Royal Navy Surface Ship Sonar Development in the 1960s

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

Between the Type 184 (which began development as capital ship self-defence sonar) and the Type 2016 (which began development in 1971, and entered service in 1979) there does not seem to be much, if any publicly available information on Royal Navy Sonar development.

The existence of the below documents suggests that there may have been considerable work going on which did not result in any service equipment, much akin to @JFC Fuller's posts on Radar development by ASWE.

Proposals for new surface-ship sonar | The National Archives

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Future surface-ship integrated sonar system development | The National Archives

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Proposals for a sonar aimed research programme and feasibility study for advanced form... | The National Archives

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Pre-project sonar programme to provide the basic engineering data for sonar development... | The National Archives

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Some cavitation tests of model scale sonar domes | The National Archives

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Cluster and shape recognition in auto handling active sonar data | The National Archives

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[EwenS]

You need Warship 2021 due to be published today. There is a 15 page article on Postwar Sonar Systems in the Royal Navy. Might help fill some of the gaps.

Warship 2021: Amazon.co.uk: Jordan, John: 9781472847799: Books

Buy Warship 2021 by Jordan, John (ISBN: 9781472847799) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

 

[Tzoli]

Type 184 - Sonar (1963/64)
Type 184M - Sonar (?)
Type 773 - Echo-Locator Sonar (1965?)
Type 776 - Echo-Locator Sonar (1965?)
Type 778 - Echo-Locator Sonar (1971?)
Type 780 - Echo-Locator Sonar (1971?)
Type 790 - Echo-Locator Sonar (?)
Type 800 - Echo-Locator Sonar (?)

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

You need Warship 2021 due to be published today. There is a 15 page article on Postwar Sonar Systems in the Royal Navy. Might help fill some of the gaps.

Warship 2021: Amazon.co.uk: Jordan, John: 9781472847799: Books

Buy Warship 2021 by Jordan, John (ISBN: 9781472847799) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

I've already got Warship 2021. There is nothing on any development which occured between the Type 184 and Type 2016, aside from the work which was done with HMS Matapan as part of the development of the latter.

 

[Hood]

I'm presuming you have Seek & Strike: Sonar, Anti-Submarine Warfare, and the Royal Navy, 1914-54
by Willem Dirk Hackmann?
There are some tabled appendices etc. that go up as far as 1960. Being published in 1984 there is no doubt that all developments from 1965 onwards were firmly under the 25-year rule.
I'm not aware of an updated book that takes the story forward, presumably the caveat that operational kit remains classified means that a lot of the technical information on the sonars fitted to the 20-series frigates would remain classified even today. Snippets might be gleaned by open files, but it would take a lot of research to hoover up all those snippets into something meaningful.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

I'm presuming you have Seek & Strike: Sonar, Anti-Submarine Warfare, and the Royal Navy, 1914-54
by Willem Dirk Hackmann?
There are some tabled appendices etc. that go up as far as 1960. Being published in 1984 there is no doubt that all developments from 1965 onwards were firmly under the 25-year rule.
I'm not aware of an updated book that takes the story forward, presumably the caveat that operational kit remains classified means that a lot of the technical information on the sonars fitted to the 20-series frigates would remain classified even today. Snippets might be gleaned by open files, but it would take a lot of research to hoover up all those snippets into something meaningful.

I'm aware of it, but I haven't got around to buying it yet.

 

[Robert M]

You need Warship 2021 due to be published today. There is a 15 page article on Postwar Sonar Systems in the Royal Navy. Might help fill some of the gaps.

Warship 2021: Amazon.co.uk: Jordan, John: 9781472847799: Books

Buy Warship 2021 by Jordan, John (ISBN: 9781472847799) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

I've already got Warship 2021. There is nothing on any development which occured between the Type 184 and Type 2016, aside from the work which was done with HMS Matapan as part of the development of the latter.

A valid source is Harding. Defence and Innovation particularly the N. Fiedman chapter on RN ESM/ECM dev etc. Officially T184 first went to sea on HMS Penelope and the carriers Eagle and Hermes in 1963-64. Obviously sonar dev are classified and do not appear at he time in Janes FS and 184 was probably under test, from about 1960 possibly in the new T12 Lowescroft and Londonderry from intro in 1960. While superior from the start in deep water and GIUK it was not initially considered as effective as 177/170 in the close shallow water of the channel and North Sea. 184 became a standard RN fit from 1969 on the Leander class, the last 6 on the RN production line having 184M. The RCN 205s and Dutch Leander in the early 1970s, refitted with the US Edo hull sonar, the RN/UK govt refused to fit the NZ ordered Edo to the new construction F421 ,HMNZS Canterbury at Yarrow in 1970- a complimentary, unused stored, RN Persian Gulf tuned, Tribal 177 sonar being fitted, after the NZ govt refused to fund a 184M.
The lack of intermediate sonar development partly relates to the switch back to the preference for passive tracking of Soviet fast noisy SSN and missile cruisers. The old 174 hull sonar appears to have been redeveloped for this purpose in solid state AC form and later towed arrays were fitted from about 1982 about the time improved Soviet silencing, due to espionage in the military and commercial areas was giving the Russians better, raft mountings, electronics, propellors etc. Heavy penetration of the Admiralty underwater research, sonar and torpedo dev as well as the usual Brit inefficiency also slowed and misdirected dev.
The RN preferred the lighter search approach, rather than the USN high powered active SQS 23/26 ( the Matapan trial sonar was possibly similar to the SQS 26/53 dev sonar, used on the Spruance/ Ticonderonga) which large underwater sonar bulbs disrupted the seakeeping if fitted to smaller RN 3000-3500 ton frigates, designed for the Atlantic, Med, North Sea rather than the Pacific. The USN FFg-7 and USCG Bear cutter were both intended and designed to mount the bow sonar dome and sonar fitted to the French 1200 ton coastal corvette rather than SQs 56 Raytheon torpedo and SSN warning sonar. Many of the interim sonar and radar sonars fitted in the late 1960s and early 1970s have little published info, such as Type 176 ( apparently fitted to some Rothesay and HMS Mermaid) and radar 986, a limited gap filler for 984 offering, high definition AW to 200km, fitted Ark Royal ( one of the problems of the Arks limited refit and overhaul in 1967-9 was the combined 3D picture produce by 2 (966), 986, 983 lacked the C3 intergration of the old 984 ), Bulwark, Llandarf and Salisbury and Lincoln