Navy to Defend Sonar in Court (EnviroNazis hindering our security alert)

Wired ^ | 02:00 AM Jun. 30, 2003 PT | Noah Shachtman

[budanski]

For more than a year, the U.S. Navy and environmentalists have been in close combat over sonar and its effect on marine mammals. On Monday, their fighting will culminate in court.

The Navy says it needs a wide berth to test its controversial, ultra-loud, low-frequency sonar system. The Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, and other green groups counter that the military has to be more mindful of whales and other marine mammals when it runs the tests. Whales depend on their ears to make their way around the oceans, after all. The sonar in question can be as deafening to marine mammals as a Saturn V moon rocket.

[Poohbah]

I don't pretend to be an expert on the engineering/physics aspects of this problem.

You're the one saying SURTASS LFA is out, YOU have the obligation to propose a workable alternative.

I just know that when humans, and particularly Americans, set their minds to finding a solution to a problem, they just about always do.

Fine. You're an American. Set your mind to the problem. Find a solution.

Satellites, maybe?

You mind telling me what method will allow something at least 100 miles up to see through 100 meters of seawater?

[Fresh Wind]

The Navy has researched a variety of techniques, including radar and lasers, and nothing has (apparently) come close to the effectiveness of sonar. There are alternatives to something like the SURTASS LFA for active target location, most notably expendable sensors (sonobuoys). There are problems with sonobuoys, though. Mostly because of power supply limitations, they have a relatively short range and limited life, so the fleet must buy and store large numbers of them, and rely on a constant air patrol to maintain and manage the buoy field. A system like SURTASS has many advantages in terms of performance, as well as cost and logistics.

[Looking4Truth]

"And since when are whales more important than 300 million Americans and their security? "

It seems to me for quite a while. You do know that our lives are already worth less than a dog's, right? Cop shoots you to death in a botched raid (wrong address, etc) and gets 2 weeks off with pay. You shoot police dog that's ripping your arm off in similiar raid and provided you live through it, you'll go to prison for killing an 'officer'.

[BOBTHENAILER]

This is just infuriating.

Beyond measure. They are after every aspect of our current way of life.....EVERY ASPECT.

[hchutch]

No kidding.

[GovernmentShrinker]

You mind telling me what method will allow something at least 100 miles up to see through 100 meters of seawater?

I know that satellites can now see things that they couldn't see just a few years ago. I expect that if the sort of brilliant researchers who made that possible set their minds to it, they'll find a way to see Dear Leader's subs, from somewhere, without blowing whales' inner ears to smithereens.

[Poohbah]

I know that satellites can now see things that they couldn't see just a few years ago.

Yeah. They can see it if it's out in the open air.

This is qualitatively different.

One more time: what technology will allow a satellite that's at least 100 miles up to see through 100 meters of seawater?

[Poohbah]

I expect that if the sort of brilliant researchers who made that possible set their minds to it

Anything is easy to accomplish, if you're not the guy trying to do the work.

[hchutch]

Or if your butt is not on the line.

I swear, that is what ticks me off the most about stuff like this and the landmine ban activists.

How many of the folks filing this lawsuit will be under the gun? How many of the landmine ban activists? Do they have ANY people with ANY sort of combat experience supporting them on their causes?

[Long Cut]

I just got this ping, thanks Hutch. Unfortunateley, you MAY not like my opinions on the topic.

First, my bona fides: I have ten years-and-counting as a sonar operator (what we call an Acoustic AW) on board P-3 ORION ASW aircraft, and something like 2,500 hors in type. I've tracked numerous friendly AND unfriendly submarines, nuclear and diesel, using both passive AND active SONAR systems, and have, on occaision, used cuing from SURTASS ships. Oh, and I also like whales...they're pretty nice people, really. I have whiled many hours onstation away listening to their calls when the subs failed to turn up.

Okay, that out of the way, I have to say that I have a pretty low overall opinion of SURTASS, indeed, of most large-scale active systems. In an entire North Atlantic deployment, SURTASS was never able to put us onto a target with ANY degree of accuracy. We could have gotten the same results using tried-and-true passive searches, possibly even better.

Dear Leader's boats? The ChiComs? Please. They are well known to be like underwater freight trains when operating. No exotic systems are needed to find THEM, trust me, just good operators and a few (relatively inexpensive) sonobouys.

My own opinion of why these large-scale active systems were developed (and ALL of them are still "in development", that is, not perfected) to counter what was expected to be the next generation of stealthy Soviet submarines, which were feared to be too quiet for passive sensors to detect, and CERTAINLY too silent for us Enlisted puke operators to deal with.

Rubbish. Not only was that false, as a properly-trained and experienced operator can be, along with his similarly-trained crew, perfectly capable of finding anything worth finding in the Deep Blue, but the Soviet Union collapsed, and with it all plans for any "Red Octobers" there might have been (and that IS how old some of these systems are, BTW.). The systems were kept in development because a LOT of senior officers were enamored with them. I assure you, the operators were not.

