ultradave
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Joined: 8/20/2013
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The way I look at those odd situations where it appears that the contact is on land, is that passive sonar is pretty good at giving a reasonably accurate directional location. Especially if you can move transversely relative to the contact so that the sonar system has some parallax to work with.
It's not very good at determining range, at least not until it has some parallax and then can do a triangulation estimate of range, based on several bearing readings. That takes time (sometimes quite a bit of time) and movement transverse to the contact.
When you get those long dagger uncertainty indications, here is your thought process. Theoretically, those uncertainty areas tell you that the contact could be anywhere in that zone. But we can analyze the situation and realize that this isn't really true. There are limits to where it can be. Take for instance one over the ice in Greenland. A few things you can determine:
1. It's not over land :-)
2. It's not on the OTHER side of Greenland. You'd never get a contact with all that land in the way (sorry if this seems painfully obvious)
3. Therefore where is the most likely spot? On a line between you (the base or point of the dagger) and the coast of Greenland)
4. That can narrow things down significantly, and two or three sonobouys in that general area can get you a pretty solid contact. Then several in a line can reduce that error tremendously.
5. If it's NOT over land but just a really, really long dagger shape headed off toward the North Pole, think about how far you could reasonably expect to pick up a contact. You can probably then mentally cut off that uncertainty area at some point MUCH closer to you. Then go to work as in #4.
So, in summary, those uncertainties look huge and weird, but realistically, where could that sub be? What's the practical range you can hear (not to the North Pole, right), and you know the direction. That gives you a good idea of where to start dropping sonobouys to narrow things down.
Hope this helps. My apologies if this seems elementary. I'm not intending to talk down to anyone. But there seems to be a lot of inexperience with what to expect from ASW warfare and how passive sonar works, so perhaps it will help a few people.
Patience and stealth will be rewarded if you are the sub. Some analysis like above will be rewarded if you are the hunter. For Sub v Sub. Be as quiet and stealthy as you can. You don't want your first indication of the other sub to be an incoming torpedo with no warning. That's a bad day.
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Dave A.
"When the Boogeyman goes to sleep he checks his closet for paratroopers"
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