Anti-submarine warfare
Satellites have been used to image the sea surface using optical and radar techniques and it is claimed these might be used for indirect detection of submarines, as could thermal imaging. Fixed wing aircraft provide both a sensor and weapons platform as do some helicopters, with sonobuoys and/or dipping sonars as well as torpedoes. In other cases the helicopter has been used solely for sensing and rocket delivered torpedoes used as the weapon. Surface ships continue to be a main ASW platform because of their endurance, now having towed array sonars. Submarines are the main ASW platform because of their ability to change depth and their quietness, which aids detection.
Today some nations have seabed listening devices capable of tracking submarines. It is known to be possible to detect man-made marine noises across the southern Indian Ocean from South Africa to New Zealand. However with the ending of the Cold War some of the SOSUS arrays have been turned over to civilian use and are now used for marine research.
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Attack Submarines
During World War II submarines were typically hunted on the surface and only engaged underwater if contact was maintained when the submarine dived. There was no expectation of submarines tracking other submarines underwater and engaging in 'torpedo dogfights'. This type of anti-submarine action became a possibility after the duel between HMS Venturer and U-864 in the North Sea, just off Kiel Harbour.
U-864 was carrying secret German weapons technology intended to assist Japan against US bombing raids. An ULTRA intercept alerted the Royal Navy, who dispatched a submarine to intercept the cargo. She was separated from her escort and, recognizing she was being trailed by an enemy submarine, submerged and began to zig-zag. This was a course of action which would normally render her invulnerable, but Jimmy Launders, the captain of Venturer submerged as well and tracked on hydrophones.
For several hours the cat-and-mouse hunt progressed, until Launders decided to perform the complex calculations necessary to obtain a firing solution in three dimensions. These were done manually, predicting the likely maneuvers of the target, and a spread of four torpedoes at 17 second intervals and varying depths was fired. U-864 dived into the path of one of these, and was blown in half.
This possibly was the first attempt by one submarine to sink another while both were submerged, and the only successful one ever recorded up to the present day. It was a hugely influential action in the history of anti-submarine warfare, and modern attack submarine's tactics of attempting to track ballistic missile submarines from their bases underwater are directly derived from it. Modern computers provide the calculations which were originally done manually, and modern torpedoes are guided, but in all other respects the essentials of submerged anti-submarine warfare have remained the same.
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See also
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References & Notes
- ^ Price, Alfred, Aircraft versus the Submarine (William Kimber, 1973)
- ^ Preston, p134
- ^ In fact, Otto Kretschmer expressly forbade diving to avoid being detected by sonar. See The Golden Horseshoes.
- ^ This was not a problem exclusive to Japan; Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Navy, and United States Navy destroyermen all preferred fleet action, too.
- ^ Masahaya, Pearl Harbor Papers, himself calls IJN ASW efforts "shiftless".
- ^ Parillo, Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1993
- ^ Blair, Clay, Silent Victory (Vol.1), The Naval Institute Press, 2001
- ^ Lanning, Michael Lee (Lt. Col.), Senseless Secrets: The Failures of U.S. Military Intelligence from George Washington to the Present, Carol Publishing Group, 1995
- ^ Price, Alfred. Aircraft versus the Submarine. (London: William Kimber, 1973).
- Abbbatiello, John, ASW in World War I, 2005.
- Blair, Clay, Silent Victory . Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.
- Compton-Hall, Richard, Submarine Boats, the beginnings of underwater warfare, Windward, 1983.
- Franklin, George, Britain's ASW Capability, 2003.
- Lanning, Michael Lee (Lt. Col.), Senseless Secrets: The Failures of U.S. Military Intelligence from George Washington to the Present, Carol Publishing Group, 1995.
- Llewellys-Jones, Malcolm, The RN and ASW (1917-49), 2007.
- Parillo, Mark. Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II. Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1993.
- Preston, Anthony, The World's Greatest Submarines, 2005.
- Price, Alfred. Aircraft versus the Submarine. London: William Kimber, 1973.
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