![1st-SOUSE-sensors](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/1st-SOUSE-sensors.png)
The Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) was a
submarine detection system
Submarine detection systems are an aspect of antisubmarine warfare. They are of particular importance in nuclear deterrence, as they directly undermine one of the three arms of the nuclear triad by making counter-force attacks on submarines possib ...
based on
passive sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on or ...
developed by the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
to track
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
submarines. The system's true nature was classified with the name and acronym SOSUS themselves classified. The unclassified name ''Project Caesar'' was used to cover the installation of the system and a cover story developed regarding the shore stations, identified only as a Naval Facility (NAVFAC), being for oceanographic research. In 1985, as the fixed bottom arrays were supplemented by the mobile
Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System
The AN/UQQ-2 Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS), colloquially referred to as the ship's "Tail", is a towed array sonar system of the United States Navy.
SURTASS Twin-Line consists of either the long passive SURTASS array or the Twi ...
(SURTASS) and other new systems were coming on line, the name itself changed to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS). The commands and personnel were covered by the "oceanographic" term until 1991 when the mission was declassified. As a result, the commands, Oceanographic System Atlantic and Oceanographic System Pacific became Undersea Surveillance Atlantic and Undersea Surveillance Pacific, and personnel were able to wear insignia reflecting the mission.
![GIUK gap](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/GIUK_gap.png)
The system was capable of oceanic surveillance with the long ranges made possible by exploiting the
deep sound channel
The SOFAR channel (short for sound fixing and ranging channel), or deep sound channel (DSC), is a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and low ...
, or SOFAR channel. An indication of ranges is the first detection, recognition and reporting of a Soviet nuclear submarine coming into the Atlantic through the
Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap by an array terminating at
NAVFAC Barbados on 6 July 1962. The linear arrays with hydrophones placed on slopes within the sound channel enabled
beamforming
Beamforming or spatial filtering is a signal processing technique used in sensor arrays for directional signal transmission or reception. This is achieved by combining elements in an antenna array in such a way that signals at particular angles e ...
processing at the shore facilities to form azimuthal beams. When two or more arrays held a contact, triangulation provided approximate positions for air or surface assets to localize.
[Before the nature of the arrays became known, many writers assumed SOSUS was a barrier system, rather than arrays giving surveillance of entire ocean basins. An associated program, ''Colossus'', was such a system intended to be installed across straits.]
SOSUS grew out of tasking in 1949 to scientists and engineers to study the problem of
antisubmarine warfare
Anti-submarine warfare (ASW, or in older form A/S) is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, submarines, or other platforms, to find, track, and deter, damage, or destroy enemy submarines. Such operations are ty ...
. It was implemented as a chain of underwater hydrophone arrays linked by cable, based on commercial telephone technology, to shore stations located around the western Atlantic Ocean from
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
to
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...
. The first experimental array was a six-element test array laid at
Eleuthera
Eleuthera () refers both to a single island in the archipelagic state of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and to its associated group of smaller islands. Eleuthera forms a part of the Great Bahama Bank. The island of Eleuthera incorporates the ...
in the
Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...
in 1951, followed, after successful experiments with a target submarine, in 1952 by a fully-functional , forty-hydrophone array. At that time the order for stations was increased from six to nine. The then-secret 1960 Navy film ''Watch in the Sea'' describes the production arrays as being long. In 1954, the order was increased by three more Atlantic stations and an extension into the Pacific, with six stations on the West Coast and one in Hawaii.
In September 1954,
Naval Facility Ramey was commissioned in Puerto Rico. Others of the first Atlantic phase followed, and in 1957 the original operational array at Eleuthera got an operational shore facility as the last of the first phase of Atlantic systems. The same year, the Pacific systems began to be installed and activated. Over the next three decades, more systems were added;
NAVFAC Keflavik, Iceland in 1966 and NAVFAC Guam in 1968 being examples of expansion beyond the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific. Shore upgrades and new cable technology allowed system consolidation until by 1980 that process had resulted in many closures of the NAVFACs with centralized processing at a new type facility, Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF), that by 1981 saw one for each ocean and mass closing of the NAVFACs.
As the new mobile systems came on line, SOSUS arrays themselves were deactivated and some turned over for scientific research. The surveillance aspect continues with new systems under Commander, Undersea Surveillance.
History
SOSUS history began in 1949 when the US Navy approached the Committee for Undersea Warfare, an academic advisory group formed in 1946 under the
National Academy of Sciences, to research antisubmarine warfare.
As a result, the Navy formed a study group designated ''Project Hartwell'', named for the University of Pennsylvania's Dr. G.P. Hartwell who was the Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Undersea Warfare,
[An alternative story is that it was named for a local bar popular with MIT faculty.] under at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
(MIT) leadership. The Hartwell panel recommended spending of annually to develop systems to counter the Soviet submarine threat consisting primarily of a large fleet of diesel submarines.
That group also recommended a system to monitor low-frequency sound in the
SOFAR channel
The SOFAR channel (short for sound fixing and ranging channel), or deep sound channel (DSC), is a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and lo ...
using multiple listening sites equipped with
hydrophone
A hydrophone ( grc, ὕδωρ + φωνή, , water + sound) is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potenti ...
s and a processing facility that could calculate submarine positions over hundreds of miles.
[The cited Project HARTWELL report first links arrays with fleet type submarines towing such an array in the GIUK then refers to potential exploitation of the deep sound channel low frequency sounds.]
