I always find the flights example kinda sus, like haven't the airlines cottoned on if you're searching for flights for like Los Angeles to Sydney while supposedly living in Zimbabwe? If it actually works maybe you could show an example on screen during the ad read?
How about one on Sophia the robot? I find her absolutely fascinating. They did just release the "2020" production line. Yeah... I just want a talking (robot) dog best friend lmao.
I was in the Navy from 1988 - 1992. I was an OTA (Ocean Systems Technician Analyst) who tracked the submarines using the SOSUS arrays. Pretty odd to see that our job, equipment, locations, etc are now declassified. I had a secret clearance and couldn’t tell anyone what I did. I was stationed at NAVFAC Whidbey Island in Washington State. It was a wicked cool job, honestly. I met a lot of fantastic people, too. I would much rather go to a Navy reunion than a high school reunion 😁
I was in from 1989-1994 and was an OTA3. My first duty station after ASW school was Bermuda then back to NOPF Dam Neck in Virginia Beach. I loved the job and would love to do it again! Good times...great friends
i live right near whidbey island, its pretty awesome to see chinooks and stuff flying to and from the air station there. We've even had the blue angles do practice runs over our house a couple times.
Same here same years in SOSUS then on to Surtass and some experimental work on larger ships, its an incredible community of men and women sailors with diversity in thinking, strategy, and outcomes. Some of the best critical thinkers I have been around in the Navy. As far as accuracy and its effectiveness after converting to Sonar I would say we did pretty good. The oral boards for our principles of sound and much more was intense.. Glad I stumbled across this video and saw the old gear in action. Would be great to see a follow up video to SOSUS.
One of the lesser known talents was that the Sosus network was sensitive enough to be able to track the incredibly noisy Soviet TU-95 Bear Turboprop bomber that is still used and will be until 2040 according to sources. Just a fun fact.
"Your aircraft has dropped enough sonobuoys so that a man could walk from Greenland to Iceland to Scotland without getting his feet wet. Now, shall we dispense with the bull?"
@@TheSchultinator Yeah - movies usually sacrifice stuff for run time, director / scriptwriter's visions etc. I'd say the same about Patriot Games, Clear & Present Danger and Sum of All Fears.
The description of "active" sonar (sending a ping and listening for a response) isn't relevant for SOSUS, which is "passive" sonar (i.e. just listening for the noises made by passing submarines).
I served at one of the original SOSUS stations on the East Coast - HMCS Shelburne in Nova Scotia, Canada. We WRENs took our specialized training for this in Key West, Florida. I was posted to HMCS Shelburne in April 1963.
Thanks so much for your service and dedication. It is thanks to people like you that we have kept the world mostly at peace all these decades. We owe you much gratitude and thanks.
I first learned about SOSUS about 1968 when I was working (Civil Service, not military) at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Pasadena, CA. It was still highly classified at the time. I understand that the network has been used in more recent decades for oceanographic scientific research.
My father was president NCEL. Head of research and development for the Navy In 1968.He was the lead engineer and his name is on the blueprints. Robert Breckenridge He also helped developed pre-stressed concrete. remember the vacuum punchcard “Computer” They had at Port Hueneme. Dad liked his slide ruler better
Jeffrey Pelt to Dr. Ryan: “Listen, I'm a politician which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.” 😎
@@anaetadesireechandler4122 I remember following a US Navy Flatbed truck down 101 it had some interesting equipment on the back turned off at Ferndale.. I figured it wasn't for a satilite dish for the officer's club.
I had a buddy who was a lineman in Grays Harbor County on the Washington coast. He was called out once to the naval facility in Pacific Beach, Washington, because of an electrical service issue. He was an apprentice at the time and his partner was a journeyman. When they got to the facility, they were taken to a building and the navy security guards made my friend sit and they took the lineman to another place where he was told to check out the input lines. The guards never left my friend alone for a minute. When the senior guy came back, he just said that he was taken to an underground facility, by elevator and couldn’t talk about it anymore. My buddy always wondered what his coworker saw. The guy never talked about what he saw to anyone. Local rumors said the base had something to do with submarines. Could it have been connected to Sosus?
Sea Wolf Class would make and interesting video. Last of the Cold War boats and more advanced then all but the most recent Virginia Class Block V boats. Only three completed, second most expensive sub ever made. Designed to stalk the Typhoon and escorts.
Let's just say in the 70's and 80's SOSUS and the other elements of the whole strategic ASW world were considerably more successful than you can imagine.
Could there be more acronyms? Of course Simon! This is the military (of which I was a proud member). We have so many acronyms we even have acronyms for acronyms!
Not sure if there is more disappointment that Today is the day Simon finds out about "The Hunt for Red October", or we were gypped out of hearing him say "magma displacement"
Great video. I worked on several SOSUS stations in the mid 70"s when I was in the Navy. We know them as NAVFAC's . Most of the info you have is correct and some is still classified. Most of these stations were shutdown in the 80"s an 90"s but some were automated.
Cool video. One small clarification though. You mentioned that Submarines are tracked through SONAR, which is correct. However, you mentioned that SONAR is where you transmit a sound into the water and receive a sound back. This is called active SONAR, and is rarely used by Submarines, and never during anti Submarine warfare. Submarines, the SOSUS system and most surface ships rely primarily on passive SONAR to track submarines. This is where you just sit and listen to sounds in the water and do not transmit any noise.
Passive sonar is sonar none the less 2 years later i felt compelled to let you know you’re an asshole, trying to be smart for no reason EVERY person knew and understood what simon was saying you are just trying to interject your little “lesson” We know , you such, stop trying
Oh funny thing about the SOSUS net, they could hear the TU-95 "Bear" nosey sob. poor guys that fly that one loses their hearing faster than a pion like me flying BH-206L3's
I had a couple ideas for Megaprojects: - What about, "the internet". Like everything from the invention/discovery, to the servers, laying all the cable. Everything from concept to now. Multi-part series? - The Sears Tower in Chicago - The IDS tower in Minneapolis - The US National Highway system - US National Park System - The Bell Telephone System
While attending Submarine Sonar school in San Diego in 1978, we entered a special session known as "SECRET WEEK". We learned about a secret system known as SOSUS. This information was so secret it could only be discussed in specially secured rooms safe from espionage. The weekend following SECRET Week was a 3 day weekend so some buddies and I took a motorcycle trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. Imagine our surprise when we seen a highway sign with the words "US Navy SOSUS Station This Exit". So much for "SECRET".
