December 13, 2019

Russian "Sever-E" SOSUS systems on sale. Not Top Secret. Why?

Checkout this Russian arms export agency (Rosoboronexport) advertisement for normally Top Secret SOSUS (undersea sound surveillance system) equipment.

Why might Russia broadcast the sale and characteristics (below) of “Sever-E” SOSUS so openly? No other country-company advertises SOSUS equipment for sale - to my knowledge.

See Sever-E's description and graphics on the Rosoboronexport website http://roe.ru/eng/catalog/naval-systems/stationary-electronic-systems/sever-e/ below:

"Sever-E
Static sonar system

Mission

The Sever-E static passive sonar system is designed to surveillance undersea situation for search surface and underwater objects at vast areas, low-noise submarines essentially.

Features

  •  search and detection of submarines, surface ships by their sonar fields, with the determination of their coordinates;
  • tracking of the detected targets, computation of their parameters (heading, speed, movement pattern);
  • classification of the tracking targets by their noise signatures;
  •  automated transmitting tactical situation data processed for Task Force targeting by means different communication channels, satellite including.

·     Capabilities

The Sever-E system is capable of detecting ships and low-noise submarines, being deployed along an up to 1,000 km long borderline, at a deep of up to 200 km off-shore and placed at seabed at an up to 1,000 m depth. Coverage zones – 30-30,000 sq. km. Thanks to high reliability of its components the system can operate continuously for 10 years without the need for retrieving the bottom equipment.

Main characteristics

Sonar arrays
8-60


Underwater coverage area (for objects with 0.05-0.1 Pa noise), sq.km
1-9


Surface coverage area (for objects with 0.05-5 Pa noise), sq.km
30-300


Coastal equipment area, sq.m
20-30


Shift crew
2-4


Power consumption, kW
2-4


Service life, years
10

Graphics 



[What looks like a passive (green hydrophone) and white cables (to carry the 2-4 kW electical power and fibre optic portion for data)] 
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[Electronic/computer sound signal intercept display equipment for the 2 to 4 crew members (working on 6 hour or 12 hour shifts?)]
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[Illustralion how 3 green Sever-E hydrophones detect and triangulate a submarine approaching the Sever-E SOSUS line-array. Something that may happen to Western submarines when they presume their approaches to Russian Northern Fleet and Pacific Fleet bases are "undetected".]"

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous12/14/2019 6:02 PM

    There is a proposed new standards on undersea cables that will transform them into intelligent sensors (you would end up with sensors spaced every few feet). You can use it to detect accurately undersea earthquakes and of course submarines as it detects extremely well in the sub 30 Hz down to just a few Hz. It could even work with all those cables that are already deployed.
    So this Russian technology is old stuff (although it does work).
    KQN

    ReplyDelete
  2. PKJ12/15/2019 8:50 AM

    Old tech?

    I know you can't judge a book by its cover, but that PC looks 1980ish....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pete12/17/2019 4:49 PM

    Thanks KQN

    A reference indicating undersea cables could host piggyback intelligent sensors is http://www.ocean-partners.org/smart-cables-could-turn-future-telecommunications-cables-ocean-spanning-observation-network which points to a regulatory framwork influenced by https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/climatechange/task-force-sc/Pages/default.aspx

    All this may put submarines out of business even faster than Chinese undersea drone swarms.

    So Australia should not put all of its undersea budget into the Attack class. There may be as many Captain-Admiral career progression and industrial opportunities in smaller Australian medium to large UUVs.

    Regards

    Pete

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pete12/17/2019 4:53 PM

    Hi PKJ

    Yes the Russian Sever-E SOSUS computer gear does look old. Perhaps Russia exported it to China in the 1990s and more recently to Vietnam?

    I would say the Russian Navy uses SOSUS gear 2 generations more advanced than Sever-E.

    Regards

    Pete

    ReplyDelete
  5. Pete12/17/2019 5:01 PM

    What this Sever-E SOSUS article would be coming to is that Russia, by offering

    usually sensitive SOSUS gear for sale, wanted to buy ACCESS to the more sensitive Naval

    Intelligence and Electronic Intelligence (NSA) organisations of buyer/customer countries.

    In that construct Russia's arms export agency (Rosoboronexport) would be assisted and part

    staffed by Russian Military Intelligence (GRU). This is noting Russian Defense and Naval

    Attaches in buyer/customer countries would be undercover GRU more often than not.

    ReplyDelete

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