Research
As a result of the Hartwell group's recommendations, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) contracted with American Telephone and Telegraph Company
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...
(AT&T), with its Bell Laboratories
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...
research and Western Electric manufacturing elements, to develop a long range, passive detection system, based on bottom arrays of hydrophones. The system, using equipment termed Low Frequency Analyzer and Recorder and a process termed Low Frequency Analysis and Recording, both with the acronym LOFAR, was to be based on AT&T's sound spectrograph, developed for speech analysis and modified to analyze low-frequency underwater sounds. This research and development effort was given the name ''Project Jezebel''. The origin of the project name was explained by Dr. Robert Frosch to Senator Stennis during a 1968 hearing. It was because of the low frequencies, "about the A below middle C on the piano" (about 100-150 cycles) and "Jezebel" being chosen because "she was of low character."
Jezebel and LOFAR branched into the localization of submarines with the AN/SSQ-28 passive omnidirectional Jezebel-LOFAR sonobuoy introduced in 1956 for use by the air antisubmarine forces. That sonobuoy gave the aircraft cued by SOSUS access to the same low frequency and LOFAR capability as SOSUS. Bell Telephone Laboratories time delay correlation was used to fix target position with two or more sonobuoys in a technique named COrrelation Detection And Ranging (CODAR). This, and later specialized, sonobuoys equipped with a small explosive charge could be used in an active mode to detect the echo off the target. The active mode was named by engineers developing the technique "Julie" after a burlesque dancer whose "performance could turn passive buoys active."
Related research, based at Columbia University's Hudson Laboratory, was designated ''Project Michael''. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering.
Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it ...
and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography were also tasked to develop an understanding of long-range sound transmission under ''Project Michael''.[ The need to better understand the acoustic environment drove much of the oceanographic research by both the Navy and institutions with Navy funding for oceanography. A major, long-term research program spanning over 25 years, the ]Long Range Acoustic Propagation Program
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mensu ...
(LRAPP), made significant progress in such understanding and influenced decisions in SOSUS, significantly the SOSUS expansion into the eastern Atlantic.[The sometimes mentioned ''Sea Spider'' "system" was simply a complex and unsuccessful experiment with a very large suspended array in the Pacific. It was part of LRAPP as noted on page 181 of the reference. The experiment was part of th]
Pacific Acoustic Research Kaneohe — Alaska (PARKA) II
experiment in 1969. Parts of Sea Spider ended up off Bermuda, designated ''Testbed'' for more experiments. That array was installed by unusual cable and installation vessel ''Naubuc'' but also failed (See ''Naubuc'').
Development and installation
The hardware technology was largely that of the commercial telephone system and oil exploration. Cable laying was a capability AT&T and other entities had developed for decades for commercial communications cables. The understanding of the ocean acoustic environment made the system possible rather than development of new technology. SOSUS was a case of new understanding of the environment and then application of largely existing technology and even equipment to the problem.
The forty hydrophones spaced on the array provided the aperture for signal processing to form horizontal azimuthal beams of two to five degrees wide, each beam with a LOFAR analyzer and capability to do narrow-band frequency analysis to discriminate signal from ocean noise and to identify specific frequencies associated with rotating machinery. The NAVFAC watch floor had banks of displays using electrostatic paper, similar to that used for echograms in depth finders.
The product of these displays was the LOFARgram which graphically represented acoustic energy and frequency against time. Those were examined by the personnel trained to identify submarine signatures.[ When two or more arrays held a target the bearings from each array gave an estimated target position by triangulation.][ The system could provide cuing information on the presence of the submarines and an approximate location for air or surface antisubmarine warfare assets to localize the target. The first Atlantic stations, ranging from ]Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
to Barbados, formed a long line semicircle looking into the Western Atlantic basin with geographic separation for contact correlation and triangulation.[
]
Security
The combination of research and engineering under ''Jezebel'' and ''Michael'' into an actual broad area surveillance system as seen by Project Hartwell's Frederick V. Hunt became the Sound Surveillance System with the acronym SOSUS. Both the full name and acronym were classified. There were occasional slips. A contractor for the Office of Naval Research, Fleet Analysis and Support Division published an unclassified report with "SOSUS" in association with the system acronym "SOSS", defined as "Sound Search Station," and a capability to display data from sonobuoys side by side on either aircraft or SOSS displays in contact classification as either friendly or unfriendly targets. The unclassified name ''Project Caesar'' was given to cover development and installation of the resulting system.[
A cover story was developed to explain the visible shore installations, the Naval Facilities, and the commands under which they fell. The cover explained that data gathered by oceanographic and acoustic surveys with ships could at times be collected "more expeditiously and more economically by means of shore stations. These are the U. S. Naval Facilities." The cover extended to the names of the commands and training of personnel with overall commands designated Ocean Systems Atlantic and Ocean Systems Pacific, and terms such as Ocean Technician Tand Oceanographic Research Watch Officer given to Naval Facility personnel.][ Despite being qualified for a warfare specialty and its symbols, the Navy personnel in the small SOSUS community could not do so for the sake of secrecy until the mission became public in 1991. The Ocean System commands, COMOCEANSYSLANT (COSL) and COMOCEANSYSPAC (COSP), then began to reflect their true nature as Undersea Surveillance commands COMUNDERSEASURVLANT (CUSL) and COMUNDERSEASURVPAC (CUSP) under the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) name that had come into effect in 1985 as systems other than fixed emerged.][
SOSUS was closely held on a strict need-to-know basis that was close to Sensitive Compartmented Information even though it was classified at the ]Secret
Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret.
