Can submarines go faster, fully submerged? How?

oldbilbo said:
And you'd get a very 'sideways' look from quite a few others. I've met some very, very sharp senior submariners ( and also a fair few 'pedestrians' ) who constantly surprised with their breadth of arcane knowledge. I certainly wouldn't put money on some in that sneaky, stealthy community being unaware of promising new physical research concepts.

'Don't make waves'. Think about counter-measures..... :cool:
Click to expand...

The thing that surprised me was that he obviously thought it was top secret, classified stuff - but as I said, it was common knowledge in the remote sensing community. His ability to make small talk at a college dinner dried up remarkably quickly!

It's also something for which the only countermeasure is indeed to avoid places where you will make waves - and at that time (and even now, I think) the places where submarines played (Barents Sea, Arctic Ocean, Denmark Strait etc) tend to be places with lots of density layers....
 
AntarcticPilot said:
The thing that surprised me was that he obviously thought it was top secret, classified stuff - but as I said, it was common knowledge in the remote sensing community. His ability to make small talk at a college dinner dried up remarkably quickly!

It's also something for which the only countermeasure is indeed to avoid places where you will make waves - and at that time (and even now, I think) the places where submarines played (Barents Sea, Arctic Ocean, Denmark Strait etc) tend to be places with lots of density layers....
Click to expand...

The problem often is that whilst the basic science is quite clearly open, applications and methods of application can and probably should be classified.

For example a technique developed my the company I worked for was demonstrated to industry for offshore applications and was also available commercially from other companies. Pricey stuff at the time so not a great commercial success. Later with some interesting changes the devices became highly classified and remains so. The physics and engineering itself though is part of universal knowledge.

ps Barents sea, lovely place
 
I don’t think there’s an issue here

Hopefully the MoD employ development & implementation scientists of the highest integrity to design and hopefully ‘better’ anything our possible adversaries have at any one particular moment in time.
And/or present and implement new technology of their own theory & design to provide a tactical advantage beyond that of our potential opposition.
We the ‘operational’ Naval Staff only require to know how to maximise this to our tactical advantage.
It has always been the practice on a ‘need to know’ basis to help maintain security of our technology and operational tactics.
I believe that most of our serious breaches of security have come from the scientific personnel (there’s historical track record here) who must not be able to appreciate the issues created by their disloyalty to the UK and the potential loss of life to our service personnel.
Anyone working on any scientific project for the UK which would be considered detrimental to the UK if any part of this information was passed to anyone outside the team has to sign the ‘Official Secrets Act’, and if they knowingly or through negligence allowed this information to become public knowledge should be taken out & shot!
Yes, applied physics and the laws of is public knowledge .... but! .... how it all fits together and how it's applied in a tactical situation isn't.
 
Last edited:
The answer I think is due to the fact that speed on the surface is limited by the vessel length as our boats are. This is due to the creation of the bow waves and the distance between them as the speed increases, our boats are restricted as the secondary wave approaches the hull stern and the boat falls into the trough effectively slowing the boat as more power is then needed to mount the front wave. Because our boats don't plane then the speed is restricted.

The sub has the same physical restrictions in overcoming the bow wave phenomenon but underwater no such restrictions exist so the hull shape does not slow the boat.
 
Lockheed's Skunk works did a rough plan to apply stealth technology to subs and tried to sell it to the USN. Their reaction was that the loss of a few knots was important, despite being much less visible to SONAR. The Lockheed people thought the Navy were somwhat dumb.


I know there are other ways of looking for subs, magnetic anomaly for one. But losing sonar tracking did sound useful. (This probably dates from the early 80s)
 
oldsaltoz said:
Is there some reason no one has mentioned the effect of the propeller/s when on the suface as oposed to fully submerged?

Good luck and fair winds. :)
Click to expand...

Not really, submarine propellers have to be very efficient to make them quiet, and the only impact of being close to the surface is you can get transient cavitation during an increase in power
 
Yes & No

;)
DownWest said:
Lockheed's Skunk works did a rough plan to apply stealth technology to subs and tried to sell it to the USN. Their reaction was that the loss of a few knots was important, despite being much less visible to SONAR. The Lockheed people thought the Navy were somewhat dumb.
Click to expand...

