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Is it a good thing that our money has been spent on something that's un-detectable, if we don't occasionally make our presence known to our allies (supposed), & if our sonar is so good, then why didn't we know that our allies(supposed), were in the area?!

Because ballistic missile submarines are very, very quiet. The best passive sonar in the world will not detect noise if there is no noise to be heard, and no submarine would ever routinely ping with an active sonar because then there would be some sound to be heard and they do not want to be heard.

Either that or it was lunchtime on the French sub and everyone was away from their desks.

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:Either that or it was lunchtime on the French sub and everyone was away from their desks.

I love that, that just so sums up the French - when the gendarms are closed for lunch/weekends and the French border guards have 2 hour lunches I'm not remotely surprised!

Millymollymandy wrote:

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:Either that or it was lunchtime on the French sub and everyone was away from their desks.

I love that, that just so sums up the French - when the gendarms are closed for lunch/weekends and the French border guards have 2 hour lunches I'm not remotely surprised!

And they leave the boarders open while they are away! Fantastic!

Hi Jon, I used to live (in France) by the Swiss border at Geneva. Of course we were not allowed to spend too much money in Switzerland without declaring it, it not being a EU country, but....... all those in the 'know' took the lunchtime bus home after shopping because we knew there would be nobody there. Don't think it worked for the Swissies doing their supermarket shopping in France (similar rules) because the Swiss didn't have the same lunchtime mentality!

MMM, my BIL lives in Basle and there are any number of tiny - usually un-manned crossings into France. As a happy coincidence has it, one of his friends lives just overlooking just such one, so BIL and spouse go across and shop at Carrefour or wherever, load up on the naughty meat and dairy and then call ahead about 10 minutes out to see if the boarder post is being used that day. On the rare occaisions that it is, they just choose one of the neighbouring ones...

as far as i know during the cold war, submarines were scraping and colliding in the bering straight regularly, as far as i know there are a few subs lost there

Smooth Hound wrote:as far as i know during the cold war, submarines were scraping and colliding in the bering straight regularly, as far as i know there are a few subs lost there

......along with the Boston Sea Queen trawler from Lowestoft, which disappeared in un-explained circumstances, some 30 yrs ago. I lost a couple of friends on there, & there were allsorts of conspiracy theories at the time, but the probable truth is that a sub got caught in her nets & dragged her under. It must be tough in a sub if you are navigating "blind".

No, no, no.

British subs have anti-sonar modes. So do French subs. So do a lot of other country's subs. What this proves is that anti-sonar technology really works. Errrrmmmm ....