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2014-05-13 -Short Attention Span Theater-

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Posted by gorb 2014-05-13 00:38|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 All submarines are stealth; i.e. they go under water, it's the whole point of a sub. The major concern about electric subs is they're quiet, a 'hole in the water'. For all that, they tend to not be quick, so they're functionally a portable minefield. (The US used to have this type, but opted to go to long range attack boats. Note that they're built at 'Electric Boat Division'.) Radar doesn't actually 'see' a periscope; the return is off the 'feather', or wake caused by movement. Hence the difficulty in seeing a slow moving one. (Most subs can't just 'stop' and run up the mast; they have to move to maintain attitude control.) Also, modern periscopes aren't the 'pipe' of old; they tend to be fiberglass shafts with several tv cameras and antennae on them, are about 20mm (3/4") wide, and quite transparent to radar.

Posted by ed in texas 2014-05-13 08:01|| 2014-05-13 08:01|| Front Page Top

#2 While the P-8 is a really good replacement for the P-3, there is still no long range ASW asset that is ship-based; and the current fleet of H-60s has been compromised into a one size fits all vertical asset ( Lawn Dart with rotor blades). Vert Rep, Seal insertion, are all valid missions, but at the cost of dedicated ASW dipping.
The S-3s in the desert still have lots of time on the airframe and could be brought back into service. I think we will have to have a CV-sized hole in the water to wake up the pols......

Posted by USN, Ret. 2014-05-13 08:58|| 2014-05-13 08:58|| Front Page Top

#3 This is old news!
This is why we bubbleheads say,"There are two types of ships;submarines and targets."
Crews mess on the old ustafish was covered with pictures of ships we'd sneaked up on.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839 2014-05-13 10:12|| 2014-05-13 10:12|| Front Page Top

#4 Ex-Chair Force, so had to look this up:

Influence Mines are triggered as a ship passes near them. Most modern submarine mines are of this type, and usually incorporate several triggering systems. In one system, detonation is caused by the magnetic field set up by the hull of a passing ship. (Warships are usually protected against this system by degaussing, that is, neutralizing the hull's magnetic field with an arrangement of electric cables. Thus, magnetic detonating systems are intended to be used primarily against merchant ships, which are not ordinarily equipped for degaussing.) Acoustic triggering systems are designed to explode the mine when sound is received from a ship's propellers or engines. Still another system is sensitive to changes in water pressure caused by a moving ship.

Each mine may be set off by one or more of its triggering systems. In many cases, a mine responds only to a complex mixture of simultaneous signals from at least two of its systems.

Posted by Uncle Phester 2014-05-13 12:59|| 2014-05-13 12:59|| Front Page Top

#5 AA5839:
A co-worker is also a bubblehead and he relishes telling any and all that when I am spinning an Airedale yarn ("There I was 50 feet and 500 knots....") he interjects about how hard it will be to reuse the airplane when the landing strip is 20000 leagues under the sea......I tried not to think about what might be following me when I was ACDU.

Posted by USN, Ret. 2014-05-13 21:24|| 2014-05-13 21:24|| Front Page Top

#6 Whahhaha... I love 'sea stories' but you may need to refer that fella to the VFW bar stool Pappy was referencing recently.

Posted by Besoeker 2014-05-13 21:30|| 2014-05-13 21:30|| Front Page Top

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