Virtual Earth Exposes Nuclear Sub's Secret 355
NewsCloud alerts us to a story a few months old that has been getting a lot of play recently. A Seattle blogger, Dan Twohig, was browsing in Microsoft's Virtual Earth when he accidentally came across a photo of a nuclear sub in dry-dock. Its propeller is clearly visible — this was a major no-no on the part of someone at the Bangor Sub Base. The designs of such stealth propellers have been secret for decades. Twohig blogged about the find and linked to the Virtual Earth photo on July 2. The debate about security vs. Net-accessible aerial photography has been building ever since. The story was picked up on military.china.com on Aug. 17 — poetic justice for the Chinese sub photo that had embarrassed them a month before. On Aug. 20 the Navy Times published the article that most mainstream media have picked up in their more recent coverage. Twohig's blog is the best source to follow the ongoing debate. No one has asked Microsoft, Google, or anyone else to blur the photo in question. Kind of late now.
Re:The US Navy Is Not Such A Secret (Score:4, Interesting)
It's the Sound signature, not the noise level. (Score:3, Interesting)
The submarine will still make some noise. They would be concerned because knowing the propeller design gives you an idea of what type of noise it will make in use
The signature can be used to identify classes of submarines and potentially individual subs.
So rather than other countries copying it
On the other hand, maybe the US doesnt care at all
Face it.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is it really so secret? (Score:3, Interesting)
She can also run as fast as most nuclear boats for this time, so having a silent propeller is a major factor. And, I can tell you that it looks exactly like that one in the picture after having seen other Swedish sub propellers.
Re:From TFA: (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows Live Maps has a bad habit of checking user agent strings in order to support non-IE browsers. While most people won't have a problem with Firefox, there have been cases of people using Firefox browsers with the old 2.0 beta codename "Bon Echo" as the user agent string, and it's possibile that non-Firefox Firefox browsers like Iceweasel [wikipedia.org] (Firefox without the Mozilla copyright bits) may have a non-Firefox user agent. In those cases, you'll get redirected to a barely-functional page instead of the proper map view. A good way to play around with this is to use Opera's ability to easily change the browser's UA (to mimic Firefox or IE). With Opera's normal UA (or a broken Firefox UA), you'll see this [daishar.com]. If you change Opera to masquerade as Firefox, you'll see this [daishar.com] instead.
The correct solution is to stop using UA strings for browser detection, but have fun trying to convince Microsoft to do that.
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Link to base since the blog is hosed (Score:5, Interesting)
I rode a Fast Attack in the Cold War, so I might know more than someone who hasn't been there.
movies (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, I could be wrong, but I think I've seen one before.
Re:Is it really so secret? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The US Navy Is Not Such A Secret (Score:5, Interesting)
And where did that factoid come from? One would imagine that a ship with the capability to strike at extremely long distances is always useful, if you can hit your enemy before their weapons can reach you you have an advantage. As for carriers being vulnerable to subs that's only partially true. Certain types of submarines, especially advanced nuclear subs (and diesel ones, so long as they don't surface anywhere near the carrier group and have enough battery power to get in and out) could conceivably slip through the defenses around a carrier and then it's aircraft would be useless. Given that the last major (that I know of) engagement between large groups of submarines and carriers was WWII, and that was clearly decided in favor of the carrier groups (53 u-boats sunk to less than 10 of the CVE mini-carriers) I'd say a generalization like 'Subs counter carriers' is kinda...wrong. A carrier battle group at war would typically have at least 1 radar plane (Orion?) on CAP. If the sub surfaces nearby radar has a chance of picking it up. In addition the carrier's escorts have darn good sonar and wouldn't be too hesitant to use it.
So basically, 1 lone carrier vs sub is an easy win for the sub, unless the carrier sees it coming from a long way off and launches anti-sub efforts. 1 carrier battlegroup is at least a match for any similar number of warships, including subs, and very good at other tasks such as beach assault, long range support etc. A carrier battle group is currently the most versatile type of navy imaginable, as such it may not be the best way to counter all threats (a pair of destroyers working in tandem with some anti-sub helicopters would be cheaper and pretty effective against small numbers of subs). It's a Jack of All Trades, master of none type of thing, a Carrier group is good at anti-surface ship, anti-sub, and anti-land combat.
Sneaking up on a ship which is fully prepared for war is a lot harder than some things would lead you to believe. Just because you're underwater and pretty quiet doesn't mean your undetectable, and if you're too quiet you can be detected that way (one possibly problem with modern US subs is that they're actually quieter than the surrounding ocean and could *conceivably* be detected that way). No amount of noise-reduction is going to save you if even 1 enemy ship is using active-sonar, you're going to be detected unless it's a cloak-and-dagger fight which is something aircraft carriers rarely engage in, they're more 'Hey look, I'm right here, I don't need to hide because I'm that much better than you' style fighting, and in that arena (when radars are at full and sonars are active) subs lose all stealth benefits, and an unstealthed sub vs a carrier group is just asking for trouble.
So to sum it up, no, a carrier battle group is not useless. Subs are easily countered (unless you're trying to be stealthy as well) and missile blocking is what Aegis (common in CBG's) class destroyers were partially built for. Aircraft carriers are built for show, and are good against weaker enemies, but also against equals, it's against stronger enemies (few and far between at this moment) that they begin to look impossibly weak and fragile.
Misdirection? (Score:3, Interesting)
U.S. Navy: "Hey you guys do the aerial photos for Google and Mircosoft, right?"
Acme Aerial Photos: "Yip."
