I'm only a layman in these matters.
I just feel in my bones that this rigout should give better prow and stern arc coverage. :hmm:
Flow turbulence is not uniform around the 'sides' of the sub. compare air flows in wind tunnels
around very similar shaped aircraft fuselages. Turbulence can be at reduced levels in 'certain' areas.
Also it just seemed that the greater the 'working' sensor surface exposed the more the chance that the interference
from near hull turbulence could be screened (or filtered) out by computor processing.
This theory surely holds with the TA ?
Perhaps an astronomical electronic telescope exhibits similar qualities:-
Maximum surface receptivity + powerfull electronic processing = maximised detail.