Former P-3 aircrewman here, ASW is one of the most fascinating and difficult mission sets we trained and conducted in my decade of flying on Orions. I’d love to discuss this even further in detail on a later episode.
@@triggerfish6619I have a lot of respect for the guys that came before me, we truly stand on the shoulders of giants and you guys paved the way for younger guys like me.
Sonars are crazy loud. Underwater bombs basically. Gunshots are 160db, and sounds above 194db cannot exist in air because that would require more than a perfect vacuum between waves. But underwater they can hit you with 240db, which can instantly kill divers nearby, disorient them even miles away.
China injured some Australian sailors who were clearing a fowled propeller on their ship. A Chinese navy pulled up closed, stopped. And dispite of radio calls snd showing proper international signal flags. China banged out sonar pulses anyway
@@howardkong8927 he removed them i used to replay him playing cold waters and answering questions while i worked i would get through 3 of those a day to make the day go by faster but there all gone now
@@howardkong8927 he removed them all I used to watch his cold Waters live streams while he answered questions while I was working to pass the time I really miss that content
I learned a new word. *Ensonify:* To fill with sound. The mechanism of landmine detection is to ensonify the ground with an acoustic source and measure the intensity of the returning sound waves. I just noticed RU-vid's spellchecker doesn't recognize ensonify.
I did Sonar in my Navy's engineering program. At the time, my intake was supposed to get this new civilian-backed qualification for the program, we were the first year of the program. Near the end of the program, we were told the qualification was incomplete because when they sent the Sonar course to the qualification board they asked "ahhh ... ok where's the content?" and when they were told "yeah that's classified" of course they declined to approve the course. Later when I got out of the Navy I had to go back to school and do some additional radio engineering courses to get the qualification! Thanks, Sonar! ;-)
I can remember all of the hours and sometimes days, trying to "kill" a sub during an exercise. We had a saying after another failure to locate: "How long can you tread water"?
When I was cranking I worked in the bake shop, my workcenter had 3 individuals fail the PRT weigh in that cycle. It could have been the daily donut deliveries... "Cranking" is new sailors mandatory service in the galley.
Thanks! Hey Aaron much appreciate the content you do. I'm an aspiring RAN submariner and am in the process as enlisting as a marine technician , propulsion specialist. Can't wait for the Virginia class boats to arrive. Your video on the ssk/ssg collins has really helped me understand my nations subs. Also the AUUKUS news an updates have really helped with my interview questions. Keep it up mate! 🐬
A few questions for the hive mind - 1) How long do modern sonobuoys last ? I watched a video on another channel (WWII Bombers) that showed snippets from a 1944 training film and it showed the basic steps in setting up a cross drop pattern and listening to the returns to work out what the quarry was doing. I do know that modern buoys can be passive or active, work in multiple frequencies and last for ages, but just how long - are we talking minutes, hours or days ? 2) Considering the fact that even aircraft propeller beats can be heard underwater has any thought been put into "quietening" of ASW aircraft ? It seems to me that a turbofan or even a good old fashioned WWII era aerostat (blimp) would be more dangerous to a sub than a noisy turboprop. 3) Considering the fact that subs with VLS installed can fire SAMs at ASW aircraft and either missiles or ADCAPs at surface vessels literally tens of miles away, do short range systems such as the Russian RBU-6000 or Western RUR-4/Limbo have any value any more ? 4) Is anyone allowed to provide any more info on the Prairie-Masker sound suppression system ? 5) Who is ahead in the underwater race - subs or sensors ? Although subs would seem to have fantastic advantages in not being detected this all goes away the instant that they become useful and fire a torpedo or missile. It seems to me that if a sub can fire and retreat to friendly air or surface cover then they can be very useful, otherwise their eventual detection and death is almost guaranteed after their first shot.
"Back in my day" (lol), the Sonobuoys were equipped with a time-programmable dissolving, sink-plug so that you could set their life before launching, I don't remember the maximum parameters, but you could just tape the inlet closed if you didn't want it to operate. My guess on operation time of the salt water electrolite battery with the sink plug disabled would be days. Someone can correct me if they have better numbers.
@@joechang8696if it can fire the missile without massively endangering itself it's actually a major advantage, it is seen as a major capability upgrade that the german 212a subs are getting tube launched small sub-sams against asw helos etc as before they only had manpads or dive, because not only is an enemy asset destroyed but also the direct danger to the sub eliminated
Love the intro cinematic. I do miss the more technical days of the whiteboards though xD. Alas, i understand why we cant have them anymore though :(. Either way great video as always :)
To add... The variable-depth sonar and towed sonar array are two key equipment on ASW ships. ASW small-boat teaming can be low-cost and effective. It can even be unmanned.
