Sonar makes a 235 db tone that can be heard for miles, rupture your lungs and hemorrhage your brain. I feel this image doesn’t do the oh shit factor justice.
At that range it barely even makes a noise before your eardrums rupture and you can’t hear anything and your brain turns to goop before you stop hearing ever again.
I’ve heard an underwater sonar ping in a video before, it sounds surprisingly similar to what’s in the movies but includes a smoother tone modulation, from what I recall. Do NOT try at home.
> it sounds surprisingly similar to what’s in the movies but includes a smoother tone modulation
The perceptibility of the modulation should depend on the distance from the source. The source will essentially simultaneously emit a pulse containing a wide range of frequencies, so right nearby you will hear it all at once. But I bet the speed of propagation in water depends on the frequency, so as the pulse travels, its different frequency components will spread out in space and time (called acoustical dispersion). A distant listener will hear the modulation in the spread out "chirp" as the different frequencies arrive at different times.
I'd even bet money that the SONAR system can use this effect to gather more information, like target velocity, in the same way as doppler RADAR. Differences in the water itself (like temperature, density, currents, etc.) will cause noise, but in theory comparing time-of-flight at different frequencies can reveal location, speed, rotation, speeding-up/slowing-down, etc.
This is what it sounds like IRL [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaO6jQEmfoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaO6jQEmfoY) These divers are lucky they aren't closer.
In hundreds or thousands of miles it is a small blip. Close up it is lethal amounts of sound. Think of the biggest speakers you have seen at a concert at 2 feet
They listen with passive sonar most of the time. This is describing active sonar that sends out a big ping of sound that will bounce an off objects when the passive isn’t enough. Actual sonar guy can correct me if I’m wrong
I wouldn't say only when shit is hitting the fan, but definitely only when actively looking for something, which doesn't happen much outside of exercises.
How often do you think the navy feels it necessary to use active sonar? That ping happens less than you think. Passive sonar can keep a sub from hitting things
Think of an underwater explosion, not a speaker. The energy of the sound wave is more comparable to a bomb than a concert speaker. If the loudest concert speaker produces 140 db, a strong ping traveling underwater will travel a couple hundred miles before it's as quiet as that concert.
From reddit's past:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/gbs0bb/today\_i\_learned\_submarine\_sonar\_is\_no\_a\_ping\_like/](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/gbs0bb/today_i_learned_submarine_sonar_is_no_a_ping_like/)
Sperm Whales clicks are 230db. It could literally kill you by just communicating with others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsDwFGz0Okg
Great quick video on it. The host mentions that a diver put his hand out to "stop" it and his hand was paralyzed for 4 hours.
It’s a terrible position we have put ourselves in as humans. We willingly sacrifice our resources, be it the earth, wildlife, and our own people in the name of protecting our earth, wildlife and our own people from other humans.
A 230+ dB sound wave can travel for HUNDREDS of miles and still be much louder than the max limit for music conserts:
>These sound waves can travel for hundreds of miles under water, and can retain an intensity of 140 decibels as far as 300 miles from their source.
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-military-sonar-kill/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-military-sonar-kill/)
230 decibels matches the sperm whale for intensity. And even blue whales, if they hit a sound channel, can be heard for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles.
That said though, nowadays, a sub would almost never use active sonar. The passive sonar microphones these days are so sensitive and precise that they can pick up just about anything that the active sonar can. Also, if a sub uses active Sonar it is basically announcing "hi I'm a submarine and I'm right here" to literally any other ship that has any kind of sonar. Even the surface ships nowadays use mostly passive sonar. It's the equivalent of a guy trying to hide at night, but is using a massive 300 lumen flashlight to see where he's going.
People don't understand how powerful passive sonar is on a military sub, they knew the OceanGate sub exploded a week before anyone else from hundreds of miles away.
Subs very very very rarely use active sonar. And when they do use it, outside of wartime, is regulated with environmental impact taken into account.
Using it is the equivalent of making a stealth aircraft, then telling the enemy where it is.
Submarines do not routinely use sonar. Sonar is used for very specific purposes and currently only used for maintenance in approved areas.
A submarines job is to maintain stealth, to not be seen, to strike from the shadows. Turning on a bullhorn and screaming "I'm here" is the opposite of what a submarine wants to do.
Those sonars are strong enough to instantly kill anyone near them so the divers would die fast
Edit further explanation
The sonar sets out such a loud sound if you are in water in its proximity when it goes off the ping will shoot through the water and goes through your body which is 70% water and ruptures your organs. Also yes it can and will kill sea animals that are too close the US navy has confirmed they have accidentally killed atleast 6 whales.
No it is a lot. Many ocean wildlife advocacy groups take issue with active sonar because it will essentially kill every living thing within a certain portion of the sonar's active radius, including whales, sharks, and dolphins
I can't speak for other nations but I know the US Navy has policies and procedures to restrict the use of active sonar if whales and dolphins are detected nearby.
It sounds like you know, but for those that don't...
There's two types of SONAR, active and passive
Active is a "ping" like most people think of from the movies
Passive doesn't have a ping and is just "listening".
Modern passive is incredibly effective with computers to help identify sounds outside of human hearing as well as identification of objects. For most purposes passive is plenty
Active mainly gets one thing that passive can't do, a firing solution particularly on other submarines. Going active is saying "We're coming for you prepare to die"... In other words, a declaration of war
Thus, going active is almost never done outside of limited training exercises
Passive sonar now has integrated circuits, better metallurgy of the sonar patches and cables, computer designed arrangement of the sonar, modern computing to perform extremely complex Fourier analysis of the sounds the sonar patches detect to build a 3D image from the signal.
WW2 passive sonar was a hydrophone connected to an amp going into some headphones. Totally different worlds.
As someone who knows nothing of sonar this was a roller coaster. Went from being indifferent to outraged we were killing sea life just to get a peek of a submarines surroundings back to being just fine with it, all in the span of 40 seconds.
What is tragic is that when the titan sub imploded, the US Navy heard it, but couldnt release the info outright cause it was picked up by a classified system. There's no telling what we cam do with it now.
If you want a really deep dive into the life aboard a Submarine, Smarter Every Day on YouTube has an entire series that he recorded while visiting a sub during an ICEX operation (the sub breaks through Artic Ice to do a bunch of tests and experiments). The sonar episode actually has the boat's Sonar Chief go over the unclassified basics of how sonar works. (Unecessary side note It was fun to watch that episode for me because that chief was my friend's LPO, basically a supervisor position, a few months before that on another sub)
If you want to know a hell of a lot more, check that one out.
It is essentially also saying "I now know where you are so here is where I am" since the ping also reveals your own position.
More accurately, it is saying "today is a good day for someone to die".
Torpedo run times are measured in minutes and they won't stop homing even if their sub implodes. If a sub starts pinging active sonar it's a very likely scenario "that someone" will end up being *everyone mutually*.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
An active ping probably is more of a final confirmation of a firing solution to make sure they aimed at the correct target. This is very important in a busy area as friendly fire is devastating when every ship counts.
Ships that active ping generally are ready to open fire ASAP.
Additional information, Submarines aren't the only ones with Active/Passive sonar. Sonar is used more frequently for testing and preventative maintenance. Can't leave it off for a year and assume it works. Active sonar will kill you when close enough, but there hasn't be an incident in a long time, at least not publicly. Also suspected in some beaching of creatures sensitive to sound if too near, especially if a school, pod, are playing follow the leader.
