How the Russians Tracked U.S. Submarines

For anyone wondering. the transcript is an almost exact copy of an article published in Popular Mechanics in Oct 23rd, 2017 entitled "How the Soviet Union Snooped Waters for Enemy Subs-Without Sonar."

The US has a habit of underestimating others,

Ex qualified sub sailor here, 1970 - 1976. Don't ever underestimate your adversary and his capabilities. Remember, you don't know what you don't know and that can get you killed.

And another thing…… No one uses active sonar except for certain very specific circumstances. Why? Because when you fire that thing up everyone knows where you are! Now…. Mark 48 torpedos are wire-guided, use a passive sonar and only swap to active sonar when they have a target lock. When that happens, it's probably too late for ya. Now…. All that said, the only underwater kill ever made on another submarine by another submarine was in WWII. The HMS Venturer sank the U-864. Using passive sonar, skill and a whole lot of luck. She fired 4 dumb torpedoes and one fortunately hit. Blind luck.

Both Soviets and the US had clever systems to follow were the enemys submarines were at The Us got SOSUS witch was passive sonar placed at different places at sea.

I believe they were actually using natural sounds as an active radar signal while remaining passive themselves. They simply add multiple microphones to the outside and measure and triangulate the delays as natural sounds bounce off other things in the water. I believe these days it's so advanced It's basically like a fish-finder screen the operators look at they can see in real time everything around them.

Read "The Taking of K-129" the US Navy had sonar stations scattered across the Pacific Ocean in the 1960s that allowed them to figure out exactly where the K-129 sunk. There are probably dozens of passive and active systems to locate subs in the oceans around the world.

Dammit sneaky russians with shovels

A US sub once followed a Russian sub from the time it left it's port until it returned to port 6 weeks later withour the Russians knowledge. 😅

Seals whiskers, too, can detect tiny waves generated by fish swimming

The U.S. knows where Russia s subs are and I am sure Russia knows where ours are.

Very interesting. Thank You.

The closed captioning being embedded into the video is terrible.

This takes on a whole new dimension when you add it to unmanned nuclear underwater drones ,you can just assign 2 wake homing nuclear drones to follow each of your enemy's subs.

Nuke sniffer . Interesting video - fascinating topic, engaging script and pacing, fitting illustration and ambience. Solely the text to speech engine could be upgraded to a premium level or replaced by a voice actor (if exposure is to be avoided).

If the Soviets wanted to find a NATO submarine all they had to do was look over their shoulder. Thats not a joke. Look up the Walker spy ring. He told them not a single Soviet submarine left port without a NATO sub trailing it. To prove him wrong and show how great they were the Soviets had random submarines abruptly do a 180 and ping their active sonar. Every. Single. One. Found a NATO sub traing them. This led to the cancellation of the Victor 2 class which emphasized speed and depth and the switch to the Victor 3 which started to work on silence and sensors as per the western way. For that reason the V3s are sometimes called "the Walker class". This is the origin of the "crazy Ivan" made famous in Hunt for Red October. As for Soviet/Russian non accustic sensors, they have been an epic flop. Being Russia tho they have continued to run with it. I suspect embezzlement.

was fully described by "Q" about 14 minutes into the 007 film "The Spy Who Loved Me" in 1977 :-)

I would not be surprised if the US subs have disposable passive drone sonar devices to sit around and wait for someone to come in their range. Once detected, it will generate false fish or whale noise to alert US subs.

Clever? Yes. But let’s remember this system requires you get so close to your opponent that you can sense the wake in most situations. Obviously they would rely on other sensors like sonar (however inferior) to fine-tune the location .. but in the end you’re at a huge disadvantage when you’re relying only on maneuvering “downwind” of them. It’s like you’re nearly blind to what you’re doing until you’re so close that it’s time to shoot.

USS Simone Bulivar?? I don’t even have to use Google to know that the US didn’t have a submarine with that name