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Virtual Earth Exposes Nuclear Sub's Secret
NewsCloud alerts us to a story a few months old that has been getting a lot of play recently. A Seattle blogger, Dan Twohig, was browsing in Microsoft's Virtual Earth when he accidentally came across a photo of a nuclear sub in dry-dock. Its propeller is clearly visible — this was a major no-no on the part of someone at the Bangor Sub Base. The designs of such stealth propellers have been secret for decades. Twohig blogged about the find and linked to the Virtual Earth photo on July 2. The debate about security vs. Net-accessible aerial photography has been building ever since. The story was picked up on military.china.com on Aug. 17 — poetic justice for the Chinese sub photo that had embarrassed them a month before. On Aug. 20 the Navy Times published the article that most mainstream media have picked up in their more recent coverage. Twohig's blog is the best source to follow the ongoing debate. No one has asked Microsoft, Google, or anyone else to blur the photo in question. Kind of late now.
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Tell the truth and you won't have so much to remember.
isn't it safe to assume that all countries with satellites in orbit have been watching each others military facilities for decades?
Is this really so secret nowdays?
I think I remeber that the thechnology to make these kind of silent propellers where sold by a norweigan company to a KGB front in the early 1980:s. As I recall, it was a major scandal when the news brooke.
As I have understod it, most soviet nuclear subs had these improved propellers since late 80's and that most of the eastern block started to get access to the same technology.
Most western submarines has had these kind of silent props for years and I belive that most submarine nowdays have one.
You could try to track the Swedish HMS Gotland with passive hydrophone and see how far that takes you, for instance... she insn't even a NATO sub but she is more silent than even the american SSN subs.
Hmm, do you believe that having subs means needing a big surface fleet to protect them? The US has a big navy because they have a need to be everywhere at once. Some places the US likes to get involved lack any friendly air bases so they need carrier groups. China has no need to try to match the US Navy, just as the US has no need to match the size of the Chinese Army. Additionally, any intelligence of value on current US sub programs is already in Moscow and Beijing: history has shown how simple it is to buy information in a debt driven economy.
A submarine does not need a carrier battle group. The point of a sub, is a stealthy platform for launching missiles or for sneaking up on other vessels undetected. A group of effective submarines could make a carrier battle group ineffective. In a war against a major enemy, carriers will probably be useless unless their air, submarine and missile forces can be neutralized. They primarily for show and wars of aggression against far weaker enemies.
Artificial Intelligence is preferable to Natural Stupidity.
The US is not just concerned about others trying to copy the propeller to reduce the noice made by their subs.
... the sonar signature.
... the problem is that other countries may now have a good idea what that particular sub will sound like, and may know when the US is illegally sneaking in and out of other countries waters etc with this sub, or if this sub is positioned just outside their waters with all it's nuclear WMD's ready to go.
... maybe this was an old propeller design being replaced and retired.
The submarine will still make some noise. They would be concerned because knowing the propeller design gives you an idea of what type of noise it will make in use
The signature can be used to identify classes of submarines and potentially individual subs.
So rather than other countries copying it
On the other hand, maybe the US doesnt care at all
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
... In the age of Google Earth, Virtual Earth, etc. (not to mention Google), there are no secrets. Welcome to the new world.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Coordinates are +47 43' 39.58", -122 42' 55.83" for the base (this can be plugged into Google Earth.)
The location of the snapshot is of the dry-dock at 4744'36.08"N, 12243'48.51"W.
This link may or may not work: http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=ryqjnb4s5 7d5&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=1 0352732&encType=1
There's no propeller visible in the Google Earth imagery. All you can see is that there's what might be a sub; it's quite blurry. The Windows Live imagery shows a blurry whirly instrument of death; looks like a bunch of boomerangs.
Honestly, it's stupid. Half the shit that's classified, is just classified to impress. For example, the top speed of various US air craft carriers. Like that can't be figured out by a foreign government...? Like our *propeller technology* is that much more advanced, and other nation's subs haven't figured out what it sounds like? C'mon.
Please help metamoderate.
Or it's a fake plant to hide the real propeller design.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I served for a long time.
And I was exposed to all branches for long periods of time. You will not find a less gay friendly place than the Navy. Even the Marines are more tolerant. It's because of the hollywood archetyping of the navy as gay that the navy has had such a buildup of anger about it. The 1993 DADT policy greatly increased the problem, and violence against gays has increased by about an exponent from 1993-1999 (no idea of the exact recent statistic, but it has increased greatly up to today)
Gays int he military are usually quite good. dedicated to serve in spite of additional hassle. The Brits have been open for a while, and they are, man for man, extremely effective. I'm not implying that there is some kind of problem with gayness in the military.
But this is typical trash propaganda. Sounds ludicrously paranoid, but the fact is that there is an effort to portray soldiers as feminine weakling children or sociopathic monsters. You'll find most gays in the Army. You'll find the fewest in the Navy.
