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Comment by nwrk | Hacker News Reader

Let me express deep solidary and hope for the crew and families.

On technical note, I keep wondering with all the technology available (satelites, sonars, airplans, thermo, etc.), how is it possible that they are not able to find / detect it ? Understand weather conditions are rough.

And this is the case of multi nations collaboration (best of the best ?).

Looks like submarine is very very powerfull attack vector. (?)

EDIT: Update from Guardian

"Justifying the delay, navy chiefs said that military protocol advises a 48-hour waiting period before beginning search efforts for submarines lost at sea."

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/22/search-for-mis...

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> how is it possible that they are not able to find / detect it ?

The ocean is a very large thing, especially when it needs to be searched in three dimensions.

Even more so when the thing you're searching for is intended to be hard to find.

>>three dimensions

This is definitely the big snag people lose themselves on. They are thinking about the search being in two dimensions, like a map. They aren't thinking about lost ships or planes in three dimensions; a formula squared vs. a formula cubed and how much faster the latter gets out of hand.

But we know it's either on the bottom or the surface right? It needs to use power to balance in the middle somewhere.

It doesn't need to use power. Ballast tanks are a thing.

But irrelevant to the point. Submarines are designed to be hard to find in an environment which very nature already makes things hard to find due to there being so much "stuff" in the way

But realistically it's not going to be neutrally bouyant while submerged. Nonetheless, a much harder task than 2-D x2...

Anything in deep water is hard to detect. Submarines especially so, because they contain stealth technology to defeat trivial detection.

Submarines are stealthy. Very stealthy. She likely has magnets to counteract detection by magnetic anomaly detectors (MAD). Many subs also have anechoic tiles to make them less visible to active sonar (but I don't know if this was the case in this instance).

If its sank and the crew aren't able to deliberately make a lot of sound then it'll have to be found by sonar sweeps.

This survey can be done by the kind of ship that Russia has sent to help find the sub.

It’s entirely possible (even probsble) that one or more countries involved have tech that they could be using to find the sub much more easily, but which they’re holding back for strategic-secrets reasons. Many stealth/antistealth techniques seem to rely on the method being kept secret from adversaries.

Why would they have to reveal the means? Just construct the discovery in parallel with a known technology. Tell everyone that your crews eat a lot of corn and that improves hearing on the sonar headsets.

Revealing that they can pinpoint the sub is already enough information to lose that competing advantage.

Improbable. The South Atlantic isn't of much interest to the major naval powers. Most likely none of them have deployed the dense undersea hydrophone networks necessary to have any chance of tracking a submarine.

I believe it as probable. Say "Submarine found in x waters 145m deep." if this isn't standard, and signals an improvement in current tech, Russia and China will wonder why and start to piece things out.

The problem is that sub designers go to great lengths to make them invisible while underwater. So if it's disabled and can't tell where it is, that's a problem, (or feature since it's stealthy.)

There is no basis in economics or physics for that belief. You're just making things up. Military powers aren't omnipotent.

You vastly, vastly underestimate how hard it is to do what you just said. Consider the inverse square law, then consider how hard it is to illuminate things underwater at a depth where there is little to no ambient light. Consider the limitations of sonar and other technologies at extreme distances.

Then extrapolate that in three dimensions across a major light trafficked area.

I get that militaries keep high-tech stuff secret, but what you are proposing is more akin to magic or teleportation than anything reasonable.

My thesis was that it's possible not to use the most advanced stuff to find them. Sure sucks that Argentinians died, but it would suck more if 1000 US sailors died and we lost the next war.

https://theconversation.com/how-to-find-a-submarine-no-its-n...

Remember when they lost a whole airliner?

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