Originally posted by moose
what i want to know is how they are keeping it upright in drydock.. the blocks underneath it dont look very sturdy
That's what I first thought when I first saw one of them in drydock. Walking
under and around such a sight gives you a good appreciation for how well the people that work to dock the ship do their jobs.
About the fathometer, a sub ET1 explained it this way on another BBS:
... fast attack submarines typically have several basic types of sonar; passive search, active search, fathometer, and IIRC under ice. The fathometer and under ice would be what you're thinking of, unfortunately the fathometer is a narrow-beam which only identifies directly under the ship, and the under ice is for extremely short range searching for weak spots while surfacing under ice. Neither would have been of any use in that situation because there was obviously no ice and the fathometer would only show a dangerous situation quickly enough if it were not a steep cliff face and the equipment was being run continously.
I was surprised the Navy released that photo. I would've thought that all the public would see are the above-water pics and video from earlier.
mauser