declassified CIA document makes for interesting reading

[raalst]

Have a look at this article :

https://hackaday.com/2020/01/10/hide-silent-hide-deep-submarine-tracking-technologies-of-the-cold-war/

Regards,
Ronald

[Ralph --- SSBN 598]

Enjoyed the article and enjoyed the videos on the page.

[tom dougherty]

Thanks for posting this article link. Interesting that almost 50 years later, sections of the report are still redacted. I wonder if that means certain technologies have matured and are now employed for tracking. Certainly some Russian SSNs were equipped with wake detectors on their sails or raised from the hulls.

At one point in the Cold War, the Russians were employing radar satellites that could detect millimeter surface wakes from submerged submarines. They needed a significant power sources, so the Russians employed a miniature nuclear reactor. But in 1978, one such satellite, Kosmos 954, had control problems and the ability to eject the reactor core into a higher orbit was lost. The reactor re-entered and left a 370 mile smear of radioactive debris over western Canada. Lesson learned? No, as Kosmos 1402 also failed, dropping its reactor into the South Atlantic in 1983. How well such orbital radar detection systems work has not been discussed in the open literature that I am aware of.