Secrecy is often controvers ...
level. Even the Fleet had little knowledge of the system or its function. Contact data reaching the fleet was in a strictly formatted message designated RAINFORM, hiding the source, that the fleet often did not understand without reference to publications to understand the form's fields and codes. As a result, people in the fleet often did not know of the system's dedicated antisubmarine mission. Even when they knew they often did not know of its actual performance or exact role. This later had implications as the Cold War ended and budgets became an issue. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the system was opened to tactical use and the fleet began to see the contact information in other formats readily understandable by fleet antisubmarine forces. In 1997 the RAINFORM was abandoned and replaced.[
For much of the system's operation, direct action based on SOSUS contacts was avoided. An example was subject to a box piece in the January 5, 1981 issue of ''Newsweek'' titled "A Soviet War of Nerves" concerning an incident from August 1978. An alert to Atlantic Fleet, Strategic Air Command (SAC) and the Pentagon came from "underwater listening devices at several secret Navy installations" that two Yankee class nuclear-armed submarines had left their usual patrol areas 1,200 miles out in the Atlantic and were getting dangerously close. That approach raised the threat level to several SAC bases along the coast. Rather than prosecute the contacts and reveal how closely the system could track the submarines, the SAC bases put more bombers on ready alert assuming the Soviets would notice. The submarines did not withdraw so SAC dispersed the bombers to bases as far away as Texas. Though there is no positive proof that action was the cause, the Yankees moved back to their usual areas and had not moved close to the U.S. coast again at the time of the piece.
The original Naval Facilities and later, consolidated, processing centers were high security installations characterized by an outer security fence and gate checkpoint. The terminal buildings within were double fenced with separate entry security. Not all personnel assigned to the facility had access to the operational part of the installations. The early arrangement can be seen in the vertical photograph of Naval Facility Nantucket and later in the photograph of Naval Facility Brawdy below. Equipment in the terminal buildings was installed by specially cleared Western Electric Company personnel.]
Initial installations
Western Electric and ONR representatives met on 29 October 1950 to draft a contract that was signed as a letter contract on 13 November to build a demonstration system. The contract was managed by Bureau of Ships (BuShips) with then Ensign Joseph P. Kelly, later Captain and termed "Father of SOSUS," assigned. An experimental six-element hydrophone array was installed on the island of Eleuthera
Eleuthera () refers both to a single island in the archipelagic state of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and to its associated group of smaller islands. Eleuthera forms a part of the Great Bahama Bank. The island of Eleuthera incorporates the ...
in the Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...
during 1951. Meanwhile, ''Project Jezebel'' and ''Project Michael'' focused on studying long range acoustics in the ocean.[
From 2–19 January 1952 the British cable layer installed the first full sized, long, forty transducer element operational array in off Eleuthera in the Bahamas.][Her Majesty's Telegraph Ship]
H.M.T.S. ''Alert''
was a British General Post Office cable layer built in 1915. Successful tests with a target submarine resulted in the order to install a total of nine arrays along the coast of the Western North Atlantic. The 1960 secret, limited distribution Navy film ''Watch in the Sea'', contains a segment at about 9:22 minutes into the film concerning the search for a suitable array location and laying the array. It describes the operational arrays as being long. In 1954 ten additional arrays were ordered with three more in the Atlantic, six on the Pacific coast and one in Hawaii.[
]
The cable ships ''Neptune'' and ''Albert J. Myer'' were acquired to support ''Project Caesar'' with later addition of the cable ships ''Aeolus'' and ''Thor''. Other ships were added for acoustic and bathymetric surveys and cable support.[
]
Operational systems
SOSUS systems consisted of bottom-mounted hydrophone
A hydrophone ( grc, ὕδωρ + φωνή, , water + sound) is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates an electric potenti ...
arrays connected by underwater cables to facilities ashore. The individual arrays were installed primarily on continental slope
A continental margin is the outer edge of continental crust abutting oceanic crust under coastal waters. It is one of the three major zones of the ocean floor, the other two being deep-ocean basins and mid-ocean ridges. The continental margin ...
s and seamounts at the axis of the deep sound channel and normal Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to:
Film and television
* ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson
* ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie
* ''Norma ...
to the direction in which they were to cover. The combination of location within the ocean and the sensitivity of arrays allowed the system to detect acoustic power of less than a single watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James ...
at ranges of several hundred kilometres. SOSUS shore terminal processing stations were designated with the vague, generic name of Naval Facility (NAVFAC).[ By the 1980s improved communications technology allowed the array data once processed in individual Naval Facilities to be sent to central processing centers (Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF)) for centralized processing of multiple fixed and mobile array information.]
The first systems were limited by the commercial telephone cable technology for the application requiring a shore facility within about from the array and thus within that distance from the continental shelf locations suitable for the array.[ The cable of the time consisted of multi-pair wire connected to the forty hydrophones of the array. New coaxial multiplexed commercial telephone system cable, designated SB, using a single wire for all hydrophones allowed major changes with the prototype installed in 1962 at Eleuthera.][Th]
USS ''Aeolus'' Association
website has a photo of a display of the first three types o
Project Caesar cables
The upgrades made possible by the multiplexed coaxial cable were designated Caesar Phase III. Caesar Phase IV was associated with major upgrades in shore processing with Digital Spectrum Analysis (DSA) backfits at the stations replacing original equipment during the late 1960s. In September 1972 a third generation coaxial cable, again based on commercial developments at Bell Labs and designated SD-C, was installed for the system terminating at Naval Facility Centerville Beach
In 1958 Naval Facility (NAVFAC) Centerville Beach was the third SOSUS, Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) shore terminal, in which output of the array at sea was processed and displayed by means of the Low Frequency Analyzer and Recorder (LOFAR), ...
