Tom Clancy hypothesis on sonar performance...

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by goldorak

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.

I'm not getting a clear picture. Does the distant chinese destroyer also reflect the (allready reflected) ping back to the american sub. (in other words a three-way trip ping) That sounds very unlikely because of range attenuation. Anechoic tiles certainly makes this worse for the us sub.

Or does the us sub emit a pulse at the exact same time the Chinese (destroyer) pulse is reflected on them to mask it. (would require supperb timing) That still doesn't help them, it would infact help detection by the distant chinese destroyer because it receives more intensity. But most likely make the closer chinese sub detect them first.

I'm no submariner, but sounds like boo-boo to me.