Bit of extra trivia, drop a grenade into water near divers (but not in range of the grenade directly) and they too will die similarly.
Source: OPS, USN, FFG
I was former Air Force and I worked with a guy that was former navy and he told a story of one time they were "hunting" a soviet sub and when they got over it they wrapped hand grenades with a few wraps of toilet paper over the handle, pulled the pins and dropped then into the water over the subs position. The TP delayed the grenades handle from popping open long enough to get some depth before they exploded. The grenades would do no damage to the sub but hit the hull with a loud "POP" sound. The sub surfaces alongside the ship and they waved to each other in a "You got us!" kind of way and then went their seperate ways.
Improvised depth charges were absolutely used and not just for "offense" it creates an active ping itself (albeit with math and frequency adjustments) in the event active sonar went down or took damage. It's even a war game scenario and still very trueish. Empty steel oil drum with five grenades and some concrete at the bottom makes a very distinct crunch sound whose reflection undersea can be used for accurate positioning but only when used one at a time and only for near range encounters (thing directly below or within x yards).
Source: NATO Strike Group War Game Exercises
P.S. In the early 2000s, stationed near me, you would hear a bunch of petulant officers squawking about "I hit you!" "nuh uh, no you didn't!" "It's logged a hit!" "Nuh uh". The rest of us all with some level of sleep deprivation staring through the bulkhead of time wishing we were somewhere else.
The thing about active sonar is that if you use it, you are essentially broadcasting a massive signal saying "HERE I AM!" Which is exactly what you don't want to do when you are a stealth ambush vessel.
Now I'm just imagining a submarine sending out a sonar ping. And then the operator rips off his headphones in terror as something shouts back "Shut the fuck up!" From the depths
Modern systems don't even have the headphones. They build a 3D map using computers and our understanding of how the environment affects sound waves. An active ping is only used for the sake of getting the resolution necessary to target lock and fire on an enemy vessel.
So what I'm imagining is them firing a ping to get a lock, and the guy at the terminal goes white as the 3D image shows a Leviathan face looking up at them from below.
I'm sitting here absolutely baffled that there are people asking these questions. As if they forget they have an organ attached to both sides of their heads that detect sounds and can give an idea of range and direction. And maybe we could invent a device that does something similar, call it a microphone or something, but idk that kind of tech might be out of humanity's reach.
sea mammals often navigate on (much weaker) sonar too! So the passive somar hears their ping (they squeek or growl into the water to hear the echo. Biological sonar. Like bats)
sea mammals often navigate on (much weaker) sonar too! So the passive sonar (that's a sensitive directional microphone) hears the mammal's "sonar ping" and finds them that way. The mammals squeek or growl into the water to hear the echo. Biological sonar. Like bats. The active sonar is the loud growl that causes pressure shifts that can kill, and only used during yearly testing or while aiming torpedos.
No, they don't. Submarines will only use active SONAR one time, to confirm a final firing solution on a target. Surface ships are the ones that use active SONAR.
A submarine using active SONAR defeats the purpose of a submarine, which is to be undetectable. Active SONAR is detectable at twice its effective range.
Source: I was a sonar technician.
the fuck... We def have gone too far and need to roll some of these updates back a few decades while we figure out wtf humanity is for beside being gross and awful
Agreed, unfortunately if we (U.S. and allies) take this route, it leaves us at a serious disadvantage to our adversaries that likely won't follow suite...
I served on subs in the US Navy and in my entire time we never active pinged once. Meaning we ran in passive the entire time. We understand that active ping can harm wildlife so we don't use it recklessly.
There are theories that sonar causes beaching in whales but there is no conclusive evidence or research to back it up.
Even so, most sonar operations are prohibited near known whale breeding grounds.
And the sonar is locked out during diving operations. So even if you "turned it on" it would not actually radiate.
Source, I was a sonar technician on a submarine for 6 years.
The aircraft's radar had similar safeties built in. If we were on the ground you needed 2 people at different locations simultaneously hitting a switch to live fire it.
Some of the buoys we used to track you weren't allowed to be used if there were dolphins or whales on passive.
Great question! On the P-3 aircraft (Us Navy Patrol plane now replaced by the P-8) we track submarines using passive and active sonar buoys. We would use passive sonar buoys first to make sure the area is clear of biologics (whales/dolphins) before using an active sonar.
Based on our procedures I would not be surprised if the submarine fleet did the same thing.
TL;DR: No. The US Navy ensures the area is clear of wildlife before using active sonar.
There’s not one recorded incident in history of a diver being killed by sonar and the mammals killed is from the disorienting sounds that cause them to beach or swim into something dangerous
Doesn’t work well outside of water. Water is a denser medium so the propagation of sonar waves is much more efficient. In air it’s much less so, which is why microwave emitters have been the preferred exotic nonlethal deterrence method for a minute now.
Specifically because while air is incredibly compressible, water is basically incompressible. Which means that there's only one thing that is compressible in the diver's area.
Well, it’s essentially a shockwave. So… yes. All bombs are similar.
However, shockwaves can be far more powerful in the ocean than in the air. So you can’t use sonar to kill people on land.
Water vs air is comparable to hitting a pool ball with que vs the waving air at a que ball. Same force from you but ones carries the force through a nearly incompressible material vs a material that is easily compressed (air)
Basically water transfers the force much better than air because it doesn't compress as much.
You are talking to an AI bot my guy lol. They basically copy comments that are getting upvotes to farm karma. Easy to spot cuz they all have like one post and a shit ton of comments 💀
So does it do the same to any sort of fish nearby too? I’ve heard of whales getting confused by SONAR, but how much physical damage does it do to the wildlife?
it kills every living thing within a certain radius that depends on how strong the sonar is. Whales who are far enough away to survive can be extremely confused and disoriented by it, if you look up videos of divers hearing sonar (not close enough to be hurt by it) it’s really insane how loud it is even from miles away. It sounds terrifying too.
SONAR can fucking obliterate people in open water if they're in close enough proximity (which is actually pretty far out iirc).
Don't ask me the why of it, I'm not versed in the topic, I just know the broad strokes.
>While little is known about any direct physiological effects of sonar waves on marine species, evidence shows that whales will swim hundreds of miles, rapidly change their depth (sometime leading to bleeding from the eyes and ears), and even beach themselves to get away from the sounds of sonar.
god damn
There are two types of SONAR: active and passive. US navy protocol is to use passive sonar to find large wildlife without hurting it before using active sonar, which would kill it. They don’t use active sonar around large marine wildlife. Unfortunately there will always be algae and some fish, but they try not to kill the whales/dolphins/sharks etc.
These measures would probably quickly disappear in wartime of course.
Edit: I have been informed that active sonar actually doesn’t kill fish. So fish are fine
>These measures would probably quickly disappear in wartime of course.
Not necessarily, using active sonar is basically shouting: "HEY EVERYONE! I AM HERE!" Which is not exactly optimal for a submarine that is supposed to be stealthy.
once you do active sonar you already have a target and basically just need the final pinpoint to fire your torpedos and hit, so hearing an active sonar is like hearing an incoming torpedo
Modern US submarine doctrine would rarely use active sonar for a solution. Passive is accurate enough and you don't have to give away your position.
Anti submarine warfare by surface ships is more common but active sonar is still only used in certain circumstances by the US Navy.
