Jump to content
SASS Wire Forum

About tracking Soviet Submarines


Recommended Posts

Copied from the internet

 

This statement is true for 1950s and 1960s, but if we talk later…

Just few interesting incidents around this topic.

31 October 1983, Sargasso Sea. Frigate, USS McCloy, equipped specifically to track Soviet submarines, was conducting tests of Towed Array Sonar Surveillance System (TASS). Soviet Project 671RTM submarine K-324 was tasked with trailing American frigate and gathering information about the new detection system. At one point, K-324 got too close to McCloy and hit the towed antenna, as a result, almost 400 meters of it were spun around the K-324s propeller shaft. K-324 lost ability to move and surfaced.

main-qimg-87085feae71eb14392030b2872cc18da

Destroyers USS Peterson and USS Nicholson arrived at the place shortly and started moving between K-324 and McCloy, trying to cut the antenna and prevent Soviets from seizing it. K-324 called for tug and prepared to scuttle in the event if Americans tried to seize the sub. This lasted for 10 days before Soviet tug Aldan arrived and tugged K-324 to Cuba. The trophy antenna cable was removed and sent home for research.

Another example, quite famous. 21 March 1984, project 671 submarine K-314 was tasked with tracking US carrier group based around USS Kitty Hawk in the vicinity of Korean peninsula. After 7 days of going on and off of carrier group tail, K-314 lost the contact and surfaced - right in the middle of carrier group’s order, resulting in collision between K-314 and Kitty Hawk. Neither the sub nor the carrier knew about each other location before the collision.

main-qimg-0b6270705b12c902784cdf14244f8e53
main-qimg-06bb5c79c0ce2259aa1327910989513e

Soviet naval commission determined that the cause of the collision was an incorrectly selected search depth.

This was due to hydrology: thermocline at that fateful moment passed through a depth of 30 meters. But the crew could not take advantage of this, since all instructions obliged the sub to stay no higher than a safe depth of 50 meters. For this reason, K-314 did not detect the aircraft carrier and came dangerously close. When the BIP (combat information post) reported to the commander the distance to the main target at 60-70 cables (13-15 km), it was actually several times less than 10-15 cables (2-3 km).

 

The collision, though, was really lucky for both vessels. If K-314 had surfaced 20 seconds earlier, Kitty Hawk would have split it in two. Kitty Hawk, meanwhile, received the blow on the starboard side, right across the aviation fuel tanks and leaked a couple of tonnes of it. The fact that fuel had not ignited was very fortunate for Kitty Hawk.

11 February 1992, north of Murmansk. Los Angeles class submarine USS Baton Rouge was conducting intelligence tasks in the area and playing “cat and mouse” with Russian Project 945 submarine K-276. After various maneuvering, K-276 ended up behind and below Baton Rouge and surfaced right into it, ramming it from below. K-276 was repaired and returned to service, Baton Rouge was scrapped two years later.

For submarines that were supposedly very noisy, snapping the array designing to track submarines, surfacing in the middle of the carrier group and ramming hunter-killer submarine from below are interesting achievements.

For those who wants to comment on recklessness of Soviet sub commanders, quite a lot of collisions were caused by US subs too, like 20 March 1993, 23 May of 1983 or 24 June 1970 collisions, all with Sturgeon class subs on US side

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sub Commanders can be very crafty, regardless of country. 
 

Funny sub story.

When my ship was heading to the Mediterranean in January ‘82 for a 6 month deployment we chased a very very quiet Russian sub for 2 days only to find it was a whale. :blink: :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Pat Riot said:

Sub Commanders can be very crafty, regardless of country. 
 

Funny sub story.

When my ship was heading to the Mediterranean in January ‘82 for a 6 month deployment we chased a very very quiet Russian sub for 2 days only to find it was a whale. :blink: :lol:

 

Your ASW team didn't wonder about the very frequent snorkeling?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

Your ASW team didn't wonder about the very frequent snorkeling?  

No idea. I truly did not know much about how they were tracking a whale and not know it. I do know they kept losing it and finding it. I think it became more of a game after a while, but I don’t recall the details. 
Now, it’s just a funny memory. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Noisy or not you cannot track a sub that is in the baffles (blind spot) of a sonar array.  Towed Sonar arrays cannot detect sounds directly in front of or directly behind the array. Submarines are blind to sounds originating directly behind them. Even if there was an aft pointing array the noise of the propeller would mask even the noisiest sub following you.

 

Thermoclines do strange things to sound.  When the conditions are right, The sounds you hear, may have originated miles away. While sounds in close proximity cannot be heard at all. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For the time frame, I would not put it past a sub commander on either side allowing their boat to become purposely entangled in  a state of the art array with the hopes of bringing some of it home for analysis

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am reading this book recommended by a retired Submarine Officer I shoot with 

. The de-classified stories are unbelievable

IMG_8946.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Irish Pat said:

I am reading this book recommended by a retired Submarine Officer I shoot with 

. The de-classified stories are unbelievable

IMG_8946.jpeg

 

Excellent Book

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In our hunt camp, a retired Canadian sailor told an interesting story of a Soviet sub detected in the Gulf of the Saint Laurence and the tale of it's "shadowing" back across the Atlantic.

They used practice depth charges every little while, 24/7, just to say "HI THERE" "We're still in contact."

That was back in the day when Canada had a seagoing Navy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.