, California. The SD-C cable was the basis for a fourth generation of sonar sets with installation of the Lightweight Undersea Components (LUSC) involving new shore equipment in 1984. In June 1994 an entirely new cable system was introduced with fiber optic cable.[
]
Cable technology and signal processing improved and upgrades were made to the original installations. Cable technology made it possible to site arrays further from shore into the ocean basins. New signal processing capabilities allowed for innovations such as the split array in which a single line array was divided into segments, each separately processed, then electronically recombined to form narrower beams for better bearing and cross fixes between arrays. Augmenting these local improvements was the increased central processing in centers that eventually became the Naval Oceanographic Processing Facilities. There the contacts of multiple arrays were correlated with other intelligence sources in order to cue and provide the search area for air and surface antisubmarine assets to localize and prosecute.[
The system was considered a strategic, not tactical, system at the time and part of continental defense. In military construction hearings during 1964 before the Senate Committee on Armed Services the request for funding of recreational and other support buildings for the Naval Facility Cape Hatteras the Navy noted it was part of a program supporting continental air and missile defense forces without mention of its role in tracking Soviet missile submarines.]
Chronology
1950s
In 1954 the Fleet Sonar School The Fleet Sonar School was a United States Navy facility located at Naval Station Key West, Florida for the training of Service personnel in Sonar techniques and equipment, and Anti-submarine warfare.
The facility opened in 1940, after personnel ...
at Key West established a Sound Search Course for training personnel. The highly classified program was behind the "Green Door" which became a name for the program itself as well as being seen as a term for the secrecy.
In 1954 three full systems to include a NAVFAC terminus were installed with arrays terminating at NAVFACs at Ramey Air Force Base, Puerto Rico in September, Grand Turk in October, and San Salvador in December.[For details on locations, including photographs, se]
"Past IUSS Sites"
Systems terminating at Naval Facility Bermuda
Naval Facility Bermuda, or NAVFAC Bermuda, was the operational shore terminus for one of the Atlantic Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) array systems installed during the first phase of system installation and in commission from 1955 until 1992. ...
, Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Nantucket, and Cape May
Cape May consists of a peninsula and barrier island system in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is roughly coterminous with Cape May County and runs southwards from the New Jersey mainland, separating Delaware Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The so ...
were installed during 1955. Systems terminating at Naval Facility Cape Hatteras and Naval Facility Antigua and two Evaluation Centers, forerunners of NOPFs, were established in New York and Norfolk during 1956. The initial array at Eleuthera got a fully functioning NAVFAC with an additional system for the Atlantic at Barbados and the first of the Pacific systems at San Nicolas Island
San Nicolas Island ( Spanish: ''Isla de San Nicolás''; Tongva: ''Haraasnga'') is the most remote of the Channel Islands, off of Southern California, 61 miles (98 km) from the nearest point on the mainland coast. It is part of Ventura Cou ...
came in 1957. During 1958 the remainder of the Pacific stations at Naval Facility Point Sur
Naval Facility Point Sur was one of 30 secret sites worldwide that were built during the Cold War to detect Soviet submarines. In 1958, the U.S. Navy built a Naval Facility (NAVFAC) ½ mile south of Point Sur on the Big Sur coast to provide subma ...
and Centerville Beach in California and Pacific Beach, Washington
Pacific Beach is a census-designated place (CDP) in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States. The population was 291 at the 2010 census. Prior to 2010 it was part of the Moclips CDP.
Geography
Pacific Beach is located in western Grays Ha ...
, and Coos Head near Coos Bay, Oregon were installed.[
Six Pacific coast systems had been planned but only five Naval Facilities were constructed. The northernmost system off Vancouver Island was to terminate in Canada but a change in government there precluded a facility in Canada at the time. The sixth array, requiring redesign of the cable and repeater system, was thus terminated at Naval Facility Pacific Beach, making it a dual array facility.][
]
From 1958 to 1960 Project Caesar assets began work installing the Missile Impact Location System The Missile Impact Location System or Missile Impact Locating System (MILS)Both full names are found in references. is an ocean acoustic system designed to locate the impact position of test missile nose cones at the ocean's surface and then the pos ...
(MILS), based on technology and installation methods similar to those for SOSUS, in support of Air Force ICBM tests. The survey and installation focus in that period was on installation of MILS in the Atlantic and Pacific test ranges.[The similarity is seen in the 1962 Bell Telephone System advertisemen]
"How the ocean grew 'ears' to pinpoint missile shots"
Arrays of hydrophones placed around the target area located the missile warhead by means of measuring arrival times of the explosion at the various hydrophones of a SOFAR charge in the test warhead. During that period an atypical SOSUS system was installed in 1959 at Argentia, Newfoundland
Argentia ( ) is a Canadian commercial seaport and industrial park located in the Town of Placentia, Newfoundland and Labrador. It is situated on the southwest coast of the Avalon Peninsula and defined by a triangular shaped headland which r ...
to provide surveillance for approaches to Hudson Bay. It was a shallow water, curved array with ten eight-element arrays installed on two cables with each cable having the capacity for the usual forty elements.[
]
1960s
In 1962 a new system was installed terminating at Naval Facility Adak in the Aleutians
The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large vo ...
