[Q] Speed of sound underwater and fixed sonar detection lags
Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:28 am
After the changes to the deep sound channel in 1147.21, I was doing some reading and noted that SOFAR detections by fixed stations on the deep sound channel required triangulation of signals arriving at multiple detection locations at different times. I then realized that a long range sonar contact is an old contact, since sound travels around ~2900 knots through water. This isn't that important except for fixed sonar. A contact detected at 700 miles will be 15 minutes old by the time the detection is made assuming zero processing delay between the sonar stations. It would also be "relativistic", in the sense that a local observer would immediately report the submarine's presence at a given position but SOSUS would only report seeing it there 15 minutes later. Does the game take this finite propagation of underwater sound into account?