Tom Clancy in one of his books posited the following :
A chinese destroyer is pinging an american sub. Now the distance between the 2 is so great that the destroyer has no usefull echo. On the other hand the american sub uses the reflected ping to "illuminate" chinese subs that are nearby as well as the chinese destroyer. So it finds them on sonar.
Is this thing possibile or is good ol' Clancy just pulling the leg on us ?
I think it has no merit, because subs normally carry anechoic materials so as to attenuate and absorb incoming sound waves. If a sub existed that could reflect almost all incoming energy of a ping and use it to find subs in the neighborhood, well it wouldn't be a stealthy sub at all.
What do you guys think ? Just give general considerations on wether Clancy is telling something plausible or just plain horse****.