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Originally Posted by missleman01
What kinds of sonar were available on Guppy, Nautilus, Triton, or Skate type boats?
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On Nautilus we had the following (years 1977-80):
BQR-2 cylindrical passive array
BQS-4 active sonar
BQR-4 conformal passive array (predecessor to the BQR-7 on Permint/Sturgeon)
DUUG-2 active intercept system (a French system)
DEMON
"Gertrude" underwater telephone
Of the above BQX systems, the BQR-2 worked best
We didn't have electronic waterfall displays but we did have a pen-and-ink 'time vs bearing' display of broadband noise similar to what is shown in Sub Command/Dangerous Waters.
We also had an early/experimental narrowband processor, but Nautilus was so noisy that narrowband was practically useless.
Here's a sea story 4U:
When I first joined Nautilus I was assigned as Sonar Officer. The BQS-4 system was broke (required a special vacuum tube to fix) and remained out-of-commission for nearly the entire time I was aboard. Finally (sometime in 1979, I believe) the tube arrived and we could do active again. Shortly afterward, we were helping one of the newer 637 boats do a 'workup' prior to deployment. We were supposed to exercise with a surface ship while the other boat tried to covertly collect intel on what we were doing.
Well, we began our exercise and never got a sniff of the 'intruding' sub on passive. Finally, our CO ordered an active search -- when we lit off our active we found the other boat just 1000 yards away!
