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Mr. Luddite

On 4/21/2014 2:00 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 20 Apr 2014 21:55:27 -0400, BAR wrote:

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 20 Apr 2014 17:33:52 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

Another misconception is the belief that ship based radar or any other
electromagnetic radiation is even required to acquire, designate and
guide a missile or other weapon to a target. It used to be so but not
anymore.

I understand passive missile FC systems but how do you find the target
in the first place without something active? (if they are dark)

Somebody has to see them with a radar and then that position information
needs to be relayed to the airspace controller.

Dick is right. I really got out of that business in the 60s and we had
"hand me down" hardware at the time.

The newest thing I actually worked on was a Mk 56. That was at the
limit of it's capability tracking an airliner. The only thing that we
had that was close to the state of the art was our ASW stuff. We had
Mk 44 and Mk46 torpedoes on board. The sonar was still new enough that
the FTs didn't even know what the hell it was. (no need to know).
I think the "weather" stations were eliminated by sono buoys and other
listening hardware as much as anything else. Satellites had eliminated
the actual weather mission years before.

Although I was in the ancient Navy for over 9 years, I learned more
about some of the newer and current shipboard systems since I left the
Navy and worked as a civilian on some military development and
procurement programs. Most involved specific components that are
integrated into the overall scheme of things. It is some amazing
technology and it works which is also amazing given the rough conditions
it is used in.

I had an interesting (to me anyway) time in the Navy. A strange chain
of events led to being assigned to a project group rather than as
traditional ship's company on the two ships I spent time on. When the
project was transferred from the first ship to the second, I was
transferred along with the project.

At the time the project was classified but is no longer. It was the
initial deployment, testing and de-bugging of a passive sonar towed
array system used to detect and identify ships and submarines without
emitting traditional sonar "pings". A stationary ground based system
called "SOSUS" had been in operation for years with facilities located
around the globe. I read a report that the SOSUS facility in the
Bahamas could track and identify the actual ship by name that was
transiting the Strait of Gibraltar as it exited the Mediterranean Sea
and entered the Atlantic. The project I was involved with was the
pre-deployment testing of a similar type of passive system to a mobile
platform like a ship or submarine. Every ship or sub, even of the same
type and class has a unique noise "signature". A library of recorded
signatures evolved over the years and computers at the shore facilities
and then aboard ships can search the library for the recorded, matching
signature.

It is now standard equipment on most Navy ships and subs and the whole
ground based and ship based system is integrated and operates under a
different name. Tom Clancy sorta blew the whistle on this system when
he referred and described it in "The Hunt for Red October".