Posted on 11/02/2021 1:18:00 PM PDT by Right Wing Vegan
Edited on 11/02/2021 5:12:39 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Let’s up date that just a bit. I helped install the first 3-way sonar on the Sargo in the mid 60’s.
Went on it’s first sea trial and it worked great. The idea at the time was to make passage under the arctic ice cap a bit safer. The next system, as on the Queenfish had 9 sonars and they used it, obviously actively, to map a whole bunch or the northwest passage. The Army engineers make the bottom maps from the trip logs the subs, and everybody else, bring back from every voyage. We can’t know the operational protocol going on the moment Cincinatti hit whatever it hit but the notion that we don’t know every piece of coral growing in the South China sea is just dumb. That’s where the Wahoo went down and we’ll find it some day.
We’ve been mapping the Pacific , especially the SCSea, since WW II and the notion that a hump appeared out of the blue isn’t believable. I’ve helped repair ships that grounded and the one thing I remember most is that after docking, they stink. Ground coral is odoriferous. I remember the Flasher trying to land at Hickham about 1969——stunk up DD#1 until we got the mess cleaned up.
Obviously if quiet is required active wouldn’t be used. At the same time and for the same reason not much speed will be used. So any kind of hit under quiet conditions shouldn’t get anyone killed. At the same time if max speed is required then the active sonar had better be on-—other wise I want my money back for that 9 channel sonar array!
I wrote part of the book on keeping these things quiet but at flank speed the prop cavitation is audible half the way across the Pacific so active sonar needs to be used just so they know where the bottom is. This whole story still requires the BS flag be tossed, in my view-——
Collision with another sub has been ruled out.
“ Any World War II submarine Axis or Allied hit underwater mountain?”
Only on their way to the bottom.
sorry Connecticut-—I was looking at a piece of Cincinatti hull steel when I wrote that——
I'm still going with a USO.
No, they were running aground on reefs and shoals.
Buh by skipper.
I know 2 guys that were on Queenfish, 1 forever after known as “Wimpy” was so rattled by the near death experience he would never go to sea again
.....agreed, it is not believable to me that the Navy ran into a “Mountain” underwater. The Navy has the best bathymetric mapping (underwater topo) in the world. Unless somebody was asleep, or a couple women “officers” were mad at each other AGAIN, the sub almost certainly did not hit an underwater mountain.
Exactly. The Seaview would never be so blind.
What kind of bait did they use?
It appears the US submarine force has been assigned to NOAA for seamount mapping.
Navigation charts. A sort of topographical map of the ocean floor.
You are right. The fact they never use it in normal operation effectively negates it’s presence. It is as useful as a button on a handkerchief for the mission they were on.
The sonar equipment was built by the lowest bidder.
;-)
The Wahoo was found in 2005 in the La Perouse Strait which is a 2000 miles north of the South China Sea.
There are only 3 seawolf class subs.
“What kind of bait did they use? “
Don’t need bait, just set them up in choke points.
Where are the choke points in the South China Sea?
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