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Comment by maxander | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

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