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

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

#41

Post by criddell »

aksss wrote: post #37
adriancooney wrote: post #4

I'm not normally one to promote Hollywood but the film Greyhound (2020) with Tom Hanks does an _excellent_ portrayal of this technology (albeit slightly more primitive) in fighting German U-Boats in WW2. Well worth a watch if this interests you.

Having read the book and then watched the movie, it’s amazing how much technical detail you don’t even get to approach in the film. This is just the nature of the medium, but the book is very focused on the captain’s inner thoughts and technical descriptions, awareness of limitations, and homages to the mental math involved. Highly recommend the book if you at all appreciated the movie.

Which book did you read?

I just looked and it looks like there are two books by Forester. One is The Good Shepherd which is the original book and the other is Greyhound which is also by Forester and is sold as the movie tie-in. They have different number of pages, so I assume they are different.

Edit: I ended up buying The Good Shepherd because it was only $0.99 for the ebook.

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

#42

Post by khazhoux »

wcarey wrote: post #30
jonplackett wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

> 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...

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

#43

Post by valuearb »

justanotheranon wrote: post #26
adriancooney wrote: post #4

I'm not normally one to promote Hollywood but the film Greyhound (2020) with Tom Hanks does an _excellent_ portrayal of this technology (albeit slightly more primitive) in fighting German U-Boats in WW2. Well worth a watch if this interests you.

the British cracked Enigma in 1941, and from then they were able to completely destroy the 300-400 German u-boats, because they were intercepting and decrypting u-boat radio traffic, so they always knew where the u-boats were going. The only reason the Allies allowed the u-boats to continue winning small victories was to preserve the illusion that Enigma was still secure to prevent the Germans from switching to anoth…

IIRC 75% of U-Boat crew members were killed in action during WW2.

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

#44

Post by sandworm101 »

jonplackett wrote: post #7
adriancooney wrote: post #4

I'm not normally one to promote Hollywood but the film Greyhound (2020) with Tom Hanks does an _excellent_ portrayal of this technology (albeit slightly more primitive) in fighting German U-Boats in WW2. Well worth a watch if this interests you.

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…

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.

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

#45

Post by wcarey »

khazhoux wrote: post #42
wcarey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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...

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.

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

#46

Post by ghaff »

canada_dry wrote: post #2

> The second step in classification requires analysis. It takes 30 to 45 seconds to get a look at a new detection and discover what kind of engine she’s running, what kind of hydraulic pumps are online, and what screw blade configuration she is using. One can imagine ML making this job somewhat obsolete in the not-too-distant future.

I was at a day of research presentations in January before everything shut down. One of the presentations was on using ML to identify individual dolphin speech signatures--with some degree of accuracy. One of my thoughts was that the more sophisticated navies probably already have this sort of thing pretty well developed.

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

#47

Post by wcarey »

criddell wrote: post #41
aksss wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read the book and then watched the movie, it’s amazing how much technical detail you don’t even get to approach in the film. This is just the nature of the medium, but the book is very focused on the captain’s inner thoughts and technical descriptions, awareness of limitations, and homages to the mental math involved. Highly recommend the book if you at all appreciated the movie.

Which book did you read? I just looked and it looks like there are two books by Forester. One is The Good Shepherd which is the original book and the other is Greyhound which is also by Forester and is sold as the movie tie-in. They have different number of pages, so I assume they are different. Edit: I ended up buying The Good Shepherd because it was only $0.99 for the ebook.

If you enjoy The Good Shepherd, The Ship is a similar book about surface combat in the Med.

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

#48

Post by ghaff »

mhh__ wrote: post #18
canada_dry wrote: post #2

> The second step in classification requires analysis. It takes 30 to 45 seconds to get a look at a new detection and discover what kind of engine she’s running, what kind of hydraulic pumps are online, and what screw blade configuration she is using. One can imagine ML making this job somewhat obsolete in the not-too-distant future.

That's if they aren't already. Without having the data I can't try but I'd guess that Fourier analysis (or something a bit more clever to deal with noise e.g. Welch) would get you a lot of the way there even without invoking AI

Even if you're also using ML, Fourier transforms can be pretty useful in this sort of analysis.

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

#49

Post by extrapickles »

jonplackett wrote: post #7
adriancooney wrote: post #4

I'm not normally one to promote Hollywood but the film Greyhound (2020) with Tom Hanks does an _excellent_ portrayal of this technology (albeit slightly more primitive) in fighting German U-Boats in WW2. Well worth a watch if this interests you.

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…

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.

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

#50

Post by bmitc »

Articles like this leave a bad taste in my mouth. They venerate the subject and participants involved and leave out the vast amount of detrimental effects they cause.

Whales, other marine mammals, and other wildlife are affected by these systems, and they are never considered. The Navy is currently still trying to increase its weapons testing off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, bringing further harm to the already decimated and declining southern resident orcas.

We have absolutely got to start understanding how our technology affects the world and making changes.

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