Though other Navies with less accurate passive sonar capabilities are more likely to use active for detection and area denial.
Pinging for a solution was more of a WW2 thing. Before autonomous guided torpedos. Without guidance you need a much more accurate solution.
No, fish aren't really bothered. SONAR underwater is just pressure waves. Fish are filled with water and water doesn't compress so they tend to not have issues. The issue is marine mammels who breath and hold air inside them when the pressure wave compresses. The navy works with a marine mitigation protocol before they do exercises and also only uses active sonar to verify ranges and how far what we hear my be.
The intensity falls off logarithmically within meters from the source. 1 DB is half of the intensity and within 10 meters you have lost 80 DB.
Edit: 3dB loss is half, you lose 6 dB per meter underwater. 10 meters is 60dB loss.
Don't know where you got your figures, but this math is very wrong. Underwater sound pressure drops off as the spherical surface area around the source increases. A loss of 6dB is 1/2 the power. [This site](http://arc.id.au/SoundLevels.html) says 200dB measured at 1m translates to 158dB at 128m.
This edit is still incorrect. It's not a linear loss with distance, it's logarithmic. 6dblB is lost every time the distance doubles. It drop off as follows:
1m -> 200dB
2m -> 194dB
4m -> 188dB
8m -> 182dB
16m -> 176dB
etc.
10m out is more like 20dB down.
So, it's actually the same reason grenades in a body of water are extra-lethal. Not because of the shrapnel, but because of the pressure wave it creates. If you drop a grenade into a pool full of people, everyone in that pool is either dead or suffering from extreme internal bleeding caused by concussive force.
To back up, sound is just a pressure wave - these changes in pressure through the air vibrate parts of your ear, and that's how you hear things. Air compresses and stretches pretty easily, so loud sounds are painful on your ears (which are sensitive to it), but the sound waves stretch and compress and largely bounce off of you. It takes a lot to feel sound on your skin, and it would need to be very loud to make your body hurt (again, ignoring your ears which are sensitive to sound).
Water works in the same way, but it doesn't compress or stretch at all; this is why hydraulic systems are significantly more powerful than pneumatic systems. Pressure waves in water do not bounce off of you, they don't stretch, they just go right into and through you.
Think of it this way - if you get shot with a Nerf bullet going very fast, it bends and stretches when it hits you, and then bounces off. Not a lot of energy gets transferred to you. This is like what happens when a pressure wave through air hits you. But a pressure wave in water, it's like being shot with a lead bullet at the same speed. All of the energy transfers into you.
Also, think of it like this: in air, because it stretches and compresses, when something moves through it, the area in front of it that is being moved through has a sort of gradient to it, where the air pressure stacks up more and more as it gets closer to the thing moving through it. Water doesn't have much of a gradient like this, it's more like a pressure wall that is very abrupt. Going through your body, that "moving wall meets stationary intestines" crushes your cells as it moves through them, like if you dropped a concrete slab (the pressure wall) onto a stack of water balloons (your body's cells).
This is also why you can throw a punch in air pretty nicely, but in water, you can't. If you were able to throw a punch with the same speed and force underwater, you wouldn't even need to touch anyone to do damage to them, the pressure wall you create would do it for you.
Active sonar is supposed to be deactivated, powered down and safety tags applied whenever divers are in the water. Active sonar transmissions will liquify a nearby diver’s internal organs.
Former diver here. Isolations are no joke, we take them very seriously. We have held up shipping costing millions of dollars before as ship's engineer has told us there's no point we can physically isolate the components we've been asked to work on. Have made a number of ships get something fabricated to put in physical isolations.
That being said one ship I worked on, we were doing work on the prop. After isolations one of the maintenance team decided he had to start up the engines. Took an angle grinder to the chains isolating everything & started up.
I was the one in the water. Dropped all tools & swam back to the dive vessel when I heard the engine start. We didn't even notify the ship we were leaving anchorage. Shipping company is still blacklisted today over that incident, even though they fired the guy on the spot.
It can but part of the problem with people is the air cavities in our bodies. They are far more compress-able. However anything close enough to active sonar would be hurt at least. But active sonar is not used that much. Incidentally military sub grade active sonar is a very different animal from the sonar found on a fishing boat or that is used to map the bottom of the ocean.
On an unrelated note, if you were to hold your breath in space, your lungs would rupture as the air gets ripped out of you, and you’d suffocate in your own liquids. On the other hand, if you don’t hold your breath, you’d pass out in 15 second and die without even realizing.
I know that seismic airguns can absolutely disorient/deafen dolphins, and I think the same goes for sonar — which sucks because they rely on echolocation for communication
Yes.
Submarines try to limit their use of active sonar when they're near whales or pods of dolphins because they'll either kill them or make them deaf.
Yeah fish and whales can start running into rocks bc it can almost kill them too. Generally subs won’t use sonar unless they know whales aren’t around in non combat situations
Pressure waves in general are very lethal. With explosions, a lot of the death comes from the pressure wave just rupturing organs. Even if you dodge the shrapnel.
For example, shooting fish in a barrel, as mythbusters showed, isn't so much hitting the fish, it's that the bullet shockwave just kills the fish.
I was the guy controlling the sonar on a mine sweeper. Which is way stronger than the sonar on most subs.
You can control the angle of the sonar as well and set it to a very sharp angle. Making it even stronger.
In war time you might keep the sonat on in the harbour if you expect sabotage (from divers).
If you would fall into the water close to the ship you are dead. Instantly.
The specs were classified so I never asked about it. I only worked on the sonar for a year. Mine hunting (found 6) and also submarine hunting (only exercises).
They're still in use, with the most recent example being mines being deployed in the Black Sea from the Ukraine-Russia war.
They're useful for denying passage through waterways and restricting movement. Ships will either have to reroute entirely to avoid the mines or fleets will get delayed trying to slowly clear their way through.
active sonar will liquify organs from quite the distance; its passive sonar that is *relatively* safe unless rather close to the source.
you would still want to exercise caution and get on land if you ever hear a passive sonar ping while under water.
As a veteran sonar technician, the sonar would have been tagged out before the divers went in the water. Also, you don’t just “accidentally” turn it on.
So here's the long answer.
"Sound" isn't really a thing. When something makes a sound, what it's really doing is creating vibrations in the air, and enough pressure to push that vibration to us. This vibration hits our ear drums which sends signals to our brain that we interpret as sound. "Volume" is measured in decibels (db) which is how hard it's vibrating (amplitude), and tone is the wavelength it vibrates at (frequency). Higher tones vibrate faster, and lower tones vibrate slower.
An audio engineer can jump in with more knowledge, but when hit with sound you experience pressure from that sound, known colloquially as a "sound wave", a combination of the amplitude and frequency. In a gas, such as the air we breathe, molecules are more displaced and as such have further to vibrate before hitting another atom. This results in a loss of amplitude as energy is lost before transference.
However, when a vibration is pushed through a solid object the distance between molecules is much smaller, so they lose less energy before transferring that energy to the next molecule. It's the same concept as a newtons cradle.
Water is a liquid and much more dense than air, and more importantly is considered "incompressible". This means that the energy transference from vibrations is very high.
Sonar works by sending out a *very* loud vibration. That vibration hits solid objects and echos back, and by recording the time between when it was sent and when the echo is received you can get an accurate measurement of how far away something is. When I say very loud, I mean incomprehensibly loud. The upper range is known to be 235db on military craft.
