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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

That made me wonder if anyone had tried tracking submarines based on the heat they leave behind - turns out the Soviets had a technique that integrated various sources including heat :

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The Swedes sunk the USS Ronald Regan in war games using a sterling engine powered sub. It makes it hard to track since it doesn't have the traditional explosion noises of a diesel and it lacks the heat sink noise of water cooling a nuclear core.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCdvAp5cow&t=354s

Diesel subs don’t operate their engines while submerged unless they are recharging in safe waters, so there aren’t any ‘explosion noises’. They have batteries that are used for propulsion, and the Diesel engines are technically generators, as their propulsion system is electric - like a train.

YT link without a time point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saCdvAp5cow

I don't really think submarines are going to stay stealth from major powers for much longer. Underwater drones are too easy and once they lock on a sub they can follow it constantly.

The ocean is a really, really, really big place. You don't even have to submerge in order to stay relatively hidden. We don't publish the exact coordinates of carrier groups because they're really hard to find when underway. You can fly a plane around for days looking for one and not find squat.

No number of drones that we can realistically produce and operate can adequately blanket the ocean. The Pacific ocean is bigger than all of the Earth's landmasses combined. Imagine trying to find a ship-sized vehicle moving through an area the size of Wyoming by plane, that's about how hard it is to find a whole carrier group just moving on the surface of the water, with publicly available information.

Without it, you're looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Wyoming.

Carrier groups aren't hidden from powers with reasonable satellite constellations or radar / sonar groups. They're hidden from Iraq or Saudi Arabia or the journalists at the New York Times.

And my first thought was like your's, but I came to think that between subullites, refined SIGINT analysis for surfaced subs, and the few locations on earth we know manufacture these things I think it's going to be more possible to follow submarines than you're making it out to be.

Humans have to disembark these things, at least if we want humans on them. Even in a future where all subs are autonomous they'll still need to be manufactured somewhere and will still require supply (re)provisioning.

But I'm open to changing my mind on this if you have a special insight.

We already follow subs using our subs using this kind of information. Drones don't meaningfully affect this state of affairs.

Really?

Surface area of planet Earth: 500M km2.

Horizon radius at a height of mount everest: 300km.

Surface area visible: 282K km2.

Number of drones needed to cover the area: 1773.

Multiply it by 5 to 10 to be sure.

Incredibly realistic.

Why not make them fly higher so you can increase the horizon even farther? In fact, why not put them in orbit?

Yeah, but orbit is predictable and traceable, while drones could also fly under the clouds if required. I just don't understand the "Earth is so huge" argument.

Is it, really? I've thought the only reason we can do drone strikes in Syria is exactly because it's really hard to hide if you're always being tracked.

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