SOSUS
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 processing at the shore facilities to form azimuthal beams.
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 to Barbados.
[3][4] That group also recommended a system to monitor low-frequency sound in the SOFAR channel using multiple listening sites equipped with hydrophones and a processing facility that could calculate submarine positions over hundreds of miles.
"[7] This refers to A2 on the musical scale, which is technically two A's below middle C. 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.
[1] 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.
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 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.
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 individual arrays were installed primarily on continental slopes and seamounts at the axis of the deep sound channel and normal 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 at ranges of several hundred kilometres.
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.
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, California.
[24] 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.
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.
[note 7] Systems terminating at Naval Facility Bermuda, Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Shelburne, Nova Scotia, Nantucket, and Cape May were installed during 1955.
[22] 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.
[3] NAVFAC Cape Hatteras closed in 1982 and in 1983 Midway acoustic data was rerouted directly to Naval Ocean Processing Facility, Ford Island.
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.
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.
[3] 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.
[3] 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.
Commander Ocean Systems Atlantic launched an effort in 1964 to create a rating peculiar to SOSUS and allow personnel to remain within the community.
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 K-129, that foundered that month north of Hawaii.
It was the primary cuing system that antisubmarine forces used to localize and potentially destroy targets for over forty years, but secrecy largely kept that fact from the fleet.
Cable ships: Other: In 1988, Stephen Joseph Ratkai, a Hungarian-Canadian recruited by Soviet Intelligence, was arrested, charged and convicted in St. John's, Newfoundland for attempting to obtain information on the SOSUS site at Naval Station Argentia.
John Anthony Walker, a US Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist, divulged SOSUS operational information to the Soviet Union during the Cold War which compromised its effectiveness.
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.
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.
