How the Soviet Union Snooped Waters for Enemy Subs—Without Sonar

[Catfish]

https://www.popularmechanics.com/mil...ne-sonar-soks/

https://library.seg.org/doi/abs/10.1...016-13850871.1
The latter is a chinese approach, and it seems they can detect and track submarines from a range of 6000 meters. China has vowed to lock off those waters they claim to be their territory, and demand any submarine to surface and fly a flag.

[Jimbuna]

Interesting

[Commander Wallace]

This is really interesting. I'm very skeptical as to this method being used to track U.S Submarines. The then, Soviet Union tested this system on their own submarines, and for good reason. It was known that the Soviet Union dispensed with radioactive shielding where the hull wasn't in close proximity to it's human occupants. The Soviets just didn't care if they polluted the oceans and seas with radioactivity. They cared about their submariners little more.

By contrast, U.S Admiral Hyman Rickover practiced what could best be described as Nuclear Incrementalism. Radioactive shielding throughout the submarine was of the utmost importance as well as a degree of redundancy in the control rod systems to make the chain reactions more controllable and management of the chain reaction breeder reactor, virtually fool proof. As The U.S Submariners became more knowledgeable, Sub Nuclear systems became increasingly sophisticated. As a result, with a closed loop system, It's probable the U.S left little if any material behind to track.

It's also well know the Soviet Union suffered many catastrophic reactor accidents, most notably, in the submarine forces as they struggled to keep up with the West, especially, the U.S.

[Catfish]

We noticed that one of Rickover's reactor specialists quit because he had dared to citicize R's system to have almost "no shielding towards the outer hull", but of course this was long ago.

[Commander Wallace]

^ As a matter of course, it was also well known that Hyman Rickover was lacking in even the basics of social graces. While he pushed through development of nuclear reactors at sea, He was a difficult man to deal with and generally not well liked.

[Kapitan]

I understand the skepticism behind this entire system however it does work, and has been used both east and west.

Currently the Astute have a non acoustic detection system installed along side the Sonar system, and two of the remaining Trafalgar's also have a similar system installed (its more prominent on Trenchant at the bow).

SOKS was trialed on a project 627A submarine and it was confirmed by the USN that she did track the American SSBN that had left Rota Spain, the only way they could get rid of the Soviet submarine was to bring out an attack boat and conduct some very aggressive maneuvers to shake her off.

When I went over to see Igor Kurdin he actually explained to me how the system works, I already had some knowledge of how the UK system worked and his details just confirmed that the UK and oddly Russia were pretty much on the same page, I also found out during this time the Russians knew the UK were trialing a similar thing as far back as 1981 and I had this confirmed by a former submariner who served on HMS Otus Ocelot Valiant and Splendid, this system has been on UK submarines since the 1980's with HMS Scepter being the first to trial it.

[Kapitan]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

This is really interesting. I'm very skeptical as to this method being used to track U.S Submarines. The then, Soviet Union tested this system on their own submarines, and for good reason. It was known that the Soviet Union dispensed with radioactive shielding where the hull wasn't in close proximity to it's human occupants. The Soviets just didn't care if they polluted the oceans and seas with radioactivity. They cared about their submariners little more.

By contrast, U.S Admiral Hyman Rickover practiced what could best be described as Nuclear Incrementalism. Radioactive shielding throughout the submarine was of the utmost importance as well as a degree of redundancy in the control rod systems to make the chain reactions more controllable and management of the chain reaction breeder reactor, virtually fool proof. As The U.S Submariners became more knowledgeable, Sub Nuclear systems became increasingly sophisticated. As a result, with a closed loop system, It's probable the U.S left little if any material behind to track.

It's also well know the Soviet Union suffered many catastrophic reactor accidents, most notably, in the submarine forces as they struggled to keep up with the West, especially, the U.S.

While I agree with the statement about keeping up with the west in the early stages of the cold war from 45 to 75, like the West each new submarine class was leaps and bounds over what came before culminating in the finish with the impressive project 971 SSN, Project 949A SSGN and Project 941 SSBN.

