious reasons, it's more
likely that they'd see the torpedo, shoot a snapshot the wrong way, and that
would be all she wrote.
My question: With wire-guided torpedos, why *isn't* this kind of (cheap)
tactic used? If current torpedos don't support it, it's probably fairly easy
for a team of weapons engineers to add this functionality.
