erik_t wrote: * | January 31st, 2019, 3:18 pm |
This would have been a very useful capability to have aboard USS Samuel B. Roberts, USS Princeton, and USS Tripoli, all of whom struck mines in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s and early 1990s. If you think it's reasonable for a WW2-era unit to have detection capabilities above and beyond what you'd find on an Aegis cruiser 40 years later, go for it.
Once available only to military and commercial vessels this achievement finally brought Forward Looking Sonar capability within the reach of the recreational boat owner. The first model, the FLS 1, was launched in 1992; there are now thousands of FLS’s in use worldwide.
https://daniamant.com/category/products/fls/
The first model for recreational boat owners was launched in 1992, a 2D device. When it first became available for military use, I couldn't find out. Be it as it may, if in WWII submarines could be detected, I presume even floating or at low depths in front of the detection device, why couldn't my idea have been tried then? Because of the size of the mines? Look, when I searched these days for the development of radar, I found out that in the late years of WWII the US Navy's ship could see in their radar scopes not only the target ship but also the column of water produced by the broadside the ship's artillery had fired, if it hit the water! Believe me, I saw it.
I reiterate that
real actual capable warships were still hitting mines regularly in the 1980s and 1990s, and not by choice. Because there was a different product available commercially in 1992, it stands to reason that it could have been at least experimentally feasible in the lab almost 50 years earlier?
I will offer that yes, absolutely, your idea could have been tried then. Probably
was tried, since it's not a particularly novel concept. It would have been found to be completely impractical with technology available at the time, and indeed completely impractical with technology which would not be available for another generation. I invite you to compare and contrast an Intel 80486 with ENIAC or Colossus.
This is just too silly for my blood, and I am bowing out of this discussion and this thread.