by NoOneImportant » Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:22 am
The P8 Poseidon aircraft are vital to keeping track of the Chinese "boomer" missile submarines (all subs actually). The P8 is the newest of the anti sub warfare aircraft just recently going into service in Japan in 2014.
The issue is, quite simply, will we be able to track China's three missile submarines, and other Chinese subs or will we not?
Complex naval vessels are just chocked full of mechanical, and electronic equipment. Each piece of electronic equipment "wants" to radiate -- that is, broadcast, as in a radio transmitter, some are supposed to transmit, most are not. Great effort is given to "silencing" devices on subs whose job is not to specifically transmit. Silencing these devices is vital, as an enemy listening, and receiving these transmissions can identify exactly who, and what is transmitting by performing a complex sequence of signal processing techniques upon the received signals (both intended, and unintended.) This type of listening is old, and had been going on for decades. What it does for the listener is to tell him exactly who he is tracking, specifically; thus the listener knows exactly what his adversary's capability, and capacity is - the process is called Elint for electronic intelligence, or signals intelligence. As difficult as it may seem the objective is to ID and track an enemy sub from the time it leaves its port throughout its entire cruse, regardless of where it may be, or where it might go, back to its home port.
The process of sub tacking is multifaceted, and as the above notes, it uses radio listening equipment, but it also makes use of short lived disposable sonobuoy anti submarine acoustic listening/sensing devices (sound travels for miles in the water) -- literally millions of sonobuoys have been made over the years, and continue to be made. Their sole purpose is to listen and track things - subs, and surface ships also. The sonobouys are dropped by aircraft, ships, and helos -- in this case the P8 Poseidon. The P8 carries almost 130 sonobuoys on each mission/aircraft. The last thing you want to do is to lose a sub - it then becomes a "loose cannon," whereupon everybody scrambles to find it. There are numerous types of sonobuoys with each being battery operated thus having a life time of from hours to several days. The different objectives of the various sonobuoys serve different purposes - listeners tell the sub nothing, but tell the listener what it hears, the sub having no idea he is under scrutiny, the active "pinger" bouys that send out and audible "ping" lets the sub know in no uncertain terms that he is known, and under scrutiny -- "we got ya", or "bang yer dead", if you like that better. The battery operated sonobuoys transmit their information to unmanned loitering aircraft that relay that info to an ops center where the vehicle of interest is tracked continuously.
Different operations on a submarine use different pieces of equipment, in differing ways; thus the continual monitoring of the sub, both audibly, and electronically will tell the listener almost exactly what the sub is in the process of doing, or getting ready to do. Both the listener, and the sub may suspect that the other is there, but what neither knows, or is supposed to know, is what the other is or is not getting from the listening. Although the Chinese actions, regarding the P8s, relay to all that they either know, or believe that we are getting a lot from the listening. It is reasonable to believe that the Chinese probably got much of what they understand about American surveillance ether from the capture in 2001 of an EP-3 surveillance plane or by hacking DOD networks (my guess).
It's the job of the listener to always be able to listen to, and track the sub; it's the job of the sub to avoid being listened to or to be tracked. The Chinese subs are purported to be noisy, and easily tracked; thus the Chinese can't make this generation of subs quiet, so they seek to keep the P8's far from their noisy subs buy making the P8's job hazardous. The Chinese, in so doing, hope to give their missile subs a free hand that brings most of the Western US within the range of their missile subs.
The Chinese have built a huge sub pen beneath a mountain on Hianan Island that is purported to be imperious to even direct nuclear attack. The dash 9 line claimed by China in 1949 is demarkation of Chinese claimed territory in the South China Sea. As such it restricts P8s to several hundred miles from Hianan. Obtaining airbase cooperation from Malaysia permits no undetected exit for the Chinese submarines out of the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean.
In the final analysis the Chinese have come to believe that America is weak, and as such will refrain from a direct confrontation, and will fear an incident, and thus restrict P8 flights. The Malaysia news is not good news for China. The questions becomes how far is China prepared to take the brinksmanship? Are they prepared to make good on their recent threat, and "accidentally" take down one or more P8s?