Firstly there can be the issue of Deference Ministers and their team having degrees in the Fine Arts, Philosophy or Ancient Greek etc .... this not being the best for advancement and the adoption of new technology. And why do we keep on about Naval Staff when most if not all of these decisions are made by civilians at ministerial level? :(

Secondly we would now know what’s available and retrofit when required in the future without the massive costs and delays to production of our systems and Submarines. Also if this technology was superseded by any scientific discovery or technological advancement then it’s a win-win with zero or minimal cost to the defence budget. :rolleyes:

DownWest said:
I know there are other ways of looking for subs, magnetic anomaly for one.
Click to expand...

And many, many more! .... for which we do retrofit as required.... :rolleyes: ;)

Edit (known by almost all) ... we do play with Layers & Fronts .... ;)
 
Last edited:
OGITD said:
Hopefully the MoD employ development & implementation scientists of the highest integrity to design and hopefully ‘better’ anything our possible adversaries have at any one particular moment in time.
And/or present and implement new technology of their own theory & design to provide a tactical advantage beyond that of our potential opposition.
We the ‘operational’ Naval Staff only require to know how to maximise this to our tactical advantage.
It has always been the practice on a ‘need to know’ basis to help maintain security of our technology and operational tactics.
I believe that most of our serious breaches of security have come from the scientific personnel (there’s historical track record here) who must not be able to appreciate the issues created by their disloyalty to the UK and the potential loss of life to our service personnel.
Anyone working on any scientific project for the UK which would be considered detrimental to the UK if any part of this information was passed to anyone outside the team has to sign the ‘Official Secrets Act’, and if they knowingly or through negligence allowed this information to become public knowledge should be taken out & shot!
Yes, applied physics and the laws of is public knowledge .... but! .... how it all fits together and how it's applied in a tactical situation isn't.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about knowledge within the military research establishment; as you say, knowledge in that area is tightly controlled. I am not and never have been part of that establishment, and have never had to sign the Official Secrets Act (which hasn't been an automatic requirement for Government scientists for over 20 years). What amazed me was that a serving naval officer didn't realize that something on which his operations might depend was common knowledge - and I mean common knowledge, not something restricted to people with explicitly military interests. It pointed out to me that the miltary and associated research establishments operate within too closed a bubble, not looking at wider research efforts. I hope that has improved since those days (1980s), but have little faith in it! But in this case we are talking about things that anyone with access to the data - which is pretty much anyone; these are not classified missions - would have seen and been aware of.

I worked at Scott Polar Research Institute during the Falklands War. One memory I have of that war was the MoD coming to us to get copies of the most up-to-date maps of the Falklands from our library! You'd have thought that the MoD would have had its own resources rather than having to scrape around University libraries. The resulting military maps are simply photo-enlargements of the maps they borrowed from us. If they'd asked us to help - and perhaps provided a few resources - we could have provided much better intelligence for them, as the existing maps were (and still are) of relatively poor quality.
 
Last edited:
AntarcticPilot said:
I wasn't talking about knowledge within the military research establishment; as you say, knowledge in that area is tightly controlled. I am not and never have been part of that establishment, and have never had to sign the Official Secrets Act (which hasn't been an automatic requirement for Government scientists for over 20 years). What amazed me was that a serving naval officer didn't realize that something on which his operations might depend was common knowledge - and I mean common knowledge, not something restricted to people with explicitly military interests. It pointed out to me that the miltary and associated research establishments operate within too closed a bubble, not looking at wider research efforts. I hope that has improved since those days (1980s), but have little faith in it! But in this case we are talking about things that anyone with access to the data - which is pretty much anyone; these are not classified missions - would have seen and been aware of.

I worked at Scott Polar Research Institute during the Falklands War. One memory I have of that war was the MoD coming to us to get copies of the most up-to-date maps of the Falklands from our library! You'd have thought that the MoD would have had its own resources rather than having to scrape around University libraries. The resulting military maps are simply photo-enlargements of the maps they borrowed from us. If they'd asked us to help - and perhaps provided a few resources - we could have provided much better intelligence for them, as the existing maps were (and still are) of relatively poor quality.
Click to expand...