It was the K-129, not K-109, that blew itself up in 1968. And the K-129 was a diesel-electric submarine. The only nuclear material aboard were the SLBMs
The most difficult and expensive part of passive acoustic data spectrum analysis was the production of LAVA Technicians. The school (seven weeks for STG-0445 class) was probably the last training environment for a neural compute intensive process that couldn't be replaced by digital computing methods at the time. No more than ten in my class graduated and well more than eighty volunteered. None of the line officers or chief petty officers passed the course for the November 1977 FLEASWTRACENPAC class. My Division Officer stated that it was the most difficult course of any kind that the US Navy offered to any qualified volunteer, and it was a shame my rank was too low to volunteer. I still haven't figured that bit out, as I certainly went back to my very favorite Naval Base of all time for that massively difficult class. Best Naval Base BEQ facilities EVER in my not very humble opinion concerning nautical fraternity accommodations. Quite a hoot, and major headache too.
The SOSUS array was so good the it could hear the Soviet bomber TU-95 which is the largest turboprop bomber with 8 counter rotating propellers. The aircraft is also the noisiest aircraft which is why SOSUS could detect it.
I was stationed at Marine Barracks, NAS Bermuda, in 1972. Part of our duties was to guard the SOSUS facility on the island. We had Secret clearances but if something such as a fire occurred in the facility, we couldn’t enter due to the type of work being done there. We just patrolled and issued security badges.
@@hachwarwickshire292 it was not bad duty. Everything is gone now. What buildings that are left are being used by the Bermudians. One of the many bases closed in the 90’s.
I only gave it a like because I like your mannerism of the way you speak. I really had wished you’d given a much more detailed description of how these Hydro phones are actually working what they’re hearing and maybe what they’re really being used for today. Like maybe how they were powered at great distances. A possible follow up story might be the west coast AT&T undersea cable termination point near San Luis Obispo California. In the early 1970s while attending college in that area we discovered this AT&T site. We dubbed it the hole in the ground. We sort of figured something was going on ( in the ocean) because there were cables going to Hawaii & Guam but a lot “extra” cables going into the sea.
While waiting to start my 'A' school in the Navy I had a job sorting and delivering mail on a training base. I often had to refer to the DicNavAb* to figure out who gets what mail.
Good video. My Mom was involved with SOSUS in Bermuda during the 60s-70s. All we knew was she worked on the Naval Base. How I found out was an engineering school professor, when he found out I grew up in Bermuda, told me he had worked there. My Mom knew who he was and told me years later what he (and she) had been up to.
When the Russians lost K129, the SOSUS “trilateral” fix gave the US its location....it was decided by the USN and CIA to go fetch it.....the highly secret project was code named AZORIAN (same title of the 2010 book by Norman Polmar and Michael White) under The Jennifer Project (Same title of the 1977 book by Clyde Burleson) whereby known other than Howard Hughes working in concert for the CIA, created an ocean going ship to “search for manganese nodules” but had a “Moon Pool” designed into the ship complete with apparatus to be lowered to grasp the K129, to retrieve it back up into the ships Moon Pool for intelligence exploitation.....the mission was apparently only partially successful, retrieving only a section of the sub when the underwater “claw” system experienced mechanical failure, the sub breaking apart....with only a section of it actually retrieved back into the Moon Pool.....as claimed later when the project was revealed by a security lapse.....the part had Russian bodies in it....and it was claimed by the CIA, no Russian secret codes were captured.....later the CIA completed a Russian Naval,burial at sea of the bodies, conducted and recorded in Russian, a copy of which was swapped with the Russians....it is believed that a complete Russian ICBM missile with a nuclear warhead and a launch code system was captured......(?)....further published literature on secret submarine intelligence gathering includes, but is not limited to...Rising Tide by Gary Weir and Walter Boyne in 2003, Stalking the Red Bear by Peter Sasgen in 2009, Red November by W.Craig Reed in 2010, Blind Mans Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher and Annette Drew in 1998, God and Spies by Garry Matheny in 2018 and others (56 to date) all providing further detailed now declassified underwater intelligence exploitation operations......”Watson, the game is afoot” .....and remains so to date and beyond, including Spies of the Deep by W. Craig Reed in 2020, the story of the very tragic loss of the mega Russian sub, the Kursk.....
Uh Simon, they did that movie already, book too... Guy named Clancy, maybe you've heard of him... Featuring Sean Connery's Scottish drawl that screams Soviet Sub Captain....
Hey just found your channel and subscribed. Good work. I remember in the '70s a Hull based trawler, the "Gaul', disappeared with the loss of all hands, it was though to be an accident in bad weather, which was later confirmed, but no-one admitted to know where it was. It turned out that the trawler landed on the sea bed right next to one of the SOSUS cables, so its location could not be disclosed and also how they knew it was there without disclosing SOSUS. A ROV was sent down to the trawler in the naughties when SOSUS was declassified enabling the relatives to know what happened.
No......not so.......USN Chief Petty Officer Walker sold the Russians every cryptographic secret he could put his greedy hands on.....he did that for over 18 years and recruited his brother and his son to feed him other secrets to sell.....the Russians then easily worked out the offensive and defensive US navy secrets beyond communications security, such as technological advances in precision machine tooling to then fabricate their own state of the art silent running stealth systems......it was Walkers own wife who went to the FBI to reveal his treachery and espionage activities.......catching his brother and his son.....he tried to co-opt his daughter too but she refused.....!
Well, basically we wired the ocean for sound. It got so bad for the Soviets that they kept their SSNs under the pack ice. We will never know fully how well we were served and are being served by the silent service. Money well spent, the cold war would never go hot because the Soviets could not turn the Atlantic into a Soviet lake. It's a good thing, not only for us but for our Russian cousins too.
