U.K. to Launch New 'Super Submarine'

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Can the super-agents TLAM Strike and Oberon beat Kim Jiong Il and his army? Will they be able to save the crew in time?

"I am not field personnel, I am only an analyst."

Although I do know our book needs an underwater battle between Navy SEALs and North Korean frogmen in the shadow of a the sunken British Sub while the the USS Texas and a couple Chinese Shang class SSNs face off for who will recover the Ambush and her trapped crew.

[Gerald]

I think she is to be launched somewhere where there is deep enough, where there are no stones to encounter,

[Catfish]

Hello,
hmm they just scrapped or at least decommissioned the "Ark Royal" because of insufficient funds, and now .. that ?

OK the project was launched some 10+ years ago, so maybe it's all in the planned budget. I just wonder why they accuse the old government to have wasted 20 millions on poor and jobless people in England, and now launch a 2+ billion pounds sub with 1.2 billions over the estimation ? This sure makes sense economy-wise.

I like subs and technology, but just to have another toy to get into the act with the superpowers ? Uh, let's say China.

"Less noise than a baby dolphin", from the hull's shape i really doubt that.
It is a big sub (not a bit too big for a "hunter-killer"?) that will have to avoid shallow waters (so what is the small minisub for?), it will have difficulties to hide, it has no fluid a-drag system and the size will make the wake of the submerged ship obvious for satellites looking for such patterns. 20 knots ? I hope they just said it to cover up its real speed.
It uses an older reactor but at least it is able to produce drinking water from the sea, and its own oxygen.
So the english Navy has finally found out how electrolysis works
This is really new technology huh ?

/rant

Nah i like it, and i wish her more luck than the HMS Astute

Greetings,
Catfish

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

"

Although I do know our book needs an underwater battle between Navy SEALs and North Korean frogmen in the shadow of a the sunken British Sub while the the USS Texas and a couple Chinese Shang class SSNs face off for who will recover the Ambush and her trapped crew.

Dont forget the Ambush can still fire some eels even though she's been sunk!

[the_tyrant]

is there anyway to hide a sub as a school of fish or a whale?
maybe by playing sounds in the ocean? or by changing the shape of the sub?

[Skybird]

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

you mean when it leaves New York it can't hear ships in San Francisco!?!
Gasp!

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

you mean when it leaves New York it can't hear ships in San Francisco!?!
Gasp!

It would be able to in SH3.

Originally Posted by krashkart

It would be able to in SH3.

No, in SH3?
The DD in port at SF would see YOU!
Then it would ground itself and sink trying to get to you.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

is there anyway to hide a sub as a school of fish or a whale?
maybe by playing sounds in the ocean? or by changing the shape of the sub?

Not really, do this experiment: Talk to a friend in person then have them talk to you on the phone. Notice how they sound different each time. The speaker reproduces their sound but not exactly, it cuts off the bottom and top of the amplitude sine wave. Narrowband analysis can show this. But that is not to say that artificial noise can't mask a submarine's tonal by flooding the freqs around that with random noise.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

Its possible but under very specific circumstances. In WWII detection of sounding charges were heard as far as 900 miles using the deep sound channel. Three SOSUS stations (Newfoundland was one) detected the implosion of the Scorpion near the Azores, thousands of miles away.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Its possible but under very specific circumstances. In WWII detection of sounding charges were heard as far as 900 miles using the deep sound channel. Three SOSUS stations (Newfoundland was one) detected the implosion of the Scorpion near the Azores, thousands of miles away.

But I think the problem most of are having are the words, "finds and tracks"

I understand loud noises over great distances, or sound channels carrying intermittent sounds great distances. Detection is not the problem, tracking is. But isn't one of the problems with tracking through the deep sound channel the fact that range (Other than "It's really effing far way cap'n") is practically impossible to tell since it's actually based on some sort of harmonic? IE, the contact would be a possibility of ranges of multiples of say 30 miles, ie it could be at 60. 90, 120, or 150 miles, etc?

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

But I think the problem most of are having are the words, "finds and tracks"

I understand loud noises over great distances, or sound channels carrying intermittent sounds great distances. Detection is not the problem, tracking is. But isn't one of the problems with tracking through the deep sound channel the fact that range (Other than "It's really effing far way cap'n") is practically impossible to tell since it's actually based on some sort of harmonic? IE, the contact would be a possibility of ranges of multiples of say 30 miles, ie it could be at 60. 90, 120, or 150 miles, etc?

You are sort of confusing it with a Convergence Zone I think. Those occur every 30 miles while the Deep Sound Channel sucks in certain frequency tonals in for lack of a better word vortex a couple of hundred feet tall where sound waves refract back and forth very quickly across the axes of the channel.

Take a look at this:

at about -1 (thousand meters) is the DSC. The larger bounces are the convergence zones. if your sensor is above or below the axis then you could lose the contact as the sound waves bounce (you would be in their "Shadow Zone") but if its in the axis then the waves are bouncing along such a narrow corridor that you can't miss them.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by TLAM Strike

Its possible but under very specific circumstances.

The novice sitting at my end of the wire assumes that this is the detail to be aware of. I would not believe this capability to be the normal state of things in submarine operations, but being the result of several factors meeting in time and space.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The novice sitting at my end of the wire assumes that this is the detail to be aware of. I would not believe this capability to be the normal state of things in submarine operations, but being the result of several factors meeting in time and space.

Well I'll put it this way, in certain regions of the world like the North Atlantic or the Pacific where the waters are very deep its possible if you have a sensor also in the deep waters and the acoustic conditions are uniform. But there are many things that can mess it up like a current of warm water.

Lets take the locations of the SOSUS stations as a base.

Lets assume we would not design a system with any gaps, now draw a circle around each station (assuming the arrays are within a 50 or miles of the station on the edge of the continental shelf). Now lets remember back to the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Soviet Foxtrots were basically detected every time they snorkeled by SOSUS and it gave the Ship and ASW Plane commanders an area sufficiently small to search. That was 50 years ago, in the 1980s we started putting this on surface ships (SURTASS), its very possible today that systems of this scope are small enough to install on a submarine.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Anyone else having a problem with believing the claim that passive sonar type 2076 finds and tracks objects at ranges of 3000 miles...?

That's been possible for quite a few years according to a friend of mine who was a PO in sonar.

I'm not entirely convinced about the accuracy of tracking at such ranges though...not that any navy is going to go public on precise details.