You forgot to mention 3 things... (1) Active sonar is terrible at penetrating thermal layers and even when there is none the submarine can typically hear the active sonar at least twice as far as it can hear the submarine. (2) In wartime, all the shore facilities, underwater arrays and maritime patrol aircraft will be targeted for destruction. (3) It is actually very hard for surface action groups to "catch" an evading SSN because the submarine is typically faster than the destroyer even when it is going flat out, nevermind that no destroyer performing an ASW search will be going very fast (because it won't hear anything if it did)
Well #3 isn't just rotary winged assets but fixed wings as well like the S-3, P-3, or P-8 and they can get ahead of the sub's track and just start dropping active sonobouies and form a wall of detection that if given enough time it can make a 3-sided box and then start localizing by dropping inside that box unless they have a helo there to use it's dipping sonor.
One thing that is quite apparent when I was living in Jacksonville, is that there are always patrol aircraft in the air. Also, I’m sure there is no coincidence that most USN patrol squadrons are stationed near submarine bases. The big thing that makes patrol aircraft so useful is their ability to passively detect submarines without sonar at fairly high speeds. It is very likely that the surviving aircraft that are in the air will be able to find submarines and deal with them. I would not be surprised if P-8s and Ohio subs practice this cat and mouse game all the time.
I had to do a double-take that this wasn't a Hypohystericalhistory upload by the title. this is the type of historian works/content that simply are timeless. i enjoy most of your videos but these deeper dives (pardon the pun) are truly your most special. thank u
And remember the tenants of submarine warfare ...... 1. Safety of the submarine 2. Remain undetected 3. achieve the aim You are always on the step of those 3, and you cant satisfy the lower goal if the upper is not being met .... its written in stone. Says an RAN Submarine Warfare Officer (oberon+Collins) for 14 yrs. ASW against or by a submarine is the most dynamic and changing environment to work in - physics, oceanography, mathematics, experience and the 'waaaa' (think of it as the submariners force lmao) they all come together to mess with the skimmers lives ... DBF
S-3 AW from '85 to '90. Because of Clancy, the Akula (NATO = Typhoon) got everyone's attention. I was in awe of the DELTA IV. It just looks sinister. Crazy to me that i had to go down to cryto to check out photo files on certain hulls back then. Now its all over RU-vid. Go figure.
i was in vp-45 p3-c orion - jax fla - ax ( asw in-flight tech ) in 1977 - that was when we used 10 inch tape reels to load the computer that had 64 k of iron core memory which weighed probably over 200 pounds ( 65,536 x 8 iron doughnuts with wires running through the middle of every one of them ) - also at the sensor stations - the sonobuoy audio was printed onto thermal paper - so that the signals looked like black pepper specs sprinkled on white paper - when we would fly a mad calibration run - we flew each compass direction N S E W - and performed all 3 plane movements - roll - yaw - pitch - during the pitching - if you went back to the tail section - you could get almost weightless during the up pitching we used about a 3 feet tall slender stainless steel garbage can ( lined with plastic i guess ) to piss in on the p3-c orion - it had a dome top with a little push door on it - on one flight - the can was full and me ( the ax ) and the at guy had to create a makeshift funnel with a piece of cardboard and pour the piss out of that can into the manual sonobuoy chute - we made a mess in the process - something tells me that incident was planned and staged ... ( reminds me of a recent secret service fiasco in butler pennsylvania )
I will never forget reading Tom Clancy's novels- noone could tell a story about submarine warfare like Clancy could and The Hunt for Red October proved that!
Thanks for this, Aaron. It helps me understand what you guys do. I have a friend from high school who spent eight or nine years in the Navy as a surface sonar man, but he hardly ever went to sea. If I had it to do over again, I think I would skip college and become an MT. I'd be retired by now.
My perspective is weird since I was the very bottom of the ASW "team" in the '90s when ASW was considered a Cold War holdover that had no value. We had no support and invented tactics to make our outdated and inadequate equipment useful such as getting on top of a sub as staying there so they couldn't shoot us while we dropped grenades. On paper the Oliver Hazard Perry was more than capable of doing ASW work, but reality was very slashed budget and paper fixed.
@@thefreeaccount0 I haven't really kept up. As I understand it the surface game proper is all about helicopters and sonar buoys. So anything with helicopters should be able to do the job. Great thing about the buoys is they are active and disposable. A sub can't hide from an active ping at the same depth. Then they drop homing torpedoes on the sub.