SOSUS tracks surface ships as well. Access to a land control point is very difficult, even today. It is rumored one Soviet sub crashed into a SOSUS tower. US attack subs track Soviet subs as they leave their barn and categorize anything new. Of course, the Russians do it too
Here's a suggestion for a similar topic; back in the 1980's early imaging pioneers created a cutting edge entity called the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan. Together with some super tech giants, they put together and operated some satellites that were intended to help scientists better understand terrestrial flora and fauna on a global scale. They were shocked by what they saw and the US DOD was alarmed when they discovered that their new instruments could reliably detect and locate EVERY submarine and U.S.O.s (Unidentified high speed (500kph +) Submerged Objects) and more, anywhere on the globe provided they were less than about 5 kilometers deep underwater!!! What they had stumbled upon simply blew them away! Amazing and beautiful images. So over night, what was once meant to be a laid back tree hugging environmental research adventure, the E.R.I.M. was transformed into a new, very high budget, and very, very black project along with all the spooky security accoutrements and paranoia associated with highly secret low earth orbit remote sensing systems. An interesting aside, at that time E.R.I.M. was physically located right next door to the facility where NASA did a lot of the R and D preliminary testing of the Apollo Moon Rovers with the assistance of GM and the University of Michigan. They could have literally looked out the window watched the test Moon vehicles being driven around a mock moonscape. Lots of amazing things have happened in Ann Arbor, Michigan that almost nobody knows about.
I’ll raise that idea to the greatest 3 way in military industrial history.... Eugene Stoner vs Mikhail Kalashnikov vs Michael G. Vickers (aka The Special Forces officer who fathered the Stinger missile, and now on the board of directors for BAE)
Most submarines are using passive sonar. This means that the only thing they do is listen en identify all the sounds underwater. This makes it much harder for other submarines and hostile forces to detect the submarine.
Your initial discussion of sonar implied that it's all active sonar. Problem with that is that the transmitting platform can be detected at much greater range than can the target- not good. For some time, on USN ships, surface and submarine, improvements to passive sonar, especially on surface ships, combined with reduction of self-noise resulting from gas turbines, made both ship types excellent silent stalkers/killers. FWIW the Walkers, US spy family, compromised info on just how noisy Soviet subs were; keel-hauling no longer an option, sadly.
When I was a sonarman on an SSN we detected a Russian sub spying on our fleet maneuvers. We gave it a single ping at close range, max power and max pulse width. I’m sure it woke everyone on board their boat. They left the area. We went back to being the “silent service”.
How effective was the P3 Orion in tracking Soviet subs from above? They use to depart Moffit Field Naval Air Station ( "Silicon Valley" vicinity) , part of the West Coast defense during the Cold War era.
Against older Russian subs they were very effective provided the crew knew what they were doing and generally they did, but they were a local area asset only and had to be cued on to the vicintiy of the target in the first instance, this is what SOSUS would have done, along with other startegic assets.
Project Azorian or "How to Steal a Submarine Without the Soviet Union Being Able to Verify You Are Doing So". Was quite fascinating. Makes me want to go aquire some magnesium nodules of my own!!!
I remember reading in the papers the idea of Mining the Seabed. They even had a picture of the Ship. Great story ... I fell for it and often wondered why it never caught on. Hoover up the seafloor.
@@hachwarwickshire292 mainly because it's VERY expensive to acquire the nodules from the seafloor vs just mining magnesium the old fashioned way EDIT: That could be changing in the future though as we use more and more the surface and me surface shit will dry up
I had the chance to sit with a retired CIA and a Navy Man when they were talking about this system. Now, these guys did not talk about anything they shouldn't but I would have loved to hear them talk in private about some of their experiences.
My father was lead engineer. His name is on the blueprints. President naval civil engineering laboratories. Head of research and development Port Hueneme. Highest rank civilian in the military at that time
@@IUSSHistory “ naval Civil Engineering Laboratory‘s RA Breckenridge. Lots of info about him there The only other person I remember is Dan true. Many summers the family spent time on squirrel Island in British Columbia. Family trips always involves going to some very unusual locations.
Three words not 5 "SOund SUrveillance System". I was an AW-2 (I leave it to you to guess that one) in 1980 when I left the Navy. My patrol areas were the North Atlantic, the Med and Gulf of Mexico. My stations ranged from Iceland to Florida and the Azores islands to the Greek island of Crete to various other places. I don't know of any other job in the Navy where an enlisted man, such as myself, could have ever gotten as close to a large group of Soviet sailors milling about on the deck of their armed military and unarmed civilian Supply Ships as I, and my crew mates did. We weren't allowed to over-fly them but we did get very close to them on their port and starboard flanks, within 500 feet or so, which could make me somewhat edgy, but with every Russian looking up and not running, as though to battle stations, the real sensation was simple curiosity. Our mission that day was to take pictures of this group of ships doing an at-sea replenishment for an Echo-2 class missile boat and a Foxtrot class fast attack submarine with our P3-C Orion's camera to see if we couldn't catch them with something interesting on the deck they didn't want us to see and just to say hello. When I knew our mission today was one of these sort I knew it was more likely than most others missions that we'd make close contact with Soviet ships so on these occasions I brought my own camera so I could keep the photos I took. As I took my best shots from one of the observer seats I saw some of the Soviet Sailors were doing much the same to us, that is, shooting at us with a camera instead of a gun. It was these non-hostile missions that left me feeling a real sense of "Now ain't this a "MUTTER Clucking shame?" "I'm as curious about them as they "Obviously" are about us and I'd love to meet some of them but still, here we are again, a mere 500 to 1500 feet apart "Physically" but in our ugly, political, 1980's reality, still worlds apart.
They knew where Thresher went down as there was a ship above it. The Scorion was found by SOSUS? How soon did the USN know where and when it sunk? Why did it take five months to find it?
Australia's then-old Oberons were able to beat Americans in war games because of their quiet operation. Pity their replacements sucked, and the next gen planned cone from France, so will likely just surrender.