. The system terminating at Cape May was rerouted to a new Naval Facility Lewes, Delaware, with upgraded processing, after the NAVFAC Cape May had been destroyed in the "Ash Wednesday" Storm.[The web pag]
A Century of Service: The U.S. Navy on Cape Henlopen
has a detailed description with photos and illustrations of this NAVFAC and the cable and array locations. The original phonetic name for the system was GEORGE. The photo of a cross section of the old 21 quad cable is of particular interest.[
NAVFAC Argentia got a 2X20 element array in 1963. A 1965 decision to deploy systems to the ]Norwegian Sea
The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to ...
was followed in 1966 with a system terminating at Keflavik, Iceland with the first 3X16 array system while Western Electric installed data links by land line to OCEANSYSLANT and OCEANSYSPAC. New systems were installed during 1968 at Midway Island
Midway Atoll (colloquial: Midway Islands; haw, Kauihelani, translation=the backbone of heaven; haw, Pihemanu, translation=the loud din of birds, label=none) is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the Unit ...
and Guam
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
. COMOCEANSYSPAC relocated to Ford Island, Hawaii
Ford Island ( haw, Poka Ailana) is an islet in the center of Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. It has been known as Rabbit Island, Marín's Island, and Little Goats Island, and its native Hawaiian name is ''Mokuumeume''. The isl ...
from Treasure Island, California
Treasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco Bay and a neighborhood in the City and County of San Francisco. Built in 1936–37 for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, the island's World's Fair site is a California Hist ...
. The shallow water system at Argentia was deactivated.[
In 1965 was acquired as a bathymetric survey ship.] The satellite communications ship joined the project in 1967 for acoustic and bathymetric work.
1970s
The first NAVFAC decommissioning took place with the isolated duty station at NAVFAC San Salvador, Bahamas shut down on 31 January 1970.[ The old station is now home of the Gerace Research Center. NAVFAC Barbers Point is commissioned. A system wide modernization began in 1972. Argentia became a joint Canadian Forces and U.S. Navy facility. NAVFAC Ramey becomes NAVFAC Punta Borinquen in 1974. Further NAVFACs shut down in 1976 with NAVFACs Punta Borinquen and Nantucket decommissioned. NAVFAC Barbados was decommissioned in 1979.][
In 1974 Naval Facility Brawdy, Wales was established as the terminus of new arrays covering the eastern Atlantic. NAVFAC Brawdy became the first "super NAVFAC" with some four hundred U.S. and United Kingdom military and civilian personnel assigned.][The Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) appears to be a "super NAVFAC" with processing of multiple array data, often by joint allied forces. Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF), Dam Neck, Virginia, in 1980 with Western Atlantic consolidation was the first of the NOPFs to be so named. With closure of NAVFAC Brawdy and its array data remoted to Joint Maritime Facility (JMF), St Mawgan the later Integrated Undersea Surveillance System character of the consolidated, joint centers was achieved. Ultimately that JMF itself was "remoted" across the Atlantic to Dam Neck.] The facility () was adjacent to the Royal Air Force Station Brawdy which had returned to RAF control during February 1974 after closure in 1971.
In 1975 left Naval Research Laboratory
The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. It was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, applied research, technological ...
service and joined Project Caesar. In April 1974 the ship was reported as already being funded by Naval Electronics Systems Command (NAVELEX), where the project program management resided, and no longer funded as an oceanographic ship. By 1979 it was the most recently built ship of the five project ships that then included cable repair ships ''Albert J. Myer'' and ''Neptune'' due for modernization and the larger repair ship ''Aeolus'' that was uneconomical to repair and marginal as a cable ship.[Both ''Aeolus'' and ''Thor'' had been conversions from ''Artemis'' class AKA types of unusually shallow draft. Cable ships were designed for deep draft with high capacity cable tank storage and ability to maintain station during stopped or low speed repair operations in poor weather. The AKA conversions could not carry a full cable load and full fuel load without exceeding maximum draft. A major deficiency for a modern cable laying ship, rather than dedicated repair ship, was lack of stern laying capability. Neither of the larger repair ships could be modified for that. On some operations, they had to be towed from astern by a tug in order to lay cable over the bow sheaves using cable machinery forward. They even had dual sets of running lights installed so the stern could be the bow and show proper lights.] ''Kingsport'' was still with the project. The Navy was requesting four fully functional cable ships, the modernized ''Albert J. Myer'' and ''Neptune'' and two large new ships. The two new ships were to be designed as modern cable ships, fully capable of cable and survey work.[
]
1980s
In 1980 consolidation and elimination of expensive individual facilities was made possible by the Wideband Acoustic Data Relay (WADR) first installed at Midway Island in January 1982 so that the two Midway arrays could eventually be remoted directly to NOPF Ford Island. This first generation WADR was used to consolidate array data from the California facilities at San Nicolas Island and Point Sur in 1984. Those were followed by remoting Hawaii's Barber's Point in 1985, the Pacific Northwest arrays at Pacific Beach and Coos Head in 1987, and Bermuda in the Atlantic in 1992. A second generation WADR allowed the consolidation of the Aleutian station at Adak in 1993, the North Atlantic's Argentia in 1995, and those termed "Special Projects" in 1997 and 1998.[
The western Atlantic system consolidation was centered on the establishment of the Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) at Dam Neck, Virginia beginning with closure of NAVFACs Eleuthera and Grand Turk. During 1981 Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF), Ford Island became operational and the decommissioning of NAVFAC Midway with that system's data routed to NAVFAC Barbers Point was completed. NAVFAC Lewes, Delaware closed that year.][ NAVFAC Cape Hatteras closed in 1982 and in 1983 Midway acoustic data was rerouted directly to Naval Ocean Processing Facility, Ford Island.][
]
In 1984 the first SURTASS vessel, arrives at Little Creek, Virginia
Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt
* ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film
*The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...
