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Old 03-27-14, 11:29 PM   #3
Sniper297
The Old Man
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig
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Main thing to remember is both sonar and electronics were new technology. WWI they wrapped a microphone in a rubber bag (no plastic bags, hadn't been invented yet) and lowered that into the water to listen, purpose designed hydrophones and transducers came later. Electronics used glass vacuum tubes because the transistor hadn't been invented yet, so heavy cruisers and battleships had mechanical fire control systems because vacuum tube electronics wouldn't have stood the shock. So a sonar set mounted in any of the bow compartments of a CA or BB would have all the tubes shattered the first time the guns fired.

(Watching some old Beatles films with my oldest granddaughter recently she remarked how "stiff" they seemed - but the microphones, electric guitars, and amplifiers of the early 1960s wouldn't have survived modern day wild dancing and twerking for even a few seconds.)

Other item, if you only have a limited number of sonar sets, you install them where they will do the most good - in a destroyer, a ship that's named for its purpose, to destroy submarines. Later in the war the Japanese did equip some merchant ships and light cruisers with hydrophones and depth charge throwers, but strictly as defensive measures. The best kind of ship to kill a sub is one designed for the purpose, a cruiser trying to chase down and depth charge a sub would be like watching an elephant try to waltz.
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