@@owenshebbeare2999 I believe it. Our squadron's aircrew had a much tougher time finding the older subs using passive sonobuoys when they were submerged
I had left SURTASS for medical reasons but was told abut one of the Hughes Technical Tuna clippers tracking a Russian sub off the coast of Denmark from outside the Chesapeake Bay detecting it having a hull implosion. Shortly later the SURTASS Project was ended. This SOSUS Project sounds interesting.
Johnny Walker provided key mats and schematics of encryption gear to the soviets. This basically gave the soviets open access to all submarine operations.
Need to do a video on the uss zumwalt and that class of ship. As the fact that it cost 1million per ammunition round for its guns makes it a crazy interesting project.
Get Surfshark VPN at Surfshark.deals/MEGA and enter promo code CODE for 83% off and 3 extra months for free!
Please make a video about Bar Lev Line, costing around $300 million in 1973.
I always find the flights example kinda sus, like haven't the airlines cottoned on if you're searching for flights for like Los Angeles to Sydney while supposedly living in Zimbabwe? If it actually works maybe you could show an example on screen during the ad read?
I have surfshark, it's not good
They did write a movie about SOSUS. In fact it was a book first.
Ever heard of The Hunt for Red October?
How about one on Sophia the robot? I find her absolutely fascinating. They did just release the "2020" production line. Yeah... I just want a talking (robot) dog best friend lmao.
I was in the Navy from 1988 - 1992.
I was an OTA (Ocean Systems Technician Analyst) who tracked the submarines using the SOSUS arrays.
Pretty odd to see that our job, equipment, locations, etc are now declassified. I had a secret clearance and couldn’t tell anyone what I did.
I was stationed at NAVFAC Whidbey Island in Washington State.
It was a wicked cool job, honestly. I met a lot of fantastic people, too. I would much rather go to a Navy reunion than a high school reunion 😁
I was in from 1989-1994 and was an OTA3. My first duty station after ASW school was Bermuda then back to NOPF Dam Neck in Virginia Beach. I loved the job and would love to do it again! Good times...great friends
We were there at Whidbey during the same time frame.
i live right near whidbey island, its pretty awesome to see chinooks and stuff flying to and from the air station there. We've even had the blue angles do practice runs over our house a couple times.
I would imagine that means we have something else, or it's just common knowledge
Same here same years in SOSUS then on to Surtass and some experimental work on larger ships, its an incredible community of men and women sailors with diversity in thinking, strategy, and outcomes. Some of the best critical thinkers I have been around in the Navy. As far as accuracy and its effectiveness after converting to Sonar I would say we did pretty good. The oral boards for our principles of sound and much more was intense.. Glad I stumbled across this video and saw the old gear in action. Would be great to see a follow up video to SOSUS.
One of the lesser known talents was that the Sosus network was sensitive enough to be able to track the incredibly noisy Soviet TU-95 Bear Turboprop bomber that is still used and will be until 2040 according to sources. Just a fun fact.
LOL, I remember hearing "Conn, sonar, we have a contact bearing 070, doing 1800 rpm on four seven bladed screws."
With a 50hz down Doppler signature at CPA. :)
As a former submariner, I can confirm that Simon pronounces SOSUS correctly.
As fellow bubblehead I concur.
and thrice a yes vote
Thank you for your service! All of you!
I concur with this comment
As a former infantryman I can confirm.... you're all crazy
1:50 - Chapter 1 - Early sonar
3:15 - Chapter 2 - The sofar channels
4:40 - Chapter 3 - The cold war begins
6:15 - Mid roll ads
7:50 - Chapter 4 - SOSUS research
9:30 - Chapter 5 - Installation
10:30 - Chapter 6 - Evolution
11:10 - Chapter 7 - Bingo
13:25 - Chapter 8 - Problems with the system
15:05 - Chapter 9 - Post cold war
"Your aircraft has dropped enough sonobuoys so that a man could walk from Greenland to Iceland to Scotland without getting his feet wet. Now, shall we dispense with the bull?"
Epically good movie. 👍
@Phantom Echelon I maintain that the book's ending was better. The movie's ain't bad, but the book's is better
@@TheSchultinator Yeah - movies usually sacrifice stuff for run time, director / scriptwriter's visions etc.
I'd say the same about Patriot Games, Clear & Present Danger and Sum of All Fears.
Nice comment buckaroo
The description of "active" sonar (sending a ping and listening for a response) isn't relevant for SOSUS, which is "passive" sonar (i.e. just listening for the noises made by passing submarines).
Hollywood touches on the whole theme with Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October and I'm pretty sure they even mention the SOSUS system.
Yup, they did.
He spent half a chapter to break SOSUS down in the book which landed him before congress proving that all of his sources were public knowledge.
The movie mentioned it briefly, but the book went into more detail.
@@BlackEpyon well yes I mention the Movie because of Simon's comment about Hollywood get on it
What about the K-19?
I served at one of the original SOSUS stations on the East Coast - HMCS Shelburne in Nova Scotia, Canada. We WRENs took our specialized training for this in Key West, Florida. I was posted to HMCS Shelburne in April 1963.
Thanks so much for your service and dedication. It is thanks to people like you that we have kept the world mostly at peace all these decades. We owe you much gratitude and thanks.
@@LatitudeSky Thanks, LS. I appreciate your kind words.
@@gwensettle15 I got build some great relationships and Serve with many of the women of the Canadian Navy at these sites. Still friends..
I first learned about SOSUS about 1968 when I was working (Civil Service, not military) at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Pasadena, CA. It was still highly classified at the time. I understand that the network has been used in more recent decades for oceanographic scientific research.
I read about it back in the late 90s in a book by Robert D. Ballard, "Explorations".
My father was president NCEL. Head of research and development for the Navy
In 1968.He was the lead engineer and his name is on the blueprints.
Robert Breckenridge
He also helped developed pre-stressed concrete.
remember the vacuum punchcard “Computer”
They had at Port Hueneme.
Dad liked his slide ruler better
that would be the place to learn about it at. yessir.
Jeffrey Pelt to Dr. Ryan: “Listen, I'm a politician which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.” 😎
LMAO
Great movie, just rewatched it the other day
Coos Bay,Or had a Sosus station it's exact nature was not known but as soon as the USSR fell it was decommissioned.