. , the one new cable ship of the requested two, enters the "Caesar fleet" for operations. Atlantic NAVFAC Antigua and Pacific NAVFACs at San Nicolas Island and Point Sur in California closed. Point Sur acoustic data was routed to NAVFAC Centerville. Consolidation and new systems brought further change in 1985. NAVFAC Barbers Point closes with acoustic data directed to NOPF, Ford Island. The Fixed Distributed System (FDS) test array, a new type of fixed bottom system, terminus was made at NAVFAC Brawdy, Wales. ''Stalwart'' makes first SURTASS operational patrol and system name is changed from SOSUS to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS). Consolidation continued in 1987 with NAVFAC Whidbey Island, Washington, established with NAVFAC Pacific Beach's acoustic data routed to that facility. During 1991 NAVFAC Guam, Mariana Islands closed.[
]
1990s
USNS ''Stalwart'' and monohull SURTASS ships were withdrawn with SWATH hull accepted by the Navy during 1992. That year the system got Chief of Naval Operations tasking to report whale detections.[
More original NAVFACs closed during 1993 with NAVFACs Centerville Beach, California and Adak, Alaska closing with their acoustic data routed to NAVFAC Whidbey Island. The facility at Whidbey, with multiple systems terminating there became Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) Whidbey. During 1994 Canadian Forces Shelburne, Nova Scotia closes as does NAVFAC Argentia with HMCS ''Trinity'' established at Halifax Nova Scotia with operation as Canadian Forces IUSS Centre (CFIC). NAVFAC Bermuda data is routed to Naval Ocean Processing Facility (NOPF) at Dam Neck. The new Advanced Deployable System enters as a part of IUSS and NAVFAC Brawdy, Wales closes with equipment and operation transferred to Joint Maritime Facility St Mawgan during 1995. During 1996 NAVFAC Keflavik Iceland closes and the new Fixed Distributed System Initial Operational Capability is accomplished.][ In 1997 the Adak system reverts to "wet storage."][
]
2000 to 2010
is commissioned as the first SURTASS/Low Frequency Active (LFA) surveillance ship in 2000. In 2003 the new Advanced Deployable System (ADS) completes dual array testing. Extensive changes both with shore and sea assets take place over the following years as post Cold War missions change and systems are applied in new ways. Further consolidation takes place such as in 2009 when Joint Maritime Facility, St. Mawgan in the U.K. has data remoted directly to NOPF Dam Neck and is decommissioned. British and US Forces then begin joint, combined operations at NOPF Dam Neck.[
]
Management and commands
Project Caesar, from initial bathymetric and acoustical surveys through cable installation and turnover to operations, was managed by Bureau of Ships (BuShips) from 1951 until 1964. All the direct support through contracts with Western Electric, Bell Labs and ship schedules was under this management. In 1964 the project was placed under Industrial Manager, Potomac River Command and then Naval District Washington in 1965. In 1966 the project came under Naval Electronics Systems Command (NAVELEX PME-124) where it remained through the name change in 1986 to Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command
The Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWARSYSCOM), based in San Diego, is one of six SYSCOM Echelon II organizations within the United States Navy and is the Navy's technical authority and acquisition command for C4ISR (Command, Contro ...
(SPAWARSYSCOM PMW 180)[PME-124 and PMW-180 were the program manager's office designations. Name changed in June 2019 t]
Naval Information Warfare Systems Command
and a move from Arlington to San Diego in 1997.[
The Navy operational side, taking over when the systems were accepted and turned over for operation, came under Commander, Oceanographic System Atlantic (COMOCEANSYSLANT) in 1954. Commander, Oceanographic System Pacific (COMOCEANSYSPAC) was established for the Pacific systems in 1964. Within the Office of Chief of Naval Operations the Director ASW Programs OP-95 was established in 1964. In 1970 COMOCEANSYSLANT and COMOCEANSYSPAC were designated as major commands by the Chief of Naval Operations.][
]
With the new, mobile systems Towed Array Sensor System
Towing is coupling two or more objects together so that they may be pulled by a designated power source or sources. The towing source may be a motorized land vehicle, vessel, animal, or human, and the load being anything that can be pulled. Th ...
(TASS) and the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System
The AN/UQQ-2 Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS), colloquially referred to as the ship's "Tail", is a towed array sonar system of the United States Navy.
SURTASS Twin-Line consists of either the long passive SURTASS array or the Twi ...