What we witness is a mass buildup in the first part of the cold war of all types of submarines, to the point they even throw in obsolete boats to keep the numbers up, when we look at numbers take a look at project 613 Whiskey they were built in the 1950's and 215 built so it is clear what the intention was right from the start.

With the first generation of submarines the USSR was just finding their feet but they were cutting a lot of corners, I admire Rickover's approach people may not have liked it but I will say that if he was around today and mixing it up with OSHA and HSE I think the tune would be very different, here is a man who understands what this stuff can do and from the ground up is trying to mitigate failings kudos to him.

The soviets were well known for thinking outside the box, its just as simple as that, if they save weight they save time & money, the overall cost is a deficient boat and that's certainly true of the first generation boats.
The second generation boats were much better and much better thought out and the third generation were an improvement on this too.

The soviet union had so many incidents because of the system and cultural beliefs, no one wanted to fail, and were talking about a nation that has so much pride they hate being embarrassed.
Its the same pride you see in the USA with some of these amendment activists and USA is the best brigade the difference is that all of the failings in the USA are visible to see and we in the west have developed a way to face up to it and learn from it, unfortunately in the soviet union they didn't have the skill set to handle failures let alone admit to them they just wanted everyone to believe that the soviet union was a perfect utopia.

Other reasons behind the failings were shoddy workmanship, lack of training, lack of equipment, crews being assigned to unfamiliar boats and contradictory & impossible orders.

In other cases they did push the envelope too far and got burnt for it, the lead bismuth reactors for example were way ahead of their time even the Americans ultimately gave up on the sodium reactor as did the British with their fast breeder reactor.

Overall in order to understand the choices the soviets and now Russians choose you have to understand the mindset of them, overall keep it simple wins the day its why some of their stuff is so good.

[Commander Wallace]

^ Blair, this is a great analysis of the Soviet sea arm, with regards to the submarine forces. To be honest, before Catfish had posted this link, I had never heard of this equipment or techniques. I would expect your understanding and information is better than my own so I will just take it on faith that you are right.

With regards to Rickover, it's hard to argue with success and former U.S president Jimmy Carter held Rickover in high regards since he served under him in the Navy. Navy Scientist John Craven, himself a brilliant man, also held Rickover in high regard but also knew him as a difficult man to work with.

With regards to tracking Ballistic missile Submarines, Commander " Whitey " Mack, on board the U.S.S Lapon ( SSN-661 ) Successfully trailed the newest Soviet Ballistic missile submarine, A Yankee Class for 47 days and gained and refined a signature profile that would go out to other U.S attack sub within weeks. Lapon did this without Counter detection. Whitey not only recorded it's signature but gained valuable Intel when the Yankee reached it's " Patrol Box ." This area was much further offshore than expected, leading U.S officials to believe the Soviet Ballistic missiles carried had a much greater range than first believed. This has always been very much a cat and mouse game.


Mack became famous in the submarine community for this noteworthy success, personally receiving the Distinguished Service Medal for his actions.


As far as thinking outside the box, The Soviet MiG 25 Foxbat Interceptor is proof enough of that statement as well.

I knew you would be around to clarify details Blair. So, thanks for your valuable input.

[Kapitan]

The Lapon exploits were remarkable Mack trailed for 47 days, and in his transit back to Groton the navy sent out a message "get out the way whiteys coming through"

The achievement led directly to a new software system which created a library of sounds, something the USA and UK use to this day.

There have been many notable achievements both east and west.

Other achievements was the surfacing of a Zulu V SSB that was the USS Grenadier, this was the direct result of the Soviets forcing the USS Gudgeon to surface inside soviet waters.

The Yankee's or little ivan's had interesting careers as well, some being converted into special projects boats, others to SSN's and 1 the K420 into a cruise missile battery (same as the 4 early Ohios)

Things changed however when Russia launched the Delta series and the new missiles thats when the cold war got real interesting.

The Mig 25 is proof if you put big enough engines on a brick anything can fly, i have seen Mig 25's up close they are big machines their tail pipes are id say twice that of the 29 they are huge.