Same down the coast in humboldt county just outside of ferndale. It’s now been shut down demolished and given back to the BLM.
@@anaetadesireechandler4122
I remember following a US Navy Flatbed truck down 101 it had some interesting equipment on the back turned off at Ferndale..
I figured it wasn't for a satilite dish for the officer's club.
I was stationed in Coos Bay in 1987-89, would like to learn more about that!
@@anaetadesireechandler4122 I trained there.
I had a buddy who was a lineman in Grays Harbor County on the Washington coast. He was called out once to the naval facility in Pacific Beach, Washington, because of an electrical service issue. He was an apprentice at the time and his partner was a journeyman. When they got to the facility, they were taken to a building and the navy security guards made my friend sit and they took the lineman to another place where he was told to check out the input lines. The guards never left my friend alone for a minute. When the senior guy came back, he just said that he was taken to an underground facility, by elevator and couldn’t talk about it anymore. My buddy always wondered what his coworker saw. The guy never talked about what he saw to anyone. Local rumors said the base had something to do with submarines. Could it have been connected to Sosus?
Actually, submarines rarely use active sonar as this gives away the position of the submarine using it. Passive sonar is used almost all the time.
Sea Wolf Class would make and interesting video. Last of the Cold War boats and more advanced then all but the most recent Virginia Class Block V boats. Only three completed, second most expensive sub ever made. Designed to stalk the Typhoon and escorts.
Since you mentioned all the important facts I guess there's no more need for a video 😝
One of the Sea Wolf subs was modified to be a spy sub.
....."Designed to stalk the Typhoon and escorts"....
Uhm, Ben...The Typhoon is not in service anymore. They are all phased out.
@@Kirovets7011 That's what you want the west to think 😉.
Ah yes the PierWolf
Covering the modern Seawolf class submarine would be a great follow up to this. another cold war effort with incredibly interesting history!
Let's just say in the 70's and 80's SOSUS and the other elements of the whole strategic ASW world were considerably more successful than you can imagine.
As a Ocean System Technician, I would totally agree!
'Look! The Captain has scared the Americans out of the water!'
Horton hears a who!!?
Could there be more acronyms? Of course Simon! This is the military (of which I was a proud member). We have so many acronyms we even have acronyms for acronyms!
Including FUBAR.
First one .. you are pronouncing it right
1st time for everything right? Lol
Not sure if there is more disappointment that Today is the day Simon finds out about "The Hunt for Red October", or we were gypped out of hearing him say "magma displacement"
This was literally the first thing I thought of...
Captain Ramius : Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.
I heard about the SOSUS net in this movie...Please Simon, tell me you've watched this classic Sean Connery movie prior to making this video?
was about to say it myself too!
Hollywood had beat you to the punch Simon in this occasion!
The Cold War- The Enemy in The Depth
Great video. I worked on several SOSUS stations in the mid 70"s when I was in the Navy. We know them as NAVFAC's . Most of the info you have is correct and some is still classified.
Most of these stations were shutdown in the 80"s an 90"s but some were automated.
Which Navy ?
The 70's we're before my time ...I was 90 to 95 at CVB and Nopf damn neck.....
Every nuclear sub has sunk, only 11 didn’t unsink.
Surfaces must always equal dives.
"how deep can you go?" "all the way to the bottom" lol
@@Adventurehandle Every ship can be a submarine once.
No, submarines dive, not sink. A vessel is only sunken when it can’t surface itself
Good point
Cool video. One small clarification though. You mentioned that Submarines are tracked through SONAR, which is correct. However, you mentioned that SONAR is where you transmit a sound into the water and receive a sound back. This is called active SONAR, and is rarely used by Submarines, and never during anti Submarine warfare. Submarines, the SOSUS system and most surface ships rely primarily on passive SONAR to track submarines. This is where you just sit and listen to sounds in the water and do not transmit any noise.
Passive sonar is sonar none the less 2 years later i felt compelled to let you know you’re an asshole, trying to be smart for no reason EVERY person knew and understood what simon was saying you are just trying to interject your little “lesson”
We know , you such, stop trying
As a Cold War submariner this all made me chuckle. Remember, there is what is publicly available and there is truth. They are rarely the same.
true that
Submarine movies almost a sub genre, Hunt for Red October, Das Boot, Crimson Tide, U571...
Oh funny thing about the SOSUS net, they could hear the TU-95 "Bear" nosey sob. poor guys that fly that one loses their hearing faster than a pion like me flying BH-206L3's
Can recommend "The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service" for extra background. Great vid!
Blind man's Bluff is another very good book about the era.
"That is a massive mouthful" -Simon, 2021
Of duckies:)
"Sam! Sam! You missed a spot for a meme!"
Kinky
Simon Simon Simon at 12:33ish it was PT-109 not K-109 or maybe K-129 a diesel powered 3 missile tubes (in the sail)
I had a couple ideas for Megaprojects:
- What about, "the internet". Like everything from the invention/discovery, to the servers, laying all the cable. Everything from concept to now. Multi-part series?
- The Sears Tower in Chicago
- The IDS tower in Minneapolis
- The US National Highway system
- US National Park System
- The Bell Telephone System
The highway system forsure would be great to see. Great ideas man👌
How about “chemtrails” 😒
also CN tower in Toronto Canada please
Outstanding!!!. Simply outstanding!!!.
"world war two - apparently totally worth it"
simon whistler, 2021
While attending Submarine Sonar school in San Diego in 1978, we entered a special session known as "SECRET WEEK". We learned about a secret system known as SOSUS. This information was so secret it could only be discussed in specially secured rooms safe from espionage.
The weekend following SECRET Week was a 3 day weekend so some buddies and I took a motorcycle trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. Imagine our surprise when we seen a highway sign with the words "US Navy SOSUS Station This Exit".
So much for "SECRET".
@@IUSSHistory, Big Sur
"You have somethin' to add to our discussion, Doctah Ryan?"
Capt. Ramius might be trying to defect...
@@stephenketcham4179 I said speak your mind, Jack, but ... jeezus!
“I’m a politician, which means I’m a cheat and a liar. When I’m not kissing babies, I’m stealing their lollipops.”
No truer words were ever spoken.
