Submarine Warfare in WWII (methods used by German U-boats to avoid sonar detection)

“The British and US Navy used ASDIC - known as SONAR in America - to detect submerged German Raiders - whilst RADAR was used to pin-point surfaced U-Boats.
Active sonar ‘transmits’ pulses of sound from the ship which, when received back as an echo, indicates the position of a nearby submerged craft. Passive sonar ‘listens’ for underwater sound and picks up the noise of a submarine engine or noise within it.
Sonar detection meant that a submerged enemy submarine could be depth charged and potentially killed.
Early in WW2 some German U-boats were covered with Anechoic rubber tiles in order to avoid sonar detection but these were unsuccessful so German scientists continued to experiment with alternative materials.
This video showcases a unique surviving section of the Top Secret synthetic rubber sheeting that Germany eventually developed to coat the outer hulls of a few of their U-boats in order to avoid sonar detection.
The book, Sound of the Waves, A WW2 Memoir, How scientists worked to defeat the U-boat threat during the Battle of the Atlantic by E.A. Alexander, explains how this came about.
Alexander destroys the myth that - although British intelligence and the British Navy knew of this project - the British Admiralty did not know the purpose of the rubber coating on German U-boats. The memoir also explains how anti-submarine detection devices in miniature submarines known as X-craft were used to attack the German battleship KMS Tirpitz and aided the D-Day landings, fleshing out secret events in WW2 naval history. “
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www.sound-of-the-waves.com

[@alexbowman7582]

It amazes me that the British never considered putting SONAR outside the ship on the port and starboard and to the front and rear, each beeping a different tone and having two ship listeners, one for port/starboard the other for front/rear allowing for far more accurate detection of the u boat, it also amazes me that the Germans never considered releasing small underwater sirens to intermittently blast out ear piercing noises to prevent ship listeners accurately hearing SONAR.

[@bitw1se]

The Germans did use sonar decoys.