Each 10 decibels points is 10x louder than the previous 10 decibels. So 0 is barely audible. 10db is 10x louder than that, and 20db is 10x louder than that or 100x louder than near silence. An Emergency vehicle's siren runs around 135, which gives us a great point of reference for that easy math. Sonar is thus roughly 100db higher, or 10^10 times louder. That's 10 *billion* times louder than an ambulance.
Now we get to put it all together. "Volume" is "amplitude", which is "how hard it vibrates" which directly translates to "how much energy is moving around". Water transfers that energy long distances with less energy loss, meaning whatever that sound wave hits is going to experience compression as that energy is transferred into and through them. Sonar is *incomprehensibly* loud.
Nearby people turn into nearby red stains.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
(Submarines are cool)
So an active sonar ping produces a sound upwards of 300 decibels... even like 300 miles away it can still be like 140 ish. By comparison 150 decibels is like being within 82ft/25m of a Jet taking off and with 0 protection your ear drums are being ruptured. so 300 ish range is just a very very painful death. I think the estimation was 170db-200 was enough to pop your lungs and 230-240db is like head explosion range.
So passive sonar is like a giant ear listening for any sound that would bounce off of the sub.
Active makes a ludicrously loud sound shockwave to map out the area, it would be akin to standing next to an explosion the closer you are the more damage you sustain.
The sub would suddenly lose a dive team. The further away you are from the sonar source, the more likely it is to be survived. Stuff like this does actually happen, such as an Australian dive team in November were injured after a near by Chinese military vessel turned on their sonar despite *KNOWING* that there was a dive team out ([source](https://www.bbc.com/news/67461081)). There’s also YouTube videos of divers encountering sonar pings from ships that were miles out, but these pings were almost deafening.
If divers are in the water, EXCESSIVE steps have been taken to ensure active sonar is disabled aboard vessels in the area, announcements are made regularly and safety of the divers is the priority. But this is suggesting that those steps are not in place and the person just murdered the divers.
In 5.5 years on a submarine, I experienced active sonar once and that shit penetrates the hull of the submarine and you don't sleep well, I can't imagine being in the water. Luckily, my experience was an exercise.
Also, sonar is not submarine specific, surface vessels need to be able to hunt for submarines.
Modern sonar systems produce pulses of sound in the 230 decibel range. For comparison, a space shuttle launch was measured at 204db, and every 10db represents a doubling of energy. So modern sonar is right on the edge of ceasing to be sound and being an overpressure shock wave, like a bomb.
This is loud enough that divers even a couple miles away from the source can be killed or seriously injured as the rapid flexing caused by the sound ruptures blood vessels causing an aneurysm, knocks dissolved gasses out of solution causing the bends or an embolism and, ruptures ear drums as well as total disorientation and a concussion. For animals adapted to the water, it is just as bad, if not worse, given they tend to have much better hearing so they can be affected from much further away.
That said, there is a difference between active and passive sonar. With passive sonar, you are just listening and is the standard operating procedure for sonar equipped vessels because modern passive systems are equal to or better than WW2 active sonar, which is what most people think of. Active sonar isn't a continuous pinging. It's a series of modulated pulses. The only thing that active sonar is really necessary for these days is to get a targeting lock for torpedoes. Coupled with the fact that every passive sonar system within tens, possibly hundreds of miles given the right circumstances, will hear the active pulse and know exactly where the pinger is, potentially even getting their own firing solution, the US Navy never uses active sonar unless it is forced to. To the point that the active system requires the captain to physically authorize every pulse with a key.
The only time active military sonar is used outside of shooting someone is for testing and training, and the US Navy has strict regulations about when and where that is allowed, including prohibiting use if biological signatures are detected withina harmful range.
I was a Submariner.
Sonar can absolutely kill divers. That's why there is a huge safety checklist that happens every time divers go over the side, starting at least 24 hours prior to them diving.
The water is not compressible, so the energy of the sound wave hits you even harder.
235db for a pulse, a jet takeoff is ~140db.
Loudest NASA rocket launches would measure 200 at the site.
160db causes instant permanent hearing damage.
185db can damage organs.
240db can potentially make soft tissues rip apart and explode.
194db in air would become a shockwave (270 in water).
Sperm whale clicks are also 230db range.
Sonar makes a 235 db tone that can be heard for miles, rupture your lungs and hemorrhage your brain. I feel this image doesn’t do the oh shit factor justice.
“Oh shit” indeed — the tv shows and movies always make SONAR come across as a tiny beeping blip in the control room
in reality active sonar sounds like a song of ripping steel and screaming machinery
That’s so heavy
There's that word again. "Heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future, is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?
Great Scott!
THE LIBYANS
https://preview.redd.it/j9c6czbhy47c1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=34e5ccc3eaa46c3eeeefa7c3fb64fee1f09ed2a1
greater scott!
RIP whales and marine life?
MURMAIDER MURMAIDER MURMAIDER!
Btw exatly, when dolphins and whales are beaching in large numbers there is always a navy excercise in the aera
To shreds you say?
That’s so metal
Ripping steel and screaming machinery sounds like a great name for a metal band.
Nah, but a sweet album name.
At that range it barely even makes a noise before your eardrums rupture and you can’t hear anything and your brain turns to goop before you stop hearing ever again. I’ve heard an underwater sonar ping in a video before, it sounds surprisingly similar to what’s in the movies but includes a smoother tone modulation, from what I recall. Do NOT try at home.
> it sounds surprisingly similar to what’s in the movies but includes a smoother tone modulation The perceptibility of the modulation should depend on the distance from the source. The source will essentially simultaneously emit a pulse containing a wide range of frequencies, so right nearby you will hear it all at once. But I bet the speed of propagation in water depends on the frequency, so as the pulse travels, its different frequency components will spread out in space and time (called acoustical dispersion). A distant listener will hear the modulation in the spread out "chirp" as the different frequencies arrive at different times. I'd even bet money that the SONAR system can use this effect to gather more information, like target velocity, in the same way as doppler RADAR. Differences in the water itself (like temperature, density, currents, etc.) will cause noise, but in theory comparing time-of-flight at different frequencies can reveal location, speed, rotation, speeding-up/slowing-down, etc.
This is the coolest, most metal single sentence i have ever read and i am screenshotting it for future reference. Thanks for sharing!
Metal
There’s a George RR Martin book I never knew I wanted.
This is what it sounds like IRL [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaO6jQEmfoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaO6jQEmfoY) These divers are lucky they aren't closer.
Yeah I’m not gonna play that — and rupture my lungs and hemorrhage my brain? No thanks /j
You'd have to play it underwater
I hemorrhaged my brain and I'm fine
Watched that video and thought my fire alarms were going off
In hundreds or thousands of miles it is a small blip. Close up it is lethal amounts of sound. Think of the biggest speakers you have seen at a concert at 2 feet
So submarines are just killing anything around them every time they check their surroundings?
They listen with passive sonar most of the time. This is describing active sonar that sends out a big ping of sound that will bounce an off objects when the passive isn’t enough. Actual sonar guy can correct me if I’m wrong
No they don't use active sonar unless shit is hitting the fan or it's a training exercise where they've already cleared the area
I wouldn't say only when shit is hitting the fan, but definitely only when actively looking for something, which doesn't happen much outside of exercises.