@@macmedic892 I wouldn't trust John Milius with truth too much.
@@stephenketcham4179 is just an analysist, how could he possibly know?
It was the K-129, not K-109, that blew itself up in 1968. And the K-129 was a diesel-electric submarine. The only nuclear material aboard were the SLBMs
Simon how do you always have so much energy?? Maybe we need a mega projects on that
The most difficult and expensive part of passive acoustic data spectrum analysis was the production of LAVA Technicians. The school (seven weeks for STG-0445 class) was probably the last training environment for a neural compute intensive process that couldn't be replaced by digital computing methods at the time. No more than ten in my class graduated and well more than eighty volunteered. None of the line officers or chief petty officers passed the course for the November 1977 FLEASWTRACENPAC class. My Division Officer stated that it was the most difficult course of any kind that the US Navy offered to any qualified volunteer, and it was a shame my rank was too low to volunteer. I still haven't figured that bit out, as I certainly went back to my very favorite Naval Base of all time for that massively difficult class. Best Naval Base BEQ facilities EVER in my not very humble opinion concerning nautical fraternity accommodations. Quite a hoot, and major headache too.
*reaches for low-hanging fruit "THAT SOVIET SUB IS SO SUS!"
😂 get outta here
GDI, upvoted... now GTFO
And today’s winner of the internet is...
That was bad and you should feel bad.
The SOSUS array was so good the it could hear the Soviet bomber TU-95 which is the largest turboprop bomber with 8 counter rotating propellers. The aircraft is also the noisiest aircraft which is why SOSUS could detect it.
Lol, that Hollywood movie has already been made, it is called The Hunt for Red October
I was stationed at Marine Barracks, NAS Bermuda, in 1972. Part of our duties was to guard the SOSUS facility on the island. We had Secret clearances but if something such as a fire occurred in the facility, we couldn’t enter due to the type of work being done there. We just patrolled and issued security badges.
Bermuda ... life must have been hell
@@hachwarwickshire292 it was not bad duty. Everything is gone now. What buildings that are left are being used by the Bermudians. One of the many bases closed in the 90’s.
I was stationed at the NAVFAC for 18 months starting in late 1973, always enjoyed chatting with you guys on the gate.
thanks
Ayy look who’s here
I only gave it a like because I like your mannerism of the way you speak. I really had wished you’d given a much more detailed description of how these Hydro phones are actually working what they’re hearing and maybe what they’re really being used for today. Like maybe how they were powered at great distances.
A possible follow up story might be the west coast AT&T undersea cable termination point near San Luis Obispo California. In the early 1970s while attending college in that area we discovered this AT&T site. We dubbed it the hole in the ground. We sort of figured something was going on ( in the ocean) because there were cables going to Hawaii & Guam but a lot “extra” cables going into the sea.
The military lives on acronyms. When I was in I had to basically learn a new language.
While waiting to start my 'A' school in the Navy I had a job sorting and delivering mail on a training base. I often had to refer to the DicNavAb* to figure out who gets what mail.
@@lornfant I never could figure out how you FPO assholes kept that shit straight.
Good video. My Mom was involved with SOSUS in Bermuda during the 60s-70s. All we knew was she worked on the Naval Base. How I found out was an engineering school professor, when he found out I grew up in Bermuda, told me he had worked there. My Mom knew who he was and told me years later what he (and she) had been up to.
That is so cool. I was there 1989-92
@@pennythomas9305 Hope you enjoyed it. We lived in Cavello Bay, Somerset.
Tom Clancy and Larry Bond wrote a novel, Red Storm Rising. I suggest you read it.
When the Russians lost K129, the SOSUS “trilateral” fix gave the US its location....it was decided by the USN and CIA to go fetch it.....the highly secret project was code named AZORIAN (same title of the 2010 book by Norman Polmar and Michael White) under The Jennifer Project (Same title of the 1977 book by Clyde Burleson) whereby known other than Howard Hughes working in concert for the CIA, created an ocean going ship to “search for manganese nodules” but had a “Moon Pool” designed into the ship complete with apparatus to be lowered to grasp the K129, to retrieve it back up into the ships Moon Pool for intelligence exploitation.....the mission was apparently only partially successful, retrieving only a section of the sub when the underwater “claw” system experienced mechanical failure, the sub breaking apart....with only a section of it actually retrieved back into the Moon Pool.....as claimed later when the project was revealed by a security lapse.....the part had Russian bodies in it....and it was claimed by the CIA, no Russian secret codes were captured.....later the CIA completed a Russian Naval,burial at sea of the bodies, conducted and recorded in Russian, a copy of which was swapped with the Russians....it is believed that a complete Russian ICBM missile with a nuclear warhead and a launch code system was captured......(?)....further published literature on secret submarine intelligence gathering includes, but is not limited to...Rising Tide by Gary Weir and Walter Boyne in 2003, Stalking the Red Bear by Peter Sasgen in 2009, Red November by W.Craig Reed in 2010, Blind Mans Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher and Annette Drew in 1998, God and Spies by Garry Matheny in 2018 and others (56 to date) all providing further detailed now declassified underwater intelligence exploitation operations......”Watson, the game is afoot” .....and remains so to date and beyond, including Spies of the Deep by W. Craig Reed in 2020, the story of the very tragic loss of the mega Russian sub, the Kursk.....
This is your best narration yet. Loved the video!
Just imagine how different things would be if USA and Russia were allies instead of dragging on an old grudge for power
Omg I’m stoked you covered a topic I recommended!
Uh Simon, they did that movie already, book too... Guy named Clancy, maybe you've heard of him... Featuring Sean Connery's Scottish drawl that screams Soviet Sub Captain....
Scottish Soviet sub captains are tight!
@@angelarch5352 Will it be difficult to find the secret submarine?
You know that Simon hasn't watched most movies.
Hey just found your channel and subscribed. Good work. I remember in the '70s a Hull based trawler, the "Gaul', disappeared with the loss of all hands, it was though to be an accident in bad weather, which was later confirmed, but no-one admitted to know where it was. It turned out that the trawler landed on the sea bed right next to one of the SOSUS cables, so its location could not be disclosed and also how they knew it was there without disclosing SOSUS. A ROV was sent down to the trawler in the naughties when SOSUS was declassified enabling the relatives to know what happened.
