Above and here is an excellent JHU
Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) July 2017 Youtube. From 1 minute, 3 seconds it illustrates a US submarine using a Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS). Great on submarines and at 2min, 34 secs the SURTASS ship looks like USNS Impeccable or a sister ship.
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Following The Sea Hunter ACTUV's Over and Undersea Towing Abilities, December 11, 2018 an Anonymous made an interesting comment (below) on Decmber 12, 2018:
Beware of other countries trying to snatching towed undersea arrays. Even manned platforms can be victims:
“The trawlers came within 25
feet of USNS Impeccable, as part of an apparent coordinated effort to harass the unarmed ocean surveillance ship. A crew member on a
Chinese trawler used a grapple hook to snag the towed acoustic array of Impeccable.”
Grabbing a Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) array must have been a nice intel coup for China.
I wouldn't put it past the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, North Koreans etc. to try
grabbing the entire ACTUV if they had a chance. Hopefully, these will only be
deployed in areas where they can be protected by other assets.
Compare this with the more subtle approach used by the U.S. and Britain when
[stealing] someone else's towed array:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9602103/HMS-Conquerors-biggest-secret-a-raid-on-Russia.html
"[HMS Conquerer] was pulling a device long coveted by the British and Americans, a 2 mile string of hydrophones known as a towed-array sonar. It was
the latest thing in Soviet submarine-detection technology and Conqueror’s job was
to steal it. To do so, the bow was equipped with electronically controlled pincers,
provided by the Americans, to gnaw through the three-inch-thick steel cable
connecting it to the trawler. The name of this audacious exercise in piracy?
Operation Barmaid.
[...Towed-array sonar...is passive and does not emit a signal. It floats at a prescribed depth, trailing behind a ship or submarine, simply listening for enemy submarines. Because the hydrophones are spaced out, they can achieve a multi-dimensional fix on a target, and are less vulnerable to noise from the host vessel. The American and British navies imagined themselves to be far ahead in this technology and were disturbed to discover that the Russians were matching them."]
[...Towed-array sonar...is passive and does not emit a signal. It floats at a prescribed depth, trailing behind a ship or submarine, simply listening for enemy submarines. Because the hydrophones are spaced out, they can achieve a multi-dimensional fix on a target, and are less vulnerable to noise from the host vessel. The American and British navies imagined themselves to be far ahead in this technology and were disturbed to discover that the Russians were matching them."]
@Pete:
ReplyDeleteChina has already once before stolen a USN USV. It was quickly returned, possibly because it wasn't a particularly large or capable unit but was in fact a glider larging gathering bathometric data and operating as a radio gateway during the top part of its up and down trajectory (ie, nothing that sensitive was on it).
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/world/asia/china-us-drone.html
Hi Josh
ReplyDeleteI think China would have intensively drilled teams of naval and artificial intelligence "surgeons"
to 3D photograph the UUV, cut short lengths of the UUV's wires and scrape off samples plastics and metals used in it.
All amounting to a very thorough job.
Regards
Pete
@Pete:
ReplyDeleteThe unit in question wasn't much different from a COTS type the Chinese could purchase outright. It is much more likely that the move represented an agressive local commander rather than a PRC policy decision. That said it demonstrates the problems of USVs being easily obtainable, particularly types painted bright yellow designed for easy surface recovery. Military units will have to have some ability to at scuttle themselves by ballasting. Alternatively an explosive bolt that exposed the lithium hydride battery would make a fairly thorough and very small footprint self destruct.
Cheers
Josh
Thanks Josh for your 14/12/18 4:24 AM info.
ReplyDeleteWith the US UUV being COTS then the China may have been concentrating on with-what and how the UUV was interacting.
So that would be Chinese intel gathering on post hoc network transmissions from and to the UUV. Any evidence of other undersea emissions including subs might have been gold.
Regards
Pete