Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt enemies they can't see

Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by jonplackett on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @12:49PM (#24133935)

I was just going to say exactly this.

It’s amazing to see them doing this with such incredibly basic technology.

- Having to draw their ship and the submarine and constantly update its movement.

- sonar guy is just looking at a screen that blips every now and then.

- all communication by morse code - must be horrendously slow in the heat of battle

- even communication within the ship is passed between multiple people so big chance of Chinese whisper type errors.

I don’t know how realistic it is to real life but it gives you an appreciation for how smart and situationally aware the captain of the ship needs to be.

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by wcarey on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @02:42PM (#24135332)

The book by C.S. Forester that the movie is based on is even more realistic, though the movie is pretty good.

To really dig into it, Samuel Eliot Morison's magisterial History of Naval Operations in World War II does a good job talking through the development of both the technology and organization of naval operations.

Not all communication was by morse code. We did use ship to ship voice radio, but it was a tradeoff. RDF allowed the enemy to triangular the position of the broadcasting ship, and (often) the enemy could overhear messages and infer some tactical details.

Sensor systems changed wildly throughout the war. Sonar improved markedly, and radar went from non-existent to able to identify altitude and distance to individual planes. The weight of the additional sensor systems and controls systems made some ships unstable, so we removed weapon systems from them.

Being a captain (or, heaven forbid) and admiral, was very demanding. Sleep was hard to come by, and the fog of war was intense. We had meaningful problems with friendly fire in night engagements even with radar and radio communications.

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by Goronmon on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @05:08PM (#24137003)

Man, that looks like a hard series of books to actually get a hold of. Either spending multiple hundreds of dollars for a used set, or struggle to find individual copies for $15+ each (a quick google search seems to show Vol 2 unavailable anywhere I looked).

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by wcarey on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @05:11PM (#24137041)

I think there's a new paperback printing under way. Happily, it's not the end of the world acquiring them piecemeal, as each volume tells a coherent story and takes some time to read through!

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by nostrademons on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @09:47PM (#24139169)

Many libraries have it. I remember spending many hours in the 940.54 section of my local public library thumbing through volumes when I was a kid.

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by khazhoux on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @04:07PM (#24136262)

> Samuel Eliot Morison's magisterial History of Naval Operations in World War II

Wow, you weren't kidding. Can you recommend any shorter tomes on history of naval technology?

https://www.amazon.com/History-United-States-Naval-Operation...

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by wcarey on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @04:44PM (#24136733)

It's surprisingly readable. Good history is storytelling, and Morison was there for much of the history he relates. You could get a great picture of the variety of modern naval warfare by picking up the volumes on Midway and the Struggle for Guadalcanal.

C.S. Forester's novels, while historical fiction, are also excellent.

I'd also recommend Japanese Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara, another powerful first hand account. Reading Hara and Morison's accounts of a battle in which both participated is really interesting.

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by stormdennis on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @01:53PM (#24134776)

They wargamed live during North Atlantic convoy attacks on the floor of a building in Liverpool. Players received instructions through letterboxes around the room perimeter and each could only see a fraction of the the battle. They could not see the u-boats at all as those were same color as filters they looked through. Information was radioed in from convoy escorts and scenarios were played out. Battles could last a couple of days.

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by gus_massa on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @03:38PM (#24135912)

There is a nice video of Lindibeige about that, with some old photos of the setup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVet82IUAqQ

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by finnh on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @01:57PM (#24134834)

Game of Birds and Wolves! Great book

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by extrapickles on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @04:51PM (#24136820)

The military has a partial solution to the “chinese whisper” type error where the person receiving the command will repeat it back so the other person can make sure it was understood correctly. This has the downside of slightly slowing down communication.

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Re:Veteran submariner on how sonar crews tirelessly hunt ene... by sandworm101 on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @04:12PM (#24136309)

What you are seeing is the very evolved version, the later-war version of this battle. Early in the war it was much more primitive. There were incidents of ships literally hunting their own propellers. Only once procedures and training evolved did the real cat-and-mouse game become even possible.

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