After the Russians obtained computer precision lathes from the Japanese, the Russian Submarines became quieter and harder to detect.
Ah, yes. The Toshiba-Konigsberg scandal.
No......not so.......USN Chief Petty Officer Walker sold the Russians every cryptographic secret he could put his greedy hands on.....he did that for over 18 years and recruited his brother and his son to feed him other secrets to sell.....the Russians then easily worked out the offensive and defensive US navy secrets beyond communications security, such as technological advances in precision machine tooling to then fabricate their own state of the art silent running stealth systems......it was Walkers own wife who went to the FBI to reveal his treachery and espionage activities.......catching his brother and his son.....he tried to co-opt his daughter too but she refused.....!
Well, basically we wired the ocean for sound. It got so bad for the Soviets that they kept their SSNs under the pack ice. We will never know fully how well we were served and are being served by the silent service. Money well spent, the cold war would never go hot because the Soviets could not turn the Atlantic into a Soviet lake. It's a good thing, not only for us but for our Russian cousins too.
As of they had the intent (or resources) to start ww3. Typical American thinking that the Soviets were the aggressors.
@@mrunseen3797 Yeah, Go ask the Ukrainians about Soviet aggression, or the current war!
Been there and done that and so did my father in the Defence Research Establishment (Pacific).....
you forgot to mention how they used SOSUS to detect Kursk, and figure out it's exact location with triangulation.
I’d like to see that!
SOSUS tracks surface ships as well. Access to a land control point is very difficult, even today. It is rumored one Soviet sub crashed into a SOSUS tower. US attack subs track Soviet subs as they leave their barn and categorize anything new. Of course, the Russians do it too
What is a sosus tower? I never heard of it. The sonar arrays were on the ocean floor.
According to The Hunt for The Red October, you're pronouncing SOSUS correctly.
Here's a suggestion for a similar topic; back in the 1980's early imaging pioneers created a cutting edge entity called the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan. Together with some super tech giants, they put together and operated some satellites that were intended to help scientists better understand terrestrial flora and fauna on a global scale. They were shocked by what they saw and the US DOD was alarmed when they discovered that their new instruments could reliably detect and locate EVERY submarine and U.S.O.s (Unidentified high speed (500kph +) Submerged Objects) and more, anywhere on the globe provided they were less than about 5 kilometers deep underwater!!! What they had stumbled upon simply blew them away! Amazing and beautiful images. So over night, what was once meant to be a laid back tree hugging environmental research adventure, the E.R.I.M. was transformed into a new, very high budget, and very, very black project along with all the spooky security accoutrements and paranoia associated with highly secret low earth orbit remote sensing systems. An interesting aside, at that time E.R.I.M. was physically located right next door to the facility where NASA did a lot of the R and D preliminary testing of the Apollo Moon Rovers with the assistance of GM and the University of Michigan. They could have literally looked out the window watched the test Moon vehicles being driven around a mock moonscape. Lots of amazing things have happened in Ann Arbor, Michigan that almost nobody knows about.
I will continue to suggest the M-16 on every Cold War Megaproject.
The gun?
@@Mgl1206 Yes.
I’ll raise that idea to the greatest 3 way in military industrial history.... Eugene Stoner vs Mikhail Kalashnikov vs Michael G. Vickers (aka The Special Forces officer who fathered the Stinger missile, and now on the board of directors for BAE)
I really enjoy your videos, thanks for making them. As for some suggested topics; ITER, LIGO, James Webb Space Telescope, Gotthard Base Tunnel
"OMG are there a lot of acronyms!"
Me: WELCOME TO THE US MILITARY!!!
Where you can get your SA about your AOR.
Jeah greetings from Germany. We Copy pasted that whole acronym thing I guess
Most submarines are using passive sonar. This means that the only thing they do is listen en identify all the sounds underwater. This makes it much harder for other submarines and hostile forces to detect the submarine.
I'm never going to be able to see a video of a submarine again, without hearing that dolphin chatter
It's whale song
Your initial discussion of sonar implied that it's all active sonar. Problem with that is that the transmitting platform can be detected at much greater range than can the target- not good. For some time, on USN ships, surface and submarine, improvements to passive sonar, especially on surface ships, combined with reduction of self-noise resulting from gas turbines, made both ship types excellent silent stalkers/killers. FWIW the Walkers, US spy family, compromised info on just how noisy Soviet subs were; keel-hauling no longer an option, sadly.
When I was a sonarman on an SSN we detected a Russian sub spying on our fleet maneuvers. We gave it a single ping at close range, max power and max pulse width. I’m sure it woke everyone on board their boat. They left the area. We went back to being the “silent service”.
" .... which is currently eleven." That we know of. Allegedly.
sorta, maybe,
How effective was the P3 Orion in tracking Soviet subs from above? They use to depart Moffit Field Naval Air Station ( "Silicon Valley" vicinity) , part of the West Coast defense during the Cold War era.
Against older Russian subs they were very effective provided the crew knew what they were doing and generally they did, but they were a local area asset only and had to be cued on to the vicintiy of the target in the first instance, this is what SOSUS would have done, along with other startegic assets.
They tracked on the basis of magnetic anomalies but must of had some way to distinguish a sub as the oceans are loaded with magnetic signatures.
When dealing with governments and their militaries, acronyms need to be your second language.
Alphabet soup.
Cool vid. I did SOSUS or as it was later called IUSS while stationed in the UK in the early 2000s.
IUSS
I've never heard it said S-O-S-U-S, I've always heard it said like a single word, Sosus.
Yes, me to.
Great job on an obscure topic. Fascinating
How hasn't the Seawolf-class submarine made it here yet? The thing is the F-22 Raptor of the ocean.
Looks like you got your wish
There's a SOSUS station next to Dounreay on the north coast of Scotland. It's now a business park!
A like and a comment. Take that TH-cam algorithm
I love all your channels, Simon. Keep up the good work :)
All 12?
@@sandybarnes887 I know of 7
my father's cousin was lost at sea with the Scorpion
My condolences. We will never forget.