@@gallendugall8913All our main surface vessels (Arleigh burke, Tico, and the upcoming constellation class frigates) can carry 2 helicopters. Japan uses their amphibious ready group equivalents for ASW as I understand it so maybe our LHAs or even LPDs could do the same?
I serviced on Submarines conducted anti submarine war games...I'm tell you they are very good detecting submarine and the pinging from sonar is very loud!...The P3's used back then...Never missed!
Hey Aaron, you're in my wheelhouse with this one. I retired in 2015 after a 24 year career as P-3 acoustic sensor operator. You could discuss this topic for a full day and still will have only scratched the surface.
I heard somewhere that even if you use active sonar, subs can still hide. Sound will bend based on water density, and you can effectively hide from someone even if they have a direct LOS.
ASW aircraft and helicopters expend a variety of sonobuoys, not "sonarbuoys". Hydrophones are only one section of a sonobuoy, which can utilize in some cases a lot of hydrophones to do its function. Overall, sonobuoys are quite capable and given the agility of the deploying aircraft (relative to the submarine), they can and often do stay way ahead of the submarine. Not called a "magnetic detection boom", it's actually a boom that contains a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD). It's in a boom to put the detector far enough from the aircraft fuselage, in order to minimize the magnetic variations (moving things mostly) of the actual aircraft carrying it. Consequently, a MAD detects changes in the Earth's background magnetic field, not the specific magnetic field of the submarine, so it needs a quiet background to work optimally.
They can't against truly good subs. Even when a carrier group is cooperating together the sub usually has to "let" them get a kill. A sub guy once told me there are to kinds of vessels in war. Subs.. and targets.
I love ASW warfare. That’s how the RCN earned its colours and place at the kings table. This is a great brief. ASW is absolutely a team sport and you don’t have to sink a a sub to protect the convoys. It’s all about creating conditions that make it impossible for a sub to operate in close proximity to convoys. BTW ASW warfare also tries to create conditions where a submarine can not attack. In world war 1 and 2 that meant forcing a sub deep where it can’t use its periscope today that means forcing a sub to speed up were it is deff from its own noises.
great show aaron. very detailed and informative. thanks again for the great content. keep up the good work. if you ever need crayons, let me know. i know a guy.
The most important aspect of this on the submarine's part which is under threat...is the submarine's OWN supporting fleet, particularly its air-assets. To put it simply, in WW2, any submarine force at the mercy of an enemy with Air-superiority was destined to be destroyed sooner or later. The British submarine fleet in the North Atlantic suffered horrific defeat and losses while the Luftwaffe reigned supreme. The Dutch and British fleet of submarines in the Pacific and Indian Ocean were either wiped out or fled before the overwhelming power of Japan's Air arm and Aircraft carriers. Even the American submarine fleet in the Pacific with their radar specifically outfitted to warn them of oncoming aerial surveillance were struggling to just survive against Japanese aircraft and Carriers...until the Japanese aircraft and Carriers were PRE-OCCUPIED with hunting American carriers high in the sky opposing American aircraft (rather than perusing at low altitude on the deck looking for American submarines)....and when the Japanese Aircraft Carriers were destroyed, American submariners declared open season on Japanese shipping. And ofc, we all know what happened to the German submarines. There's a reason why the German planners were anxious to build German Aircraft Carriers, knowing that the eternal nemesis of submarines were Aircraft...and Aircraft Carriers. Without Air-superiority, sooner or later, the loss of aerial coverage over the Atlantic would inevitably doom German submariners (even with good "intelligence", that intelligence would have been useless without proper aerial surveillance narrowing down millions of square miles of Ocean). The same is true today. Even with nuclear reactors, submarines are still very much part of the "team game", not only in ASW (Defense), but also in SW (Offense). Pretending they are some Lone-wolf, Single-ship-Fleet that can destroy an enemy fleet is utter foolishness - any Crew or Captain who thinks that way deserves a humiliating and implosive Death. Submarines are still very ineffective at countering Aircraft, just as in WW2. What better reason than to have your own Aircraft Carrier and surface ships to at least provide area-denial to enemy planes, an avenue of escape, deterrence, etc, against those pesky Chinese planes? It is misguided for a Submarine Commander in failing to advantage himself and his crew the benefits of his own Fleet's Air-assets, playing off the support, strengths and flexibility afforded by a mobile Air-base and its Air-superiority umbrella, just as it would be misguided to chain a submarine irrevocably to shotgun status in a fleet's turtle-like defensive posture.