(SURTASS) entering the system, the SOSUS name was changed in 1984 to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) to reflect the change from bottom fixed systems alone. In 1990 officers were authorized to wear IUSS insignia. Finally, with "undersea surveillance" so openly displayed, the mission is declassified in 1991 and the commands reflect that with replacement of the "oceanographic systems" with the accurate "under sea surveillance," the commands renamed as Commander, Undersea Surveillance Atlantic and Commander, Undersea Surveillance Pacific. In 1994 the Atlantic and Pacific commands were merged into Commander Undersea Surveillance at Dam Neck, Virginia. In 1998 that command was placed under Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.[
The LOFARgram representation of acoustics in black, gray and white with an operator trained and adapted to interpreting that display was the critical link in the system. Experienced operators that could detect subtle differences and with practice could detect faint signatures of targets were vital to detection. It was even found that color blindness could be an advantage. It was soon apparent that the Navy's practice of short term tours and transfer out of the system was a problem. Commander Ocean Systems Atlantic launched an effort in 1964 to create a rating peculiar to SOSUS and allow personnel to remain within the community. It took five years for Bureau of Personnel to create the rating of Ocean Technician T That bureau did not do the same for officers thus forcing those with experience to either leave for new duties or leave the Navy. Some did so and remained in the system as civil service or contractor personnel.][
The first women were assigned to NAVFAC Eleuthera when an officer and ten enlisted women were assigned in 1972.][ Due to the fact that the SOSUS community departed from the usual Navy cultural routine, with repeat assignments within the small community, women were able to serve in a warfare specialty without shipboard duty that was still being denied. That opened a new field for women outside the usual medical, education, or administrative specialties. SOSUS assignment qualified as important as sea duty on a Cold War front line.][
]
Events
In 1961 the system proved its effectiveness when it tracked on her first North Atlantic transit to the United Kingdom.[ The first detection of a Soviet nuclear submarine occurred on 6 July 1962 when NAVFAC Barbados recognized and reported contact #27103, a Soviet nuclear submarine west of Norway coming into the Atlantic through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap.][ When sank in 1963, SOSUS helped determine its location. In 1968, the first detections of and class Soviet submarines were made, while in 1974 the first was observed. In 1968, SOSUS played a key role in locating the wreckage of the US ]nuclear attack submarine
An SSN is a nuclear-powered general-purpose attack submarine. ''SSN'' is the US Navy hull classification symbol for such vessels; the ''SS'' denotes a submarine and the ''N'' denotes nuclear power. The designation SSN is used for interoperabili ...
, lost near the Azores in May. Moreover, SOSUS data from March 1968 facilitated the discovery, and clandestine retrieval six years later, of parts of the Soviet Golf II-class ballistic missile submarine , that foundered that month north of Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
.[
]
Operational issues
The secrecy of the system meant that it did not have the widespread fleet support of successful tactical systems despite its actual success. It was the primary cuing system which antisubmarine forces used to localize and potentially destroy targets for over forty years but secrecy largely kept that fact from the fleet. The lack of strong fleet support was a factor when budget cuts after the Cold War fell heavily on the surveillance program.[
The system's first station came on line before there was any signature library of Soviet submarine acoustic characteristics while submerged. The operators had no information on which to identify a hostile submerged submarine's unique signature while snorkeling on the LOFARgram. The signatures available were of surfaced submarines from other sources. It was not until the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the quarantine reduced other shipping noises, that operators recognized unusual signatures that were confirmed to be Soviet snorkeling submarines when aircraft sighted snorkels and ]sonobuoys
A sonobuoy (a portmanteau of sonar and buoy) is a relatively small buoy – typically diameter and long – expendable sonar system that is dropped/ejected from aircraft or ships conducting anti-submarine warfare or underwater acoustic resear ...
confirmed the unusual acoustics as being from that submarine. Even then, others had doubts until 1963–1964 Norwegian data on submarines deploying or returning collected correlated signatures. SOSUS then became the major collector of Soviet submarine signatures and "boot strapped" itself to becoming the primary signature library for itself and becoming the major intelligence source for all other Navy acoustic sensor systems.
Both undersea surveillance and the operation of U.S. submarines were tightly held secrets within the communities. That secrecy led to misunderstandings and even potential breaches of security. Despite periods of realization both communities fell back into assumptions as a result of secrecy. On the submarine force side, there was a recurrent idea that SOSUS/IUSS could not detect U.S. submarines despite early SOSUS tracking USS ''George Washington'' across the Atlantic in its early days. Realization SOSUS could detect U.S. nuclear submarines led to the Navy's quieting program for those submarines and the assumption returned.[
The opposite occurred when the surveillance community did not have information on U.S. submarine operations, and assumed they held a Soviet or unknown contact. In 1962 and 1973, US submarines conducting covert operations off of the Soviet submarine base at Petropavlovsk were detected by NAVFAC Adak. In 1962, the detections were published at the secret level by Commander, Alaskan Sea Frontier, and these reports were pushed up the chain of command. ]Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet
Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet (COMSUBPAC) is the principal advisor to the Commander, United States Pacific Fleet (Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, COMPACFLT) for submarine matters. The Pacific Submarine Force (SUBPAC) includes att ...
(COMSUBPAC) recognized the contacts as US submarines engaged in highly classified operations, and immediate changes were ordered for the reporting procedures. In 1973 such contacts were again almost published, but were stopped only when information was identified by a visiting civilian expert who recognized the acoustic signatures as that of a U.S. submarine. When that submarine put into Adak for a medical emergency the detection events were matched to the submarine's logs ending the disbelief the "Soviet" contact was actually a U.S. submarine.[
]
"Caesar fleet"
Other ships are mentioned as having "cameo" appearances and the project apparently made use of other Navy survey and civilian cable ships on occasion. The core fleet appears to be those listed below.