God rest his soul.
Project Azorian or "How to Steal a Submarine Without the Soviet Union Being Able to Verify You Are Doing So". Was quite fascinating. Makes me want to go aquire some magnesium nodules of my own!!!
I remember reading in the papers the idea of Mining the Seabed. They even had a picture of the Ship. Great story ... I fell for it and often wondered why it never caught on. Hoover up the seafloor.
@@hachwarwickshire292 mainly because it's VERY expensive to acquire the nodules from the seafloor vs just mining magnesium the old fashioned way
EDIT: That could be changing in the future though as we use more and more the surface and me surface shit will dry up
I had the chance to sit with a retired CIA and a Navy Man when they were talking about this system. Now, these guys did not talk about anything they shouldn't but I would have loved to hear them talk in private about some of their experiences.
That conversation would be above your pay grade. They were probably using coded language right in front of you anyway.
My father was lead engineer. His name is on the blueprints.
President naval civil engineering laboratories.
Head of research and development Port Hueneme.
Highest rank civilian in the military at that time
@@IUSSHistory
“ naval Civil Engineering Laboratory‘s
RA Breckenridge. Lots of info about him there
The only other person I remember is
Dan true.
Many summers the family spent time on squirrel Island in British Columbia.
Family trips always involves going to some very unusual locations.
Three words not 5 "SOund SUrveillance System". I was an AW-2 (I leave it to you to guess that one) in 1980 when I left the Navy. My patrol areas were the North Atlantic, the Med and Gulf of Mexico. My stations ranged from Iceland to Florida and the Azores islands to the Greek island of Crete to various other places. I don't know of any other job in the Navy where an enlisted man, such as myself, could have ever gotten as close to a large group of Soviet sailors milling about on the deck of their armed military and unarmed civilian Supply Ships as I, and my crew mates did. We weren't allowed to over-fly them but we did get very close to them on their port and starboard flanks, within 500 feet or so, which could make me somewhat edgy, but with every Russian looking up and not running, as though to battle stations, the real sensation was simple curiosity. Our mission that day was to take pictures of this group of ships doing an at-sea replenishment for an Echo-2 class missile boat and a Foxtrot class fast attack submarine with our P3-C Orion's camera to see if we couldn't catch them with something interesting on the deck they didn't want us to see and just to say hello. When I knew our mission today was one of these sort I knew it was more likely than most others missions that we'd make close contact with Soviet ships so on these occasions I brought my own camera so I could keep the photos I took. As I took my best shots from one of the observer seats I saw some of the Soviet Sailors were doing much the same to us, that is, shooting at us with a camera instead of a gun. It was these non-hostile missions that left me feeling a real sense of "Now ain't this a "MUTTER Clucking shame?" "I'm as curious about them as they "Obviously" are about us and I'd love to meet some of them but still, here we are again, a mere 500 to 1500 feet apart "Physically" but in our ugly, political, 1980's reality, still worlds apart.
agreed
SURFSHARK SOSUS. I've spent all my "s" for today.
I was in the P3 Navy out of Maine in the early 70s. It was common among us.
Last time I was this early for a Simon video, Washington was still known as the Redskins
You mean the football team named after the little red potato?
@@jetsons101 that one!
@@wyolaskan1868 LOL LOL
Fabulous work as always. Fascinating topic!
More acronyms? Its the military, everything is an acronym.
It is a thing that particularly affects Americans, and not just in the military.
Yes. Yes, it is.
Lots of fun tidbits you've inserted into this video!
U said it right, u can hear Alec Baldwin say it in The Hunt For Red October.
Bing watching Simon's channels during lockdown, to save what's left of my sanity.
They knew where Thresher went down as there was a ship above it.
The Scorion was found by SOSUS? How soon did the USN know where and when it sunk? Why did it take five months to find it?
Simmons your a trip man,,, I wish I had you as a teacher when I was in school, keep it up Dude your doing GREAT
"Using two or more buoys" Boy go find me a submarine and I'll give you a shilling
Bouy: "There's something over there"
Submarine: "Read it Buoy"
Three is better
Sounds about like Kohls cash
Awesome vid today, Simon. Thanks.
Diesel/electric subs are quieter than their nuclear counterparts when submerged and running electric. Cooling system noises.
Australia's then-old Oberons were able to beat Americans in war games because of their quiet operation. Pity their replacements sucked, and the next gen planned cone from France, so will likely just surrender.
@@owenshebbeare2999 I believe it. Our squadron's aircrew had a much tougher time finding the older subs using passive sonobuoys when they were submerged
I had left SURTASS for medical reasons but was told abut one of the Hughes Technical Tuna clippers tracking a Russian sub off the coast of Denmark from outside the Chesapeake Bay detecting it having a hull implosion. Shortly later the SURTASS Project was ended. This SOSUS Project sounds interesting.
His beard is gettin' YUGE!
Looks darker also.
I hate my mind
COOL! I live very close to an abandoned SOSUS base at CFS Shelburne. Also the site of a supposed UFO recovery effort in 1967 (Shag Harbour UFO)
Wasn’t this the system that picked up the Bloop？ shoutout to Cthulhu
possible but what about Julia Bloop?
you fixed the video from the video cool so much easy to watch thx
Didn't Walker tell the Russians about this and his son?
Johnny Walker provided key mats and schematics of encryption gear to the soviets. This basically gave the soviets open access to all submarine operations.
Walker was a comms and crypto guy. Not a sonar guy.
@@Adventurehandle yup. I got to do my EKMS requal in his old office when I did my last tour at SUBLANT.
Need to do a video on the uss zumwalt and that class of ship. As the fact that it cost 1million per ammunition round for its guns makes it a crazy interesting project.
Will smashing the Like button void my iPad warranty?
And android's
@@cornbreadfedkirkpatrick9647 now I’m craving cornbread...
@@DogBeast221 make sure you have it with buttermilk
@@cornbreadfedkirkpatrick9647 yum!
@@DogBeast221 oh someone else likes that bowl or big glass?
Best game of 'Hid-n-Seek' out there. Boy do I miss those days (and nights and evenings)!
Amen to that