Believe it or not a sub CO doesn’t really get a say in whether a CSG provides them air cover. More likely than not they are going to be on their own. Not ideal but thats why subs are useful, they can penetrate enemy airspace and waters to hit targets carriers cannot.
The title made me laugh, and it’s a great video - but there’s a bunch of us weirdos who like to watch multiple-hour RU-vid videos on esoteric topics, so if you feel like making that instead of this brief overview, we’ll watch it! In the meantime I’ll have to check out more of your channel.
I wouldn't want to be on the surface if there's a sub anywhere nearby in time of war. Yes, there are a lot of resources dedicated to ASW but the deck is still stacked against you if your enemy is operating properly. Aircraft would be targeted and destroyed by supporting forces and any sub that is cornered and feels like they're out of options will absolutely decimate a surface fleet in an attempt to get away and there's not a lot the surface fleet can do about it. If a sub has a contact, that contact is a target.
Nothing scarier as a sonar operator than when an aircraft finds you!…if it finds you. The best tool to find a submarine, will always be another submarine!
Sub detection by active sonar from sub hunters - how far can the anechoic characteristics of a sub be pushed to prevent detection by active sonar? Are there only passive anechoic measures in use today or are there active ones in use or in development? Active meaningan an approach analog to the measures large telescopes use to eliminate effects of atmoshperic fluctuations.
The Argentine Cruiser "General Belgrano" sunk by the British in 1982, was formally the USS Phoenix (AKA "Lucky Phoenix" during WW2). The USS Phoenix was the largest ship to escaped the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941 unscathed. During WW2, no one died in combat on the Phoenix.
I recall reading that subs can hear aircraft and helicopters flying above the surface. Is that true, and how reliable is it? I was wondering if it would make sense to try to develop a ground-effect ASW vehicle. It might be able to to do the work of an ASW P3 Orion and an ASW helicopter, but with some advantages and fewer disadvantages. As a ground-effect transmedium vehicle, it could rest on the surface giving it almost unlimited dwell time. It could carry heavier loads than a similarly sized helicopter. It might also be able to carry a Magnetic Anomaly Detector like the P3 Orion but on a smaller vehicle. I wonder if it would be quieter than a helicopter or P3 Orion when moving and even less when resting on the surface. It might be able to drop sonobuoys and a dipping sonar/hydrophone when stopped. Maybe another version could carry SAMs and act as AD/ABM pickets.
The P-3 Orion is a beautiful aircraft. From speaking with former USN pilots of the P-3, it’s a real beast but a very loved airplane. They’re also apparently extremely rugged. See: WP-3 variant. You know, the ones that fly directly into hurricanes.
I love the “china has some top secret listening stations in their coastal waters…..and here are some pictures of the equipment being installed! The implication being that we were watching whilst you installed it with complete impunity. Not, we stumbled across this but rather we noticed that you were busy and went to take a look just because we could!😂😂😂
You should have Capt. Bill Toti (Ret.) on from ‘The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War’ Podcast. He was the skipper of the fast attack sub USS Indianapolis (SSN 697). Seems like it’ll make for an interesting video Jive.
@@SubBrief thank you sir i am a PHD student here in India, the concept of mixed layer depth/ocean layers plays a important role in ASW as far as i know (playing dangerous waters ), as also it is extremely important in studying marine ecology i got to know of ocean layers first reading Tom Clancy novels long ago !!!! very people know anything about oceanography in India of course ....
I built p3c onions at lockheed burbank in the 80's great aircraft great customer USN ! You Can Run But You Can't Hide ! The Russian submariner's nightmare 😊
Thank you for the compliment. I'm gonna be honest, when I enlisted in my country, I knew one thing: "I don't have what it takes to be a submariner". I jumped out of planes, fast-roped from helos and buildings, got to practice field exercises with the US Army & Marines, I had the pleasure to go to the US to practice hone one of my specializations (communications) because I was always chosen to be the interpreter and I spent more time on the US side than my own side, got to know almost my whole country (Chile), from the deserts of Atacama to the fjords of Punta Arenas and still, you couldn't pay me enough to get into a submarine, even though we use ours merely for coastal defense.
I can't imagine the Taiwan straits would be a pleasant place to operate in during any conflict. There's something to be said for extra large undersea vehicles carrying mines and even torpedoes Both Germany and China are designing and building submarines that are optimized to refract active sonar. Basically, the idea is to make them stealthy against active sonar at least at certain frequencies and distances