Cable ships:
*[
*][
*][
*][
*][
Other:
*][
*][
*][
*][
]
Espionage
In 1988, Stephen Joseph Ratkai, a Hungarian-Canadian recruited by Soviet Intelligence
This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...
, was arrested, charged and convicted in St. John's, Newfoundland
St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland.
The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America ...
for attempting to obtain information on the SOSUS site at Naval Station Argentia
Naval Station Argentia is a former base of the United States Navy that operated from 1941 to 1994. It was established in the community of Argentia in what was then the Dominion of Newfoundland, which later became the tenth Canadian province, Ne ...
. John Anthony Walker
John Anthony Walker Jr. (July 28, 1937 – August 28, 2014) was a United States Navy chief warrant officer and communications specialist convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1985 and sentenced to life in prison.
In lat ...
, a US Navy Chief Warrant Officer
Chief warrant officer is a military rank used by the United States Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Pakistan Air Force, the Israel Defense Forces, the South African National Defence Force, the Lebanese Armed Forces and, since 2012, th ...
and communications specialist, divulged SOSUS operational information to the Soviet Union during the Cold War which compromised its effectiveness.
Post-Cold War
By 1998 cable technology and shore processing allowed consolidation of shore stations to a few central processing facilities. Changes in Soviet operations, few hostile nuclear submarines at sea and the ending of the Cold War in the 1990s meant the need to maintain IUSS/SOSUS at full capability decreased.[ The focus of the US Navy also turned toward a new fixed system, the Fixed Distributed System, and systems deployable on a theater basis such as the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System and Advanced Deployable System.][ Although officially declassified in 1991, by that time IUSS and SOSUS had long been an ]open secret
An open secret is a concept or idea that is "officially" (''de jure'') secret or restricted in knowledge, but in practice (''de facto'') is widely known; or it refers to something that is widely known to be true but which none of the people most i ...
.
Civilian science applications
Alternate or dual-use partnerships exist with a number of agencies and institutions. The Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...
has used the system for Ocean Acoustic Tomography.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
(NOAA) Vents program at its Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory was granted access to the system at the Naval Ocean Processing Facility at Whidbey Island in October 1990 to combine raw analog data from specific hydrophones with NOAA systems for continuous monitoring of the northeast Pacific Ocean for low-level seismic activity and detection of volcanic activity along the northeast Pacific spreading centers.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering.
Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it ...
detected and tracked a lone whale with a unique call over a period of years in the Pacific.
Texas Applied Research Laboratories, and several other organizations have used the system for research.
Associated systems
''Colossus''
Jezebel research had developed an additional short range, high frequency, upward-looking system using active transducers for direct plotting of ships passing over the array. Colossus was intended to be installed in narrows and straits.[
]
''Artemis''
''Artemis'' was an experiment with a large active source. It was not a part of the SOSUS development. The system used very large towers and unwieldy components while SOSUS provided more than adequate warning and coverage and thus the system did not come into operation. The word ''Artemis'' had been used as a code word in the first days before ''Jezebel'', ''Michael'' and ''Caesar'' as an unclassified name. ''Artemis'', goddess of the hunt, stood for those cleared for Frederick V. Hunt and his idea of a passive system like SOSUS in his May 1950 report. That old application of ''Artemis'' caused some confusion.[
]
Footnotes
See also
* Communication with submarines
Communication with submarines is a field within military communications that presents technical challenges and requires specialized technology. Because radio waves do not travel well through good electrical conductors like salt water, submerged s ...
* Integrated Undersea Surveillance System insignia
The Integrated Undersea Surveillance System breast insignia is a Military badges of the United States, military badge of the United States Navy which was officially created by OPNAVINST 1020.5 on 24 December 1990. The insignia is awarded to those ...
* SOFAR channel
The SOFAR channel (short for sound fixing and ranging channel), or deep sound channel (DSC), is a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and lo ...
* Missile Impact Location System The Missile Impact Location System or Missile Impact Locating System (MILS)Both full names are found in references. is an ocean acoustic system designed to locate the impact position of test missile nose cones at the ocean's surface and then the pos ...
* Project Artemis
Project Artemis was a United States Navy acoustics research and development experiment from the late 1950s into the mid 1960s to test a potential low-frequency active sonar system for ocean surveillance. The at sea testing began in 1960 after rese ...
* Gordon Eugene Martin, Navy physicist and executive officer of the prototype SOSUS station
References
External links
Past IUSS Sites
Index to individual pages with location details, photos and badges of the shore sites.
CAESAR Fleet
Photos and diagrams of NAVFAC Lewes, 21 quad cable cross section, LOFARGRAM photos
''Undersea Warfare'', Winter, 2005, Vol. 7, No. 2, article by Edward C. Whitman
GlobalSecurity.org
* ttp://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/sosus.htm The SOund SUrveillance System Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program
Japanese LQO-3 SOSUS Arrays.
*
*
1953 ''Project Michael'' report: Transmission of 30 cps Sound in Deep Water
{{Cold War
Submarine detection systems
Military sonar equipment of the United States
Anti-submarine warfare
Physical oceanography
Signals intelligence
United States Navy in the 20th century
United States Navy in the 21st century
Military history of the Atlantic Ocean
Military history of the Pacific Ocean