The other day, I challenged myself on how we might use autonomous underwater vehicles as decoys creating a situation which might cause enemy quiet submarines to un-cloak themselves and fire upon these robotic devices.
Once an enemy submarine fires on an AUV it immediately gives itself away, along with its location.
Once that happens, it is easy to return fire knowing exactly where that submarine is by simply honing in with underwater special listening devices on that now available acoustic signature.
Okay so let's talk shall we? What if we did something like this; what if we distributed metallic chafe in a dispersion pattern such as a grid.
If each piece of chafe was distributed into the water at a place of similar buoyancy it would stay put, floating peacefully in the water.
Once we did this at several depth levels we could indeed send energy to that chafe in a particular pattern which would show the outline and shape of perhaps a submarine.
If that chafe were made of nodes and motes they would be talking to each other and maintain a signature of the shape of the submarine upon the sonar screen of the enemy.
Then, we merely wait for the enemy to fire on the metallic floating chafe, whereby a loitering AUV floating dead in the water could pinpoint accurately be enemy's exact location.
Our AUV could then send that information for exact targeting coordinates to our own vessels and submarines.
Our enemy wouldn't get anything, it would have wasted a torpedo on little tiny objects floating in the water pinging back a fake signature, but we on the other hand would know its exact location for instant termination.
Perhaps such as strategy should be employed, considered, and more research done.
Similar strategies could be used in the air targeting the enemy's aerial assets as they try tricks of stealth to conceal themselves in the overall battle space.
Once they fire their weapons they will have given themselves away for us to return fire.
No, these strategies philosophically speaking are no different than Sun Tzu or Karl von Clausewitz had talked about centuries ago, it's just that with modern technology the same rules and strategies now apply to underwater warfare.
Trust me when I tell you our enemies and potential future adversaries are getting better each day at cloaking their submarine assets.
We need a strategy to find them, uncloak them, and put them at the bottom of the sea with holes in them if there is ever a war.
Please consider all this and think on it.