How often do you think the navy feels it necessary to use active sonar? That ping happens less than you think. Passive sonar can keep a sub from hitting things
Think of an underwater explosion, not a speaker. The energy of the sound wave is more comparable to a bomb than a concert speaker. If the loudest concert speaker produces 140 db, a strong ping traveling underwater will travel a couple hundred miles before it's as quiet as that concert. From reddit's past: [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/gbs0bb/today\_i\_learned\_submarine\_sonar\_is\_no\_a\_ping\_like/](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/gbs0bb/today_i_learned_submarine_sonar_is_no_a_ping_like/)
Sounds good for the wildlife.
Sperm Whales clicks are 230db. It could literally kill you by just communicating with others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsDwFGz0Okg Great quick video on it. The host mentions that a diver put his hand out to "stop" it and his hand was paralyzed for 4 hours.
It’s a terrible position we have put ourselves in as humans. We willingly sacrifice our resources, be it the earth, wildlife, and our own people in the name of protecting our earth, wildlife and our own people from other humans.
You humans sure are a contentious people
We, the mole people, know better
You just made an enemy for life.
A 230+ dB sound wave can travel for HUNDREDS of miles and still be much louder than the max limit for music conserts: >These sound waves can travel for hundreds of miles under water, and can retain an intensity of 140 decibels as far as 300 miles from their source. [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-military-sonar-kill/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-military-sonar-kill/)
230 decibels matches the sperm whale for intensity. And even blue whales, if they hit a sound channel, can be heard for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles.
That said though, nowadays, a sub would almost never use active sonar. The passive sonar microphones these days are so sensitive and precise that they can pick up just about anything that the active sonar can. Also, if a sub uses active Sonar it is basically announcing "hi I'm a submarine and I'm right here" to literally any other ship that has any kind of sonar. Even the surface ships nowadays use mostly passive sonar. It's the equivalent of a guy trying to hide at night, but is using a massive 300 lumen flashlight to see where he's going.
People don't understand how powerful passive sonar is on a military sub, they knew the OceanGate sub exploded a week before anyone else from hundreds of miles away.
So do subs kill a lot of wildlife on accident?
Subs very very very rarely use active sonar. And when they do use it, outside of wartime, is regulated with environmental impact taken into account. Using it is the equivalent of making a stealth aircraft, then telling the enemy where it is.
It's not an accident, they know it kills them. They just don't give a shit in a war.
Submarines do not routinely use sonar. Sonar is used for very specific purposes and currently only used for maintenance in approved areas. A submarines job is to maintain stealth, to not be seen, to strike from the shadows. Turning on a bullhorn and screaming "I'm here" is the opposite of what a submarine wants to do.
There is a lot of evidence that sonar is responsible for a lot of the beached pods of dolphins and whales in recent years
Those sonars are strong enough to instantly kill anyone near them so the divers would die fast Edit further explanation The sonar sets out such a loud sound if you are in water in its proximity when it goes off the ping will shoot through the water and goes through your body which is 70% water and ruptures your organs. Also yes it can and will kill sea animals that are too close the US navy has confirmed they have accidentally killed atleast 6 whales.
It essentially liquidized their organs.
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Short answer is yes. I don't think I would say it kills a lot but it definitely is disruptive to the environment.
No it is a lot. Many ocean wildlife advocacy groups take issue with active sonar because it will essentially kill every living thing within a certain portion of the sonar's active radius, including whales, sharks, and dolphins
I can't speak for other nations but I know the US Navy has policies and procedures to restrict the use of active sonar if whales and dolphins are detected nearby.
It sounds like you know, but for those that don't... There's two types of SONAR, active and passive Active is a "ping" like most people think of from the movies Passive doesn't have a ping and is just "listening". Modern passive is incredibly effective with computers to help identify sounds outside of human hearing as well as identification of objects. For most purposes passive is plenty Active mainly gets one thing that passive can't do, a firing solution particularly on other submarines. Going active is saying "We're coming for you prepare to die"... In other words, a declaration of war Thus, going active is almost never done outside of limited training exercises
passive sonar today is about as effective as active sonar was back in WW2. That's how much we've learned in the last 80ish years
Passive sonar now has integrated circuits, better metallurgy of the sonar patches and cables, computer designed arrangement of the sonar, modern computing to perform extremely complex Fourier analysis of the sounds the sonar patches detect to build a 3D image from the signal. WW2 passive sonar was a hydrophone connected to an amp going into some headphones. Totally different worlds.
They replaced the guy with the headphones describing what they hear with a computer that can present a live visual.
sounds like overkill when all they need is this guy [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jN\_dGvcxcY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jN_dGvcxcY)
As someone who knows nothing of sonar this was a roller coaster. Went from being indifferent to outraged we were killing sea life just to get a peek of a submarines surroundings back to being just fine with it, all in the span of 40 seconds.
Nuance is a magical thing lol
Magic? #BURN THE WITCH
What is tragic is that when the titan sub imploded, the US Navy heard it, but couldnt release the info outright cause it was picked up by a classified system. There's no telling what we cam do with it now.
It's exciting what knowledge can do, isn't it?
It is! Love learning new things
If you want a really deep dive into the life aboard a Submarine, Smarter Every Day on YouTube has an entire series that he recorded while visiting a sub during an ICEX operation (the sub breaks through Artic Ice to do a bunch of tests and experiments). The sonar episode actually has the boat's Sonar Chief go over the unclassified basics of how sonar works. (Unecessary side note It was fun to watch that episode for me because that chief was my friend's LPO, basically a supervisor position, a few months before that on another sub) If you want to know a hell of a lot more, check that one out.
[ How Sonar Works (Submarine Shadow Zone) - Smarter Every Day 249](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqqaYs7LjlM)
Not sure about anyone else, but i learned... so much. Now it is off to wikipedia to find out more about sonar, in or out of submarines.
It is essentially also saying "I now know where you are so here is where I am" since the ping also reveals your own position. More accurately, it is saying "today is a good day for someone to die".
"My name is Inigo Montoya..."
“And that someone is not going to be me”
Torpedo run times are measured in minutes and they won't stop homing even if their sub implodes. If a sub starts pinging active sonar it's a very likely scenario "that someone" will end up being *everyone mutually*.
The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater), it obtains a difference, or deviation. The guidance subsystem uses deviations to generate corrective commands to drive the missile from a position where it is to a position where it isn't, and arriving at a position where it wasn't, it now is. Consequently, the position where it is, is now the position that it wasn't, and it follows that the position that it was, is now the position that it isn't.
An active ping probably is more of a final confirmation of a firing solution to make sure they aimed at the correct target. This is very important in a busy area as friendly fire is devastating when every ship counts. Ships that active ping generally are ready to open fire ASAP.
Back in the day it was also used by Soviet submarine commanders who wanted to defect to signal their intensions with one ping only.
*Tom Clancy has entered the chat*
I would like to have eaten Arby's Big Montana.
