They DO have a surface for absorbing sonar energy. It's called an anechoic coating. It reduces a submarine's target strength.
It doesn't make active torpedoes useless, nor does it make active intercept useless (not sure why it would?) but it does offer some help against active homing torpedoes.
The technology is actually quite old, the Germans in WWII covered their boats in an anechoic coating. The had a code name for it, Alberich. When I was taking a course in acoustics at Penn State, there was actually an interesting discussion of what materials make the best coatings. Apparently, there's a lot of voodoo to it, with no real general theory on how to make the best possible coating. They just experiment and see what works.
I found this article on them:
http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/arc...hp/t-3638.html
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Originally Posted by Nexus7
Not directly regarding the armament but still a RL question:
Like the stealth bombers can adsorb RADAR radiation, is it not thinkable to have a sub with a surface able to adsorb active pings? This would make active torps useless as well as active intercept... Is this theorically possible?
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