A company called Alion Science and Technology thinks it has a way for surface ships to better detect diesel submarines: Continuous Active Sonar.
There is another name for a continuous sonar: A targeting beacon.
Active sonar can be detected a hell of a lot further away than its own detection range, in the same way that you can see somebody using a flashlight a lot further away than they can illuminate you with it.
Besides that, if continuous sonar is put into service, I would look for the day when a potential adversary develops a sonar-homing torpedo. Anti-radiation missiles make continuously operating a radar during wartime an iffy proposition (at least against an enemy with the resources to field ARMs). Torpedoes that home on the noise of a ship were first used in World War II, they are not a new technology. Tuning the receiver to look for the frequencies of a continuously active sonar would not be terribly hard, I imagine.
Hell, the submarine doesn't even have to be there, if they seeded the area where the ships are expected to operate with a form of CAPTOR mine.
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Wow, that would have been really, really cool... in 1942.
I can imagine how submariners feel reading this. A smirk, and the old saw, "There's two kinds of ships. Submarines and targets."
Given the amount of racket that surface ships make (even modern turbine-powered vessels, nevermind a fleet-class aircraft carrier with its multitude of clanking nuclear power plants feeding noisy steam turbines), submarines detecting them long before surface ships can detect submarines hasn't been in question for a long time. Like Nangleator said, "submarines, and targets". Given that, it makes sense to spew out even *more* noise if spewing out more noise lets you detect the submarines further out...
- Badtux the Practical Penguin
Might be something is, the part they don't tell us, may make it work. ;)
Speculation:
In the past Sonar ping'd like pulse radar and waited for a return(s). Continious active suggests a uninterrupted signal on all headings
and depths outgoing and listening at the same time for returns from all headings and depths with processing
to hear the different paths and return types. Obviously with multiple emitters at different locations in concert we have near instant tracking and triangulation.
This would have the effect always listening and also would be no worse than current active modes. Still have to have the technique of track
and silence passive mode. Also like Tux mentioned big targets are noisy
so the logic may be to hear/find them
as soon as you can.
My bet is the sub already knows where the big targets are, the question is where is the sub?
Also the distance you can detect them at only has to exceed the range of their attack weapons where you go and hunt them. To do that you first have to be aware they are there.
There is some logic to that but then
I've not had the opportunity to be
sub or target.
Eck!
The whale kill should make the Japanese salivate ...
the amount of racket that surface ships make (even modern turbine-powered vessels....)
Not as much as you might think, Badtux.
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