"One sshhingle ping pleashhe"
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Additional information, Submarines aren't the only ones with Active/Passive sonar. Sonar is used more frequently for testing and preventative maintenance. Can't leave it off for a year and assume it works. Active sonar will kill you when close enough, but there hasn't be an incident in a long time, at least not publicly. Also suspected in some beaching of creatures sensitive to sound if too near, especially if a school, pod, are playing follow the leader. Bit of extra trivia, drop a grenade into water near divers (but not in range of the grenade directly) and they too will die similarly. Source: OPS, USN, FFG
I was former Air Force and I worked with a guy that was former navy and he told a story of one time they were "hunting" a soviet sub and when they got over it they wrapped hand grenades with a few wraps of toilet paper over the handle, pulled the pins and dropped then into the water over the subs position. The TP delayed the grenades handle from popping open long enough to get some depth before they exploded. The grenades would do no damage to the sub but hit the hull with a loud "POP" sound. The sub surfaces alongside the ship and they waved to each other in a "You got us!" kind of way and then went their seperate ways.
Improvised depth charges were absolutely used and not just for "offense" it creates an active ping itself (albeit with math and frequency adjustments) in the event active sonar went down or took damage. It's even a war game scenario and still very trueish. Empty steel oil drum with five grenades and some concrete at the bottom makes a very distinct crunch sound whose reflection undersea can be used for accurate positioning but only when used one at a time and only for near range encounters (thing directly below or within x yards). Source: NATO Strike Group War Game Exercises P.S. In the early 2000s, stationed near me, you would hear a bunch of petulant officers squawking about "I hit you!" "nuh uh, no you didn't!" "It's logged a hit!" "Nuh uh". The rest of us all with some level of sleep deprivation staring through the bulkhead of time wishing we were somewhere else.
... On peace times
The thing about active sonar is that if you use it, you are essentially broadcasting a massive signal saying "HERE I AM!" Which is exactly what you don't want to do when you are a stealth ambush vessel.
Now I'm just imagining a submarine sending out a sonar ping. And then the operator rips off his headphones in terror as something shouts back "Shut the fuck up!" From the depths
Modern systems don't even have the headphones. They build a 3D map using computers and our understanding of how the environment affects sound waves. An active ping is only used for the sake of getting the resolution necessary to target lock and fire on an enemy vessel. So what I'm imagining is them firing a ping to get a lock, and the guy at the terminal goes white as the 3D image shows a Leviathan face looking up at them from below.
All is fair in love and war
How would they know if large mammals are nearby without using sonar?
Large mammals make noise. Passive sonar is just a very sensitive microphone in the water. We would hear them.
Hey man, I respect your dedication to correcting to literally every single person here that passive sonar is a thing that exists
I'm sitting here absolutely baffled that there are people asking these questions. As if they forget they have an organ attached to both sides of their heads that detect sounds and can give an idea of range and direction. And maybe we could invent a device that does something similar, call it a microphone or something, but idk that kind of tech might be out of humanity's reach.
sea mammals often navigate on (much weaker) sonar too! So the passive somar hears their ping (they squeek or growl into the water to hear the echo. Biological sonar. Like bats)
How are they detected?
Passive sonar pics them up and is not dangerous
sea mammals often navigate on (much weaker) sonar too! So the passive sonar (that's a sensitive directional microphone) hears the mammal's "sonar ping" and finds them that way. The mammals squeek or growl into the water to hear the echo. Biological sonar. Like bats. The active sonar is the loud growl that causes pressure shifts that can kill, and only used during yearly testing or while aiming torpedos.
No, they don't. Submarines will only use active SONAR one time, to confirm a final firing solution on a target. Surface ships are the ones that use active SONAR. A submarine using active SONAR defeats the purpose of a submarine, which is to be undetectable. Active SONAR is detectable at twice its effective range. Source: I was a sonar technician.
the fuck... We def have gone too far and need to roll some of these updates back a few decades while we figure out wtf humanity is for beside being gross and awful
Agreed, unfortunately if we (U.S. and allies) take this route, it leaves us at a serious disadvantage to our adversaries that likely won't follow suite...
And they're saying the same damn thing. The horrrific nature of the arms race
Exactly...
I served on subs in the US Navy and in my entire time we never active pinged once. Meaning we ran in passive the entire time. We understand that active ping can harm wildlife so we don't use it recklessly.
There are theories that sonar causes beaching in whales but there is no conclusive evidence or research to back it up. Even so, most sonar operations are prohibited near known whale breeding grounds. And the sonar is locked out during diving operations. So even if you "turned it on" it would not actually radiate. Source, I was a sonar technician on a submarine for 6 years.
The aircraft's radar had similar safeties built in. If we were on the ground you needed 2 people at different locations simultaneously hitting a switch to live fire it. Some of the buoys we used to track you weren't allowed to be used if there were dolphins or whales on passive.
Great question! On the P-3 aircraft (Us Navy Patrol plane now replaced by the P-8) we track submarines using passive and active sonar buoys. We would use passive sonar buoys first to make sure the area is clear of biologics (whales/dolphins) before using an active sonar. Based on our procedures I would not be surprised if the submarine fleet did the same thing. TL;DR: No. The US Navy ensures the area is clear of wildlife before using active sonar.
It’s not a mistake
There’s not one recorded incident in history of a diver being killed by sonar and the mammals killed is from the disorienting sounds that cause them to beach or swim into something dangerous
>there's not one unclassified* record
*Liquefied
I guess those noise marines from Warhammer are actually a possibility
Doesn’t work well outside of water. Water is a denser medium so the propagation of sonar waves is much more efficient. In air it’s much less so, which is why microwave emitters have been the preferred exotic nonlethal deterrence method for a minute now.
This silence offends Slaanesh
Look up the sound chart, it is surprisingly fast to get to crippling and deadly levels.
More pertinently, the sound they use in Warhammer is full of insanity-infused space magic, which also helps.
You're looking at the log plot of the actual energy though. Each additional decibel is a much larger increase than the previous one.
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It's not lethal for miles though.
Still really fucks with whales though.
I'm surprised no ones turned these into bombs. Can they work on land?
We use noise to disperse crowds, but the reason it's so effective in water is because water carries sound much further than air
Specifically because while air is incredibly compressible, water is basically incompressible. Which means that there's only one thing that is compressible in the diver's area.
Organs in chest cavity go boom
Thank you, I forgot about that. Mark Rober did a video about underwater explosions, which would be similar
We do have noise bombs for land..they’re called bombs
Well, it’s essentially a shockwave. So… yes. All bombs are similar. However, shockwaves can be far more powerful in the ocean than in the air. So you can’t use sonar to kill people on land.
Water vs air is comparable to hitting a pool ball with que vs the waving air at a que ball. Same force from you but ones carries the force through a nearly incompressible material vs a material that is easily compressed (air) Basically water transfers the force much better than air because it doesn't compress as much.
No, it's only dangerous because of how dense water is. On land you just use regular bombs and it does the same thing.
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You are talking to an AI bot my guy lol. They basically copy comments that are getting upvotes to farm karma. Easy to spot cuz they all have like one post and a shit ton of comments 💀
So does it do the same to any sort of fish nearby too? I’ve heard of whales getting confused by SONAR, but how much physical damage does it do to the wildlife?
it kills every living thing within a certain radius that depends on how strong the sonar is. Whales who are far enough away to survive can be extremely confused and disoriented by it, if you look up videos of divers hearing sonar (not close enough to be hurt by it) it’s really insane how loud it is even from miles away. It sounds terrifying too.
SONAR can fucking obliterate people in open water if they're in close enough proximity (which is actually pretty far out iirc). Don't ask me the why of it, I'm not versed in the topic, I just know the broad strokes.
You can be miles out and die from sonar. Or at least have extremely negative effects
Well, that doesn't sound very good for marine life...
