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Old 06-28-19, 03:02 PM   #17
gumbeauregard
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Quote:
Originally Posted by US IRON View Post
RE
< Magic points are an interesting idea. I am not sure how a boomer could know its position over sea floor terrain without using an active sensor to "look">

I know zero about real world submarine navigation and I suppose it is classified, but Inertial Navigation Systems INS have been around for decades. It was standard on the 747 and other airliners before Satellite GPS. Using sensitive gyroscopes and acceleromotors (force sensors) which calculate distances, velocities and accelerations a submarine would know its position fairly accurately without need of any external references, except some initialisation point when setting the system initially and checking its accuracy. On aircraft the initialisation point on startup is the gate which is a known coordinate. Maybe they utilise magnetic fields as well?

I expect all submarines would have back-up systems like this to cross-check with other more accurate systems. I have no-idea what a magic point is.
I have many ocean crossings with INS as a secondary navigation system and over the few hours of a jet crossing the error is quite large. Usually 1-3 miles or so for the trip over the North Atlantic. Age and condition of the system also affect this drift.

Here are some articles I found on Gravity Anomaly Aided Inertial Navigation System (GAINS), which is pretty interesting stuff.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579750/

https://www.navysbir.com/n09_1/N091-092.htm

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/860...57b0712f25.pdf

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...019.00019/full
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