Estimate submarine's depth
 

Hello Guys,
I've been wondering since in Cold Waters TMA gives us very accurate depth which our threat is at. How is this in real life? Can you calculate depth with such precision?

Thanks and best regards.

Not a SONAR guy, not a submarine guy, not even a Navy guy. Just an engineer guy here.

If you're underwater in 3d space - target depth and bearing/distance I would think are fundamentally no different to measure - particularly with a spherical sensor array.

I think it all depends whether your sonar can get a 3d bearing or not.
If yes, then you don't even need to calculate it separately. Just do a simple trigonometry once you know your target's position.
If no, then things get a little bit more complicated.

Considering how sound propagates in water and that sound waves that are received from the lower hemisphere might still originate from a source above you, shouldn't it be extremely hard to determine target depth?

Yes, as far as I know (unless maybe this was changed with some of the new stuff they have out now like WAA and whatever the bottom-bounce donut type deal that's mounted on the bottom of the Virginia class) determining exact depth has always been a problem.

I'd have to find it but one of the manuals for the Mk 37 torpedo basically says since you're probably not going to know your target's depth here's how to bracket with three staggered torpedoes, one shallow (60-300) , one medium (300-700) and one deep (700 and beyond).

My limited understanding of the matter though, when thermoclines are involved and the contact is localized, its usually enough to figure out "above or below the layer" and set the weapon for that approx depth (shallower or deeper than the layer) and let it do its work.

Estimating depth is just that. An estimate. But you can usually get a ballpark idea from context, such as acoustic conditions, weather, geography, Intel, time of day, mission, etc.

Unfortunately, no video game is going to be able to give you all the context you would have in real life to figure it out for yourself so the game just gives you the info.

The most sonar can do is provide an estimation whether the target is above or below the layer. Analyzing accurate depth is not possible.

welcome aboard!
 

On US submarines, ALL bearings are 3D.

Incorrect. You forget that sound in water does not travel in a straight line from the source. It bends based on the Sound Velocity Profile (SVP - Temp vs. Depth). It always follows the path of least resistance. This is how Convergence Zones (CZ) are created, for example.

Your terminology is incorrect. Not hemisphere, but depth. See above.

In all actuality, the only way to determine if the noise source is above or below the layer (if there is one) is to see if the noise source has a higher Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) when you are above the layer then below it. Own ship has to do a depth excursion.... You cannot determine the actual depth. Its really only 'is the contact above or below the layer'. If there is no layer, then you cannot determine what target depth is.

To follow up and clarify this '3D'.

Submarine sonar systems determine not just the bearing (angle in the X axis) of the energy source but also the angle in the Y-axis. This is accomplished by Beam-forming.

You can read about it here in a unclassified PDF.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a250189.pdf

To further clarify and assist:

You are also making the assumption that the sound path is not having any interactions with the surface or bottom. Even if they don't, you have no way of knowing where along the path the actual origination point is, since range is always an estimate, no matter how good your solution is. But since, in most cases, all sound is going to have at least one surface/bottom interaction, it becomes impossible to determine depth at all.

There's even more factors involved, but that's the Cliff Notes version.

This can be done in a spherical array, but not via a hull array or towed array.

No one in the 60s or 80s used vertical angles for anything. All displays were strictly bearing. Vertical info was inferred from layers or operational.

Edit: the earliest spherical array beamforming was done by connecting each transducer to a physical spherical set of contacts with a cap-like receiver that fit over it. You physically maneuvered the cap to where the signal was strongest. The cap was constructed so that the center contacts had a delay on them, with the delay dropping to zero at the edges [I think that's right, but if it isn't then it's the other way], so that what you were doing was finding where the signals matched what a sound wave would do as it passed over the spherical array.

Steering sonar by trackball, basically?

yep

Not correct. In the mid 60s, the BQQ-5 series and the BQQ-6 were both developed, both of which had spherical arrays. Early versions of the Q-5 did use a system like you described for it's analog trackers, though it's digital ones were done purely by the system itself. Regardless, both of these systems (or their immediate predecessors, where the tech was developed) were deployed in time for the time frames of this game, and both have decent D/E (depression/elevation) coverage in addition to the 360 degree azimuthal coverage.