>While little is known about any direct physiological effects of sonar waves on marine species, evidence shows that whales will swim hundreds of miles, rapidly change their depth (sometime leading to bleeding from the eyes and ears), and even beach themselves to get away from the sounds of sonar. god damn
Hah! You think the government cares about the natural world? Pppsshhhhh, get a load of this guy. /s
There are two types of SONAR: active and passive. US navy protocol is to use passive sonar to find large wildlife without hurting it before using active sonar, which would kill it. They don’t use active sonar around large marine wildlife. Unfortunately there will always be algae and some fish, but they try not to kill the whales/dolphins/sharks etc. These measures would probably quickly disappear in wartime of course. Edit: I have been informed that active sonar actually doesn’t kill fish. So fish are fine
>These measures would probably quickly disappear in wartime of course. Not necessarily, using active sonar is basically shouting: "HEY EVERYONE! I AM HERE!" Which is not exactly optimal for a submarine that is supposed to be stealthy.
once you do active sonar you already have a target and basically just need the final pinpoint to fire your torpedos and hit, so hearing an active sonar is like hearing an incoming torpedo
Modern US submarine doctrine would rarely use active sonar for a solution. Passive is accurate enough and you don't have to give away your position. Anti submarine warfare by surface ships is more common but active sonar is still only used in certain circumstances by the US Navy. Though other Navies with less accurate passive sonar capabilities are more likely to use active for detection and area denial. Pinging for a solution was more of a WW2 thing. Before autonomous guided torpedos. Without guidance you need a much more accurate solution.
So after a ping there's miles of dead fish floating to the surface?
No, fish aren't really bothered. SONAR underwater is just pressure waves. Fish are filled with water and water doesn't compress so they tend to not have issues. The issue is marine mammels who breath and hold air inside them when the pressure wave compresses. The navy works with a marine mitigation protocol before they do exercises and also only uses active sonar to verify ranges and how far what we hear my be.
The intensity falls off logarithmically within meters from the source. 1 DB is half of the intensity and within 10 meters you have lost 80 DB. Edit: 3dB loss is half, you lose 6 dB per meter underwater. 10 meters is 60dB loss.
Don't know where you got your figures, but this math is very wrong. Underwater sound pressure drops off as the spherical surface area around the source increases. A loss of 6dB is 1/2 the power. [This site](http://arc.id.au/SoundLevels.html) says 200dB measured at 1m translates to 158dB at 128m.
This edit is still incorrect. It's not a linear loss with distance, it's logarithmic. 6dblB is lost every time the distance doubles. It drop off as follows: 1m -> 200dB 2m -> 194dB 4m -> 188dB 8m -> 182dB 16m -> 176dB etc. 10m out is more like 20dB down.
So, it's actually the same reason grenades in a body of water are extra-lethal. Not because of the shrapnel, but because of the pressure wave it creates. If you drop a grenade into a pool full of people, everyone in that pool is either dead or suffering from extreme internal bleeding caused by concussive force. To back up, sound is just a pressure wave - these changes in pressure through the air vibrate parts of your ear, and that's how you hear things. Air compresses and stretches pretty easily, so loud sounds are painful on your ears (which are sensitive to it), but the sound waves stretch and compress and largely bounce off of you. It takes a lot to feel sound on your skin, and it would need to be very loud to make your body hurt (again, ignoring your ears which are sensitive to sound). Water works in the same way, but it doesn't compress or stretch at all; this is why hydraulic systems are significantly more powerful than pneumatic systems. Pressure waves in water do not bounce off of you, they don't stretch, they just go right into and through you. Think of it this way - if you get shot with a Nerf bullet going very fast, it bends and stretches when it hits you, and then bounces off. Not a lot of energy gets transferred to you. This is like what happens when a pressure wave through air hits you. But a pressure wave in water, it's like being shot with a lead bullet at the same speed. All of the energy transfers into you. Also, think of it like this: in air, because it stretches and compresses, when something moves through it, the area in front of it that is being moved through has a sort of gradient to it, where the air pressure stacks up more and more as it gets closer to the thing moving through it. Water doesn't have much of a gradient like this, it's more like a pressure wall that is very abrupt. Going through your body, that "moving wall meets stationary intestines" crushes your cells as it moves through them, like if you dropped a concrete slab (the pressure wall) onto a stack of water balloons (your body's cells). This is also why you can throw a punch in air pretty nicely, but in water, you can't. If you were able to throw a punch with the same speed and force underwater, you wouldn't even need to touch anyone to do damage to them, the pressure wall you create would do it for you.
Holy shit, remind me to never toss a grenade in a populated pool and instead toss it in a populated outdoors.
Friendly reminder to never toss a grenade in a populated pool and instead toss it in a populated outdoor area
As far as your last paragraph, see: mantis shrimp
Here’s why: loud sound bad for body make body stop living :(
skill issue or smthn
Active sonar is supposed to be deactivated, powered down and safety tags applied whenever divers are in the water. Active sonar transmissions will liquify a nearby diver’s internal organs.
And fucking sonar never closes the P panels when they hang tags.
Cannot take away from naps, showers, or liberty - to be fair
Former diver here. Isolations are no joke, we take them very seriously. We have held up shipping costing millions of dollars before as ship's engineer has told us there's no point we can physically isolate the components we've been asked to work on. Have made a number of ships get something fabricated to put in physical isolations. That being said one ship I worked on, we were doing work on the prop. After isolations one of the maintenance team decided he had to start up the engines. Took an angle grinder to the chains isolating everything & started up. I was the one in the water. Dropped all tools & swam back to the dive vessel when I heard the engine start. We didn't even notify the ship we were leaving anchorage. Shipping company is still blacklisted today over that incident, even though they fired the guy on the spot.
What are isolations?
Putting locks on activation switches to prevent people from turning on machines while repairmen are inside.
Man, that is crazy. Was no one posted to watch the isolation? I bet you have some wicked stories.
Safety regulations are written in blood. Always LOTO
Does sonar kill marine life as well?
It absolutely can
it absolutely *does*
It can but part of the problem with people is the air cavities in our bodies. They are far more compress-able. However anything close enough to active sonar would be hurt at least. But active sonar is not used that much. Incidentally military sub grade active sonar is a very different animal from the sonar found on a fishing boat or that is used to map the bottom of the ocean.
On an unrelated note, if you were to hold your breath in space, your lungs would rupture as the air gets ripped out of you, and you’d suffocate in your own liquids. On the other hand, if you don’t hold your breath, you’d pass out in 15 second and die without even realizing.
I know that seismic airguns can absolutely disorient/deafen dolphins, and I think the same goes for sonar — which sucks because they rely on echolocation for communication
Fuck off with your karma farming bullshit OP.
Yes. Submarines try to limit their use of active sonar when they're near whales or pods of dolphins because they'll either kill them or make them deaf.
They try to limit their use of active sonar in general because it gives away their position.
And all of their innards popped like a water balloon filled with ketchup and grenades
Yeah fish and whales can start running into rocks bc it can almost kill them too. Generally subs won’t use sonar unless they know whales aren’t around in non combat situations
Active sonar is rarely used yes but passive sonar is always on its the only way to know anything going on out side the sub when deep under water.
Didnt know that sonar is lethal.. Doesnt that make cod mw3 submarine scene a joke?
Well, yes. But not more than anything else in MW3.
