Kalistani Major History

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Kalistani Regular Navy steps Forward with new ASW Prototype
KMC NH-20 employs Magnetic Anomaly Detection to find modern submarines
Sulari, Duchy of Suldanor
March 19, 5555


The KMC NH-20 to enter large scale production in Suldanor

KalMilInCo today announced that it has received the green light from His Imperial Majesty's Defense department to begin large scale production of the Helicopter known as the NH-20. During prototype phase, several systems were improved on Kalistan's standard rotary wing aircraft to enhance the helicopter's subsurface detection and ASW capabilities. The Ministry of Defense announced that several of these new Helicopters will be deployed with forward units of the Regular Navy, but most will remain at Naval air stations and will serve as a full time anti-submarine defense network.

"Kalistan has long had access to active and passive sonar buoys that have helped us keep tabs on surface and subsurface traffic in and around the Northern and Southern Limits," said Naval spokeswoman Commander Natalie Eastman. "These buoys are themselves variants of scientific sensor arrays that help geologists detect underwater anomalies like earthquakes or eruptions at very long distances. However, in recent decades, they have received a specific naval mission because we also learned that a sonar buoy sitting in the middle of the Strait could also pick up passing ships. Most university scientists would dismiss this noisy, obviously human generated traffic, but a few formed KMC operators began tracking those sounds, and could soon tell the difference between military and civilian traffic. From there, they contacted members of the Regular Navy and compared the data they had found with classified tracking data from passive and active sonar on surface and subsurface traffic, and found that the subsurface sonar buoys provided robust target acquisition that was as accurate as submarine sonars and more accurate than surface based sonars. Thus the naval application was born."

Several decades ago, the Empire announced its desire to send sonar buoys into the Straits and the Northern Anantonese Ocean as part of a large scale traffic monitoring program. "IBSI did deploy more than 300 sonar buoys into the Ocean during that period," said Commander Eastman. "But there were two issues with that program. First, During regular wargames, fleets would always aim to take out the sonar Buoys: They were easily visible from the surface, as they needed to be to transmit data to naval vessels, and occasionally they would be destroyed simply by accident. Sailing a destroyer over one renders it utterly unserviceable." But the second weakness of the program, according to the Commander, is that the data takes, in relative terms, a mind-numbingly long period of time to be received. "Keep in mind, these buoys were meant to record seismic anomalies over months and then conduct data dumps a few times a year. Improving transmission time proved to be difficult in the waters of the Strait especially, and it would sometimes take four hours for the buoys to transmit their data. By the time it can be acted upon, the contact may have travelled a hundred nautical miles in one direction or another. Theoretically, the war could be over before anyone actually was able to analyze the data, so the program was scrapped."

According to the Commander, the Navy worked on these two problems for years. "We thought of everything," said Commander Eastman. "We thought of large ship based arrays, we thought of towed arrays. We tried to locate a ship near the buoy to receive and retransmit data... None provided us with a very practical, and more importantly safe way of collecting sonar data from the middle of the sea on a reliable basis, in a way that would permit us to keep our eyes open at all times, and prevent naval units from being able to effectively counter our abilities with their own."

But then she said, the Navy began testing out an air based system. "The idea is: The sonar buoy is mounted on a helicopter. It can be lowered by winch into the sea, do a scan, listen for a period of time, be re-raised and head to another location. With this system, we can theoretically have eyes and ears on the entire Strait and all international waters adjacent to our national territory during a conflict without creating easy targets for enemies. The Helicopter mounted sonar buoy was a real revolution in our thinking, and we tested these out on standard cargo helicopters five years ago. They have since been deployed in the blue waters adjacent to our coasts."

After five years, the Navy came back to KMC and informed them that they needed two major improvements in the program. "We asked for a specifically long range helicopter that could operate the buoys that could be lightly armed with air based torpedoes incase a target of opportunity came into view, and we asked if there was any way to detect the modern internal drive electrical motor submarines. We found that even against Kalistani subs, and especially on our continental shelf, our passive and active sonar detection was unreliable. It did a better job at sea, but ships running silently were still very difficult to detect." So KMC set about to develop a lightweight, long range helicopter that could carry a number of sonar buoys, as well as an optical scanner and a new device called a Magnetic Anomaly Detection System, that could be used effectively up to 300 feet. The new systems would provide immediate data to tracking computers which could be relayed to ships in the area, and could remain invisible to submarine crews who were oblivious to the presence of a helicopter that is tracking them.

"The magnetic anomaly detection system was a brilliant solution to the problem of all the noisy sonars receive in shallow waters," said Commander Eastman. "A very sensitive magnetic sensor flys over an area, and if it encounters large metal objects, it notifies the crew of the presence of a ship in the ocean. Mounted on a helicopter that is tracking the ship, the targeting computer can receive range, speed and orientation data as the submarine slips through the water." At optimal tracking height, the MADS can 'see' about 300 feet below the surface of the ocean.

"We first asked about adding these systems to drones," said Commander Eastman. "But UAVs are better for sweeping an area than tracking. What was needed was indeed a helicopter that could stay with a target until it could be intercepted by surface or submarine units. Human operation was key for this kind of mission: A man in a seat can interpret data in real time and then forward that data to the fleet operating in the vicinity. While drones have a distinct all weather advantage, the helicopter remains a far more versatile and useful vehicle for this sort of sub hunting mission."

Field tests gave the new Helicopter, called the NH-20, an A, putting its detection rate at 94.5% against Kalistani submarines and 100 percent against Kalistani surface vessels. "In the Green Waters, we detected 100 percent of submarines," said Commander Eastman. "But in the blue waters, when a submarine was not moving, we did not see it. This of course counted as a miss." One of the main weaknesses of the system is its inability to operate in all weather. "We don't get a lot of hurricanes in Kalistan," said Commander Eastman. "But I imagine that if we were at war, hurricanes will not stop just because we need to see submarines. The Helicopters, however, will remain grounded in that sort of weather, and the Navy will have to rely on its other technology, which is good, but not perfect."

Another weakness is that occasionally, when a submarine was running shallow, at a depth of less than 45 feet, the NH-20 could easily detect it, but the submarine could detect the helo as well, and could theoretically deploy anti-aircraft countermeasures before the Kalistani Navy could intercept the submarine. "This is a vulnerability of the helicopter. At depths between 50 and 500 feet, the helicopter was invisible to our submarines." Additionally, there is no telling how the helicopter will fare against nuclear powered submarines. "...but only in the deeps," said the Commander. "We have modern sub detection for nuclear subs, but the helicopter based ASW tech will give us the most advantage where nuclear submarines try to sail closer to the shores to avoid active sonar."

The new Helicopter will begin mass production at the KMC aircraft lines in Sulari this summer, and will begin deployment from naval airstations in Yoshimi, Port Swede, Dulnerstaad and Bozo River by October.