Matrix Games Forums

As someone who has no real world experience in anti-submarine warfare I'm interested to know what navies do with dropped sonobouys after they loose signal, run out of battery or drift out of the intended area. The reason I ask is that they seem like a piece of equipment that may have classified components.
Do they get picked up, sink or self destruct? Or are they not as sensitive as I think and left to just float around?

(Since the tech has existed for a very long time I hope this isn't "OPSEC")

They sink to the bottom.

So the ocean floor is filled with thousand of old sonobouys, and they have no military value?
I'm happy that no unlucky sailors have to go out in RHIBs searching for a a bouy dropped somewhere in the Atlantic ocean by a P-3 Orion [8D] That would be one of the worst jobs in the world.