There is a vast difference between one random naval officer and those who do indulge in the R&D effort. One of the early aspects of any programme is a detailed search of published material and patents. Whilst you may not have signed the Official Secrets Act it still applies to you and every one else for that matter, they just make people sign it to remind them and so if they do break it they will get longer sentences as they cannot plead ignorance.

As for Falklands maps if the government had sent significant funds producing detailed maps of the Falklands I suspect there would have been a significant outcry about wasting money. As it was they did the sensible thing and collected data from those who had it, one suspects they also checked other sources too.
 
>The new subs can apparently reach speeds of 80 knots submerged, sorry I can't back that up with a link, but that is, of course, unofficial so I doubt it would be documented anyway.

I heard it was 50 knots but it is classied information
 
DownWest said:
Lockheed's Skunk works did a rough plan to apply stealth technology to subs and tried to sell it to the USN. Their reaction was that the loss of a few knots was important, despite being much less visible to SONAR. The Lockheed people thought the Navy were somwhat dumb.


I know there are other ways of looking for subs, magnetic anomaly for one. But losing sonar tracking did sound useful. (This probably dates from the early 80s)
Click to expand...

Astute, IIRC, is supposed to be able to 'hear' a vessel leaving New York, even from the UK, apparently.

What does the Sonar use for detecting that distance away?
 
maxi77 said:
There is a vast difference between one random naval officer and those who do indulge in the R&D effort. One of the early aspects of any programme is a detailed search of published material and patents. Whilst you may not have signed the Official Secrets Act it still applies to you and every one else for that matter, they just make people sign it to remind them and so if they do break it they will get longer sentences as they cannot plead ignorance.

As for Falklands maps if the government had sent significant funds producing detailed maps of the Falklands I suspect there would have been a significant outcry about wasting money. As it was they did the sensible thing and collected data from those who had it, one suspects they also checked other sources too.
Click to expand...

I don't think we differ by much, really. The point is, though, that a publication search would not have uncovered the material about submarine wakes - it was not regarded as sufficiently important to be publishable by the research community! You needed to be around the coffee rooms and meetings; this was all pretty informal knowledge. I think there were a couple of papers concerning whales being detected. If you do a Google search on "Seasat conspiracy theories" you'll find a lot of amusing stuff! I came into this field during the design stages of ERS-1, which carried similar instrumentation, and we used a lot of Seasat data in creating the processing chains etc. SAR wasn't my field, but of course I was working with guys in the SAR field.

Concerning Falklands mapping, I have to agree that government is damned if it does and equally damned if it doesn't! But the mapping concerned was in fact carried out by a government establishment (DOS); we could not understand why they weren't able to source it from there. Sadly, that same mapping is STILL the best (and totally inadequate) available.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I don't think we differ by much, really. The point is, though, that a publication search would not have uncovered the material about submarine wakes - it was not regarded as sufficiently important to be publishable by the research community! You needed to be around the coffee rooms and meetings; this was all pretty informal knowledge. I think there were a couple of papers concerning whales being detected. If you do a Google search on "Seasat conspiracy theories" you'll find a lot of amusing stuff! I came into this field during the design stages of ERS-1, which carried similar instrumentation, and we used a lot of Seasat data in creating the processing chains etc. SAR wasn't my field, but of course I was working with guys in the SAR field.

Concerning Falklands mapping, I have to agree that government is damned if it does and equally damned if it doesn't! But the mapping concerned was in fact carried out by a government establishment (DOS); we could not understand why they weren't able to source it from there. Sadly, that same mapping is STILL the best (and totally inadequate) available.
Click to expand...

You forget the sort of relationship that both commercial and government research departments have with academia. The company I worked for had very close relationships with several universities who taught the sort of students we wanted to recruit when they qualified, in fact my chief engineers part time job was university liaison so I often had the choice of summer placement students, and one of my engineers was directly recruited from his PhD studies, he was bloody good by the way. So quite often the right people are in the coffee rooms talking to the right people
 
Sonar signal coming through...

woman-in-hot-tub-horiz.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top