Quote:
Originally Posted by Zosimus
My sonar guy can hear merchants out to 20,000 meters. Why do you think their sonar guys can't hear flank speed subs out to equal distances?
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Well technically you would be at a bit of an advantage - your sonar guys usually operate their sensor well under the surface, at lower speed, and you're still a quieter target than a noisy merchant.
That said, yup, distance will not save you if you're making too much noise. Worse, at somewhere between 4-6kt (a bit more if you're very deep), your submarine hull starts cavitating - and then it's not engine noise but the bubbles you're making that they're going to hear. At that point, a submarine doing 20kt on the surface is actually going to be "quieter" (or rather harder to pick up by hydrophone) than one doing 8kt underwater. Basically, any submarine - even the most modern ones today - are a loud target as soon as they start cavitating, and there's not much that can be done to combat that except to stay quiet and deep.