Bottom line? In my professional opinion, for the current threat(diesel-electric submarines operated by third-world navies in littoral environments), LFA-type systems simply do not provide the accuracy and certainty that older, more proven passive systems(SOSUS, anyone? Hello?), like (ahem) Marittime Patrol Aviation do, and cost a whole LOT of money which would be better spent on maintaining aircraft and training operators. Therefore, considering the fact that some whale species ARE endangered, and the fact that the deaths that result are brutally painful to the point of cruelty, the LFA systems simply aren't worth it.

I'm Certainly no PETA pansy, but I have watched whales through observation windows for hours, and heard them over vast distances. I cannot in good conscience support dragging them into our conflicts, especially when the benefits are so weak.

SONAR operators and crews can do this, and we DON'T kill some of the most magnificent species on Earth to do it. The ONLY people I want to kill are the Bad Guys. Give US the money being spent on LFA, let us use it to train our people well, and let us have at it. Between us and the bubbleheads, your sub threat will cease to exist in short order. Of THAT, at least, I can assure you.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Thanks, Long Cut! I just KNEW there were some smart, hard-working Americans out there who could figure out how to find enemy subs without torturing and killing whales. FR is such a cool place -- such a tremendous amount of experience and expertise floating around and tending to pop up wherever it's needed.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Please see post #30 -- an experienced Navy sonar operator, who has actually used the SURTASS as well as other systems, has weighed in here.

[Bottom_Gun]

well said Long Cut, like you I've spent 12 years as a Submarine Sonarman with FBM, and SSN (pre BQQ-5 and BQQ-5) experence. SURTASS and low freqs are extremely hard to accurately track. Like you I say put the money in training as a Sonar Supervisor I'll trust a well trained operator with a good ear, and an aural "hunch" before I put faith in a system..why? because an operator is SUBJECTIVE, learning from experence, where a system is OBJECTIVE depending on programming with no learning curve.

[Long Cut]

I hear ya, shipmate. The habit of the "brass" to try to replace trained, motivated (but imperfect, alas!) PEOPLE with arbitrary, gee-whiz, expensive (but predictable and controllable) TECHNOLOGY has existed forever, and will probably never die out. Hell, look at all the geegaws they hang on the dogfaces' rifles now, just to "improve" them, when all they REALLY need is one that works, and the budget to train men to use it!

I guess it'll always be up to noncoms and Chiefs to provide the PEOPLE to be there when the hi-tech (inevitably) fails to perform as advertised.

I'll take a UYS-1 or 78-A, a decent 2nd operator, and a few DIFARs over all the "blasters" they can put out any day of the week.

P.S.- I got to take a tour of the USS TENNESSEE a few years ago. Sweet ears you guys got.

[Long Cut]

Also, some of that cash could be used to replenish and re-install the old SOSUS network. Its passive listening sensors (and the operators and analysts who used it) were second to none at locating submarines in environments covering entire oceans!

Since a lot of the infrastructure still exists, perhaps that system would be of greater value.

Don't forget, active systems have one HUGE disadvantage...they CANNOT positively identify a contact.

Only passive sensors, together with their operators, can do that. They also don't let the contact know they're there, which active DOES, every time.

[bigfootbob]

Thanks for the ping and Long Cut for your explanation.

"So it's assumed that the loud sounds are even worse for them."

This article doesn't provide any evidence of a whale death in the piece. Restricting defense testing of prototype weapon/defense systems on "ASSUMPTIONS" is foolish, IMHO.

Mr. Long Cut, I understand how the brass in the military and all industry too, have a tendacy to promote "pet" projects that us worker bee's hate because it's ineffective or not user friendly. However, sometimes these prototypes that might seem worthless in the begining evolve into a valuable tool after R & D. Hysterical "Chicken Little" types have no business affecting the development of defense systems or anything else for that matter on the strength of assumptions.

Your post tells me the military has the best watchdogs in the world in the enlisted class. I trust their imput and if this system is truly a killer, it will die in R & D at the hands of the experts.

[steplock]

so he CLAIMS. Is the ANY collaborating evidence other than his hearsay?

greenies,peta, alf,elf, and the rest of the idots don't count

[GovernmentShrinker]

I definitely agree that unproven assumptions would be a bad reason to scrap promising technology. The author of this article either didn't do his research, or chose to exclude the previously published information about the autopsies on the whales that were killed by tests of this system. It's that concrete information that led me to oppose further testing and deployment of this system.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Why don't you do some research on the Internet for yourself. You're obviously not going to believe anything you read here.

[Long Cut]

"...Hysterical "Chicken Little" types have no business affecting the development of defense systems or anything else for that matter on the strength of assumptions."

Don't get me wrong...I FULLY agree that the environMENTALists should have absolutely zero say in how the U.S. military is run. They've not got the brains of a Yugo full of anvils. They are utterly ignorant of the purpose of a military; and have no idea what a trained warrior is FOR.

That said, a stopped clock IS right twice a day. The fact that they are correct in this particular case (and they are, trust me...the sounds produced by SURTASS has indeed been resposible for several beachings and deaths) doesn't prove that their entire philosophy is right, or even worth listening to.

As for evidence...well, when whales swim onto a beach and die, with their eardrums blown out, and an LFA system was tested nearby, well...what's two plus two again? The decibel level of those things is brutal to even mechanical listening devices. Common sense tells us that an organic ear, on a creature which lives by it, is particularly vulnerable, especially in an environment like water in which sounds can be transmitted over wide ranges.