Vepr157 wrote:
Friedman's U.S. Submarines since 1945 says that the contract for integrating the TB-16 into the BQQ-5 system was awarded in 1982. So I think Tom is right that the older analog systems couldn't work with the new digital BQQ-5. It's conceivable that there was a standalone towed array processor, along the lines of the STASS or the BQR-15 towed arrays in earlier submarines which didn't have combined sonar suites. But I don't know.
Jacob
All of the older towed arrays were analog from the phones back to the boat using multiplexed signals riding a carrier wave. Even the STASS (Submarine Towed Array Sonar System), the BQR-15, and all the way through the BQQ-5 (TB-16 arrays only) worked this way, The Analog to digital conversion took place in the beamformer cabinets after the multiplexed channel signals were filtered, pre-amplified, and then sent to the beam former circuits. All of this circuitry lived in a unit called the TAR (Towed Array Receiver). It was identical on the BQQ-5 and BQQ-6 systems. It might have been Raytheon who built it, but I can't remember. IBM built the majority of the BQQ-5 and 6.
The TB-23 and later the TB-29 TLTA (Thin Line Towed Array) that made it's debut in the late 80's on the Tridents was an all-digital system called the BQQ-9. It was built by Rockwell International in Anaheim, CA. It had a Memory Set, a Tape Drive unit to load the software and a single Processor/Display unit in Sonar. A 32-bit UYK-44 handled the math. It was superior to the "Fatline" towed array in all respects except one - the handling system was initially outboard so the sailors had to work in the superstructure to stream and retrieve the array, which no fun in a high sea state no matter how long you had been underwater and wanted to get some fresh air.
The Q-9 was a Trident-only system. (I'm reasonably sure a fast boat tested it though.) Later, one of the two OK-276 handling systems just forward of the sonar control room was dedicated to the Q-9 after a couple of sailors were nearly killed working under the turtleback deploying an array. The array was deployed nearly identically as the TB-16. There might have been a modified drogue on the end of the array, (it was significantly longer than the TB-16 but smaller in diameter to the TB-16 which was housed in the TA stowage tubes on both SSNs and SSBNs) to pull it off the extra capstan drive assembly to accommodate the longer array. I lead the installation of the Q-9 systems on the 726-728 around 1988 or '89. Each installation took three (24-day) refits and involved close coordination between many different trades. Rockwell used the same display/processor unit found on S-3 Vikings, and the development time was very fast (<3 years) to get the enhanced system to the fleet. The advanced maintenance school we attended was three months long. The sailors loved the system and it was very reliable. There are numerous pictures of the Q-5/6 CDC's IBM (Control Display Consoles) online, but I've never seen the Q-9 SOD (Sonar operator Display) appear anywhere.
Here's what the nearly always-wrong fas website has to say about the Q-9:
BQQ-9 TASPE Towed Array
The BQQ-9 Towed Array Signal Processing Equipment [TASPE] passive sonar on the Ohio-class submarines is a long range search sonar providing medium detection probability at ranges of some 30nm and Convergence Zone Range: 3(30nm).
As usual, they are . . . in error. (They still list the BQR-19 mast-mounted, collision-avoidance sonar as having been installed on the Tridents!) Never happened. Every US boomer prior to the 726 class had it though. The spherical array on the Tridents rendered it obsolete.