U.S. Navy: "When are you guys next flying over our base?"
Acme Aerial Photos: "Next Tuesday. Weather permitting."
U.S. Navy: "Thank you. You have been very helpful. <evil laugh>"
Re:Behind the times (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Google Cache (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually if you believe in this, and I do, then you should work to make sure that democracies like the US preserve their technological edge over non democracies like China.
If I'd found the picture I'd have tipped off the US Navy. But then I guess you've never been to Taiwan and China and noticed that Taiwan is quite obviously a more free country. And Taiwan is still free mostly because the US has a technical edge over China, and the Chinese are deterred from invading which they threaten to do every couple of years.
Re:Probably not significant (Score:4, Interesting)
Next time you get on a 777, just think, you are riding on one of the most advanced propellor aircraft in the world.
Re:The US Navy Is Not Such A Secret (Score:3, Interesting)
This missile [wikipedia.org] can be launched from undersea position 290 km away from the target:
(Additional link 1 [strategypage.com] and link 2 [bharat-rakshak.com].)
I would not call 200 miles a close range. A WWII torpedo was a close range weapon; a Shkval torpedo [wikipedia.org] is a close range weapon. I have no idea what is the protected area around the group, but it can't be that large, and even one such missile can give a heart attack to the carrier group commander, if it misses or is shot down. If it doesn't miss then forget the heart attack, there wouldn't be enough time left for that.
Of course, the attack does not have to occur in the air - a common 30 yr old 65-76 torpedo [wikipedia.org] (designed in 1976) has range of about 62 miles - if a CG can protect even that circle it is doing better than good. Officially China and Russia have those.
f you have a carrier group, you own the ocean [...] for the simple reason that you know where you are, and the enemy doesn't.
This is applicable to submarines which may be a part of CG, but the whole group is hard to fail to notice in, say, Persian Gulf. You may not even need binoculars. The attackers found USS Cole with their eyes tightly shut. And that's one of the reasons why Iran seemingly has the following:
(quoted from the linked Wikipedia article.)
And of course we should not forget about the older hardware [wikipedia.org], Iraq has some, and Iran probably also has:
The 95 km range is more than enough to cover the whole area of interest. So the carriers are vulnerable if the incoming missiles are arriving faster, closer to the sea, or in larger quantities than the Aegis can protect against. Wikipedia lists its tracking capacity of 100+ targets (with no mentioning on how many targets can be fired upon, which may be classified, or just dependent on how many ships are available, or both.) So if an opponent initiates a land-based attack they can launch 200 missiles, or 300, all at once - and a few of them will make it through.
Re:The US Navy Is Not Such A Secret (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
In regards to that propeller design... (Score:3, Interesting)
By the way, that picture confirms what I saw several times on the History Channel, where they showed a Los Angeles class submarine underwater running with a multibladed propeller (you can see the propeller blades clearly in the video).
Re:Probably not significant (Score:4, Interesting)
Pay attention to the missiles, not the propeller (Score:3, Interesting)
I realize that I put myself at a risk for saying this, but here it is. These submarines exist for one reason: They exist to kill every human being on earth. That's what they do, that's all they do.
Allow me to create a word. omnicide: the act of the murder of every human being and all civilization.
This is omnicide technology. It's the legacy of the so-called cold war and the mentality of preventing the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale by creating the military framework that ensures the destruction of any country who would use nuclear weapons in a first-strike sneak attack.
I'm not here to say that this is good or bad. Omnicide technology transcends its own evil. Having been created, it exists outside the concepts and arguments of ordinary legality and morality. But it's here, and it isn't going away.
In the long run of time, omnicide technology eclipses the governments, religions, and corporations that created it. For that reason, the people who control and oversee omnicide technology have a higher responsibility than to the governments, religions, and corporations who may believe that having funded the creation of this technology, they then can decide to use it.
They can not. Because this technology can never be used. To do so would kill everyone or nearly everyone on earth and destroy civilization. It is important that the people who oversee this technology understand this. Since it is possible that you will someday be an overseer of omnicide technology, it's important that you understand this.
In light of this reality, who gives a fuck about a picture of a propeller?
Like So Many Other Things -- It Depends... (Score:2, Interesting)
In the summer, and late spring it's the easiest (for the sub).
What happens it this: The sun heats the water (usually to depth of 60 or 80 feet - sometimes even to over a hundred) and this warm layer sits on top of the much cooler iso-thermal water beneath it. If a submarine moves to a depth right in or even JUST below this layer, the active sonar pings bounce off the layer, and effectively hide the submarine. The modern ASW ships do carry a submersible sonar "sled" that can dive to below the layer and sometimes detect the sub in that case, but even then, if there is a strong thermal layer and the boat is right in it, it's just about impossible.
in the winter, however, when virtually the whole ocean is iso-thermal, the sub would have a much harder time. In cases like this, you can have the option of running deep.
When you're really deep, what happens is as follows: The deeper water (since it is compressed more by more water pressure - duh) conducts sound faster than the water above it, This tends to bend the sonar waves back up towards the surface. Thus there is a critical depth (depending on water salinity and temperature) below which you cannot hear a submarine from a surface (or near surface) sonar array.
The problem with using this approach, is that the submarine is effectively blind to the task group since the task group's sound waves get bent back up to the surface as well, and if you ascend in the wrong place
Mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The US Navy Is Not Such A Secret (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The US Navy Is Not Such A Secret (Score:2, Interesting)
The way they did it was that they turned the engine off and waited (in a strategic place) for a big boat to come close enough.