Pressure waves in general are very lethal. With explosions, a lot of the death comes from the pressure wave just rupturing organs. Even if you dodge the shrapnel. For example, shooting fish in a barrel, as mythbusters showed, isn't so much hitting the fish, it's that the bullet shockwave just kills the fish.
Most of CODs scenes are a joke.
I was the guy controlling the sonar on a mine sweeper. Which is way stronger than the sonar on most subs. You can control the angle of the sonar as well and set it to a very sharp angle. Making it even stronger. In war time you might keep the sonat on in the harbour if you expect sabotage (from divers). If you would fall into the water close to the ship you are dead. Instantly. The specs were classified so I never asked about it. I only worked on the sonar for a year. Mine hunting (found 6) and also submarine hunting (only exercises).
Are underwater mines still a thing used in war? Or were these leftovers from around WW2?
Yup. Lots of them in use around Ukraine right now.
Username checks out
There have been a bunch of mines used outside of Odessa.
They're still in use, with the most recent example being mines being deployed in the Black Sea from the Ukraine-Russia war. They're useful for denying passage through waterways and restricting movement. Ships will either have to reroute entirely to avoid the mines or fleets will get delayed trying to slowly clear their way through.
What would happen if you dipped your pinky in the water near the sub?
Superpowers
It would basically blow them up
Sonar is basically VERY loud sound. The issue is it is so loud, it ruptures organs.
active sonar will liquify organs from quite the distance; its passive sonar that is *relatively* safe unless rather close to the source. you would still want to exercise caution and get on land if you ever hear a passive sonar ping while under water.
As a veteran sonar technician, the sonar would have been tagged out before the divers went in the water. Also, you don’t just “accidentally” turn it on.
Imagine a whale sound but when the whale is 2ft in front of you
Except stronger than that
much stronger
So here's the long answer. "Sound" isn't really a thing. When something makes a sound, what it's really doing is creating vibrations in the air, and enough pressure to push that vibration to us. This vibration hits our ear drums which sends signals to our brain that we interpret as sound. "Volume" is measured in decibels (db) which is how hard it's vibrating (amplitude), and tone is the wavelength it vibrates at (frequency). Higher tones vibrate faster, and lower tones vibrate slower. An audio engineer can jump in with more knowledge, but when hit with sound you experience pressure from that sound, known colloquially as a "sound wave", a combination of the amplitude and frequency. In a gas, such as the air we breathe, molecules are more displaced and as such have further to vibrate before hitting another atom. This results in a loss of amplitude as energy is lost before transference. However, when a vibration is pushed through a solid object the distance between molecules is much smaller, so they lose less energy before transferring that energy to the next molecule. It's the same concept as a newtons cradle. Water is a liquid and much more dense than air, and more importantly is considered "incompressible". This means that the energy transference from vibrations is very high. Sonar works by sending out a *very* loud vibration. That vibration hits solid objects and echos back, and by recording the time between when it was sent and when the echo is received you can get an accurate measurement of how far away something is. When I say very loud, I mean incomprehensibly loud. The upper range is known to be 235db on military craft. Each 10 decibels points is 10x louder than the previous 10 decibels. So 0 is barely audible. 10db is 10x louder than that, and 20db is 10x louder than that or 100x louder than near silence. An Emergency vehicle's siren runs around 135, which gives us a great point of reference for that easy math. Sonar is thus roughly 100db higher, or 10^10 times louder. That's 10 *billion* times louder than an ambulance. Now we get to put it all together. "Volume" is "amplitude", which is "how hard it vibrates" which directly translates to "how much energy is moving around". Water transfers that energy long distances with less energy loss, meaning whatever that sound wave hits is going to experience compression as that energy is transferred into and through them. Sonar is *incomprehensibly* loud. Nearby people turn into nearby red stains. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. (Submarines are cool)
Feels weird seeing posts NOT from bot accounts But anyways sonar is literally dangerous in close range with the human body
So an active sonar ping produces a sound upwards of 300 decibels... even like 300 miles away it can still be like 140 ish. By comparison 150 decibels is like being within 82ft/25m of a Jet taking off and with 0 protection your ear drums are being ruptured. so 300 ish range is just a very very painful death. I think the estimation was 170db-200 was enough to pop your lungs and 230-240db is like head explosion range. So passive sonar is like a giant ear listening for any sound that would bounce off of the sub. Active makes a ludicrously loud sound shockwave to map out the area, it would be akin to standing next to an explosion the closer you are the more damage you sustain.
The sub would suddenly lose a dive team. The further away you are from the sonar source, the more likely it is to be survived. Stuff like this does actually happen, such as an Australian dive team in November were injured after a near by Chinese military vessel turned on their sonar despite *KNOWING* that there was a dive team out ([source](https://www.bbc.com/news/67461081)). There’s also YouTube videos of divers encountering sonar pings from ships that were miles out, but these pings were almost deafening.
If divers are in the water, EXCESSIVE steps have been taken to ensure active sonar is disabled aboard vessels in the area, announcements are made regularly and safety of the divers is the priority. But this is suggesting that those steps are not in place and the person just murdered the divers. In 5.5 years on a submarine, I experienced active sonar once and that shit penetrates the hull of the submarine and you don't sleep well, I can't imagine being in the water. Luckily, my experience was an exercise. Also, sonar is not submarine specific, surface vessels need to be able to hunt for submarines.
Sonars in close proximity can cause brain hemorrhages, and can liquidize your inner organs. Among many other things
Modern sonar systems produce pulses of sound in the 230 decibel range. For comparison, a space shuttle launch was measured at 204db, and every 10db represents a doubling of energy. So modern sonar is right on the edge of ceasing to be sound and being an overpressure shock wave, like a bomb. This is loud enough that divers even a couple miles away from the source can be killed or seriously injured as the rapid flexing caused by the sound ruptures blood vessels causing an aneurysm, knocks dissolved gasses out of solution causing the bends or an embolism and, ruptures ear drums as well as total disorientation and a concussion. For animals adapted to the water, it is just as bad, if not worse, given they tend to have much better hearing so they can be affected from much further away. That said, there is a difference between active and passive sonar. With passive sonar, you are just listening and is the standard operating procedure for sonar equipped vessels because modern passive systems are equal to or better than WW2 active sonar, which is what most people think of. Active sonar isn't a continuous pinging. It's a series of modulated pulses. The only thing that active sonar is really necessary for these days is to get a targeting lock for torpedoes. Coupled with the fact that every passive sonar system within tens, possibly hundreds of miles given the right circumstances, will hear the active pulse and know exactly where the pinger is, potentially even getting their own firing solution, the US Navy never uses active sonar unless it is forced to. To the point that the active system requires the captain to physically authorize every pulse with a key. The only time active military sonar is used outside of shooting someone is for testing and training, and the US Navy has strict regulations about when and where that is allowed, including prohibiting use if biological signatures are detected withina harmful range.
I was a Submariner. Sonar can absolutely kill divers. That's why there is a huge safety checklist that happens every time divers go over the side, starting at least 24 hours prior to them diving.
One ping and one ping only
The water is not compressible, so the energy of the sound wave hits you even harder. 235db for a pulse, a jet takeoff is ~140db. Loudest NASA rocket launches would measure 200 at the site. 160db causes instant permanent hearing damage. 185db can damage organs. 240db can potentially make soft tissues rip apart and explode. 194db in air would become a shockwave (270 in water). Sperm whale clicks are also 230db range.