The P8 Poseidon aircraft are vital to keeping track of the Chinese "boomer" missile submarines (all subs actually). The P8 is the newest of the anti sub warfare aircraft just recently going into service in Japan in 2014.
The issue is, quite simply, will we be able to track China's three missile submarines, and other Chinese subs or will we not?
Complex naval vessels are just chocked full of mechanical, and electronic equipment. Each piece of electronic equipment "wants" to radiate -- that is, broadcast, as in a radio transmitter, some are supposed to transmit, most are not. Great effort is given to "silencing" devices on subs whose job is not to specifically transmit. Silencing these devices is vital, as an enemy listening, and receiving these transmissions can identify exactly who, and what is transmitting by performing a complex sequence of signal processing techniques upon the received signals (both intended, and unintended.) This type of listening is old, and had been going on for decades. What it does for the listener is to tell him exactly who he is tracking, specifically; thus the listener knows exactly what his adversary's capability, and capacity is - the process is called Elint for electronic intelligence, or signals intelligence. As difficult as it may seem the objective is to ID and track an enemy sub from the time it leaves its port throughout its entire cruse, regardless of where it may be, or where it might go, back to its home port.
The process of sub tacking is multifaceted, and as the above notes, it uses radio listening equipment, but it also makes use of short lived disposable sonobuoy anti submarine acoustic listening/sensing devices (sound travels for miles in the water) -- literally millions of sonobuoys have been made over the years, and continue to be made. Their sole purpose is to listen and track things - subs, and surface ships also. The sonobouys are dropped by aircraft, ships, and helos -- in this case the P8 Poseidon. The P8 carries almost 130 sonobuoys on each mission/aircraft. The last thing you want to do is to lose a sub - it then becomes a "loose cannon," whereupon everybody scrambles to find it. There are numerous types of sonobuoys with each being battery operated thus having a life time of from hours to several days. The different objectives of the various sonobuoys serve different purposes - listeners tell the sub nothing, but tell the listener what it hears, the sub having no idea he is under scrutiny, the active "pinger" bouys that send out and audible "ping" lets the sub know in no uncertain terms that he is known, and under scrutiny -- "we got ya", or "bang yer dead", if you like that better. The battery operated sonobuoys transmit their information to unmanned loitering aircraft that relay that info to an ops center where the vehicle of interest is tracked continuously.
Different operations on a submarine use different pieces of equipment, in differing ways; thus the continual monitoring of the sub, both audibly, and electronically will tell the listener almost exactly what the sub is in the process of doing, or getting ready to do. Both the listener, and the sub may suspect that the other is there, but what neither knows, or is supposed to know, is what the other is or is not getting from the listening. Although the Chinese actions, regarding the P8s, relay to all that they either know, or believe that we are getting a lot from the listening. It is reasonable to believe that the Chinese probably got much of what they understand about American surveillance ether from the capture in 2001 of an EP-3 surveillance plane or by hacking DOD networks (my guess).
It's the job of the listener to always be able to listen to, and track the sub; it's the job of the sub to avoid being listened to or to be tracked. The Chinese subs are purported to be noisy, and easily tracked; thus the Chinese can't make this generation of subs quiet, so they seek to keep the P8's far from their noisy subs buy making the P8's job hazardous. The Chinese, in so doing, hope to give their missile subs a free hand that brings most of the Western US within the range of their missile subs.
The Chinese have built a huge sub pen beneath a mountain on Hianan Island that is purported to be imperious to even direct nuclear attack. The dash 9 line claimed by China in 1949 is demarkation of Chinese claimed territory in the South China Sea. As such it restricts P8s to several hundred miles from Hianan. Obtaining airbase cooperation from Malaysia permits no undetected exit for the Chinese submarines out of the South China Sea into the Indian Ocean.
In the final analysis the Chinese have come to believe that America is weak, and as such will refrain from a direct confrontation, and will fear an incident, and thus restrict P8 flights. The Malaysia news is not good news for China. The questions becomes how far is China prepared to take the brinksmanship? Are they prepared to make good on their recent threat, and "accidentally" take down one or more P8s?