The MonsterMaritime.com entry linked to in the writeup was actually posted on July 2, a full 2 months ago. 2 months later and they haven't tried to put the horse back in the barn so while it's technically a secret, it's probably not that important of a secret. Besides, even if they asked MS to blur the image on Live they'd still have to ask other companies with access to the data to blur it, and then they'd have to go to the source of the imagery and ask them to stop selling it (which they may not have a case for).
In reality, if they censored the images the only people who wouldn't be able to see it are people not willing to spend money to see images of a classified submarine. Any country/organization with it's own program for developing nuclear submarines or technology to detect submarines likely has the financial/organizational resources to aquire this imagery without depending on a free website.
I swear to ghu that I saw a propeller like that in some sub movie- though it fails to render a name in my mind. I remember seeing a prop just like that on a cg shot of the sub driving away/up - perhaps in a torpedo sequence?
Anyway, I could be wrong, but I think I've seen one before.
The real propeller design includes a "man-sized safe".
"In a war against a major enemy, carriers will probably be useless..."
And where did that factoid come from? One would imagine that a ship with the capability to strike at extremely long distances is always useful, if you can hit your enemy before their weapons can reach you you have an advantage. As for carriers being vulnerable to subs that's only partially true. Certain types of submarines, especially advanced nuclear subs (and diesel ones, so long as they don't surface anywhere near the carrier group and have enough battery power to get in and out) could conceivably slip through the defenses around a carrier and then it's aircraft would be useless. Given that the last major (that I know of) engagement between large groups of submarines and carriers was WWII, and that was clearly decided in favor of the carrier groups (53 u-boats sunk to less than 10 of the CVE mini-carriers) I'd say a generalization like 'Subs counter carriers' is kinda...wrong. A carrier battle group at war would typically have at least 1 radar plane (Orion?) on CAP. If the sub surfaces nearby radar has a chance of picking it up. In addition the carrier's escorts have darn good sonar and wouldn't be too hesitant to use it.
So basically, 1 lone carrier vs sub is an easy win for the sub, unless the carrier sees it coming from a long way off and launches anti-sub efforts. 1 carrier battlegroup is at least a match for any similar number of warships, including subs, and very good at other tasks such as beach assault, long range support etc. A carrier battle group is currently the most versatile type of navy imaginable, as such it may not be the best way to counter all threats (a pair of destroyers working in tandem with some anti-sub helicopters would be cheaper and pretty effective against small numbers of subs). It's a Jack of All Trades, master of none type of thing, a Carrier group is good at anti-surface ship, anti-sub, and anti-land combat.
Sneaking up on a ship which is fully prepared for war is a lot harder than some things would lead you to believe. Just because you're underwater and pretty quiet doesn't mean your undetectable, and if you're too quiet you can be detected that way (one possibly problem with modern US subs is that they're actually quieter than the surrounding ocean and could *conceivably* be detected that way). No amount of noise-reduction is going to save you if even 1 enemy ship is using active-sonar, you're going to be detected unless it's a cloak-and-dagger fight which is something aircraft carriers rarely engage in, they're more 'Hey look, I'm right here, I don't need to hide because I'm that much better than you' style fighting, and in that arena (when radars are at full and sonars are active) subs lose all stealth benefits, and an unstealthed sub vs a carrier group is just asking for trouble.
So to sum it up, no, a carrier battle group is not useless. Subs are easily countered (unless you're trying to be stealthy as well) and missile blocking is what Aegis (common in CBG's) class destroyers were partially built for. Aircraft carriers are built for show, and are good against weaker enemies, but also against equals, it's against stronger enemies (few and far between at this moment) that they begin to look impossibly weak and fragile.
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Perhaps the U.S. Navy put a fake propeller on the sub.
U.S. Navy: "Hey you guys do the aerial photos for Google and Mircosoft, right?"
Acme Aerial Photos: "Yip."
U.S. Navy: "When are you guys next flying over our base?"
Acme Aerial Photos: "Next Tuesday. Weather permitting."
U.S. Navy: "Thank you. You have been very helpful. <evil laugh>"
I have a book (U.S. Submarines Since 1945, An Illustrated Design History, by Norman Friedman, 1994 Naval Institute Press) that shows an old publicly released official Seawolf model with a hooked propeller very similar to the one shown in that image. The same book also has a very good image of the scythe-bladed propeller of a Las Angeles class submarine, whos manufacturing techniques were at the root of the late Toshiba milling technology sale scandal) I'm thinking that the blogger who discovered this has made a few assumptions about the level of secrecy associated with the item in question as the propeller form, at least, has appeared in public before.
then why was the quite good German admirals so afraid of facing it?
Oh I dunno, some 500 years of British naval combat experience perhaps? Plus the Brits had the numbers on their side. Technology will only help you so far, but numbers win every time.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Still, the German Navy almost defeated them with their much more effective submarines.
The German U-boat fleet rarely engaged the Royal Navy. And with the occasional exception, when they did this, they were sunk. The U-boats were used as commerce raiders, and had great success. For a year or so. Now please look up the statistics on how many u-boats actually survived the war, and talk to me about "success". It was a disaster, like almost everything else Germany did after taking France.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They primarily for show and wars of aggression against far weaker enemies.
This made me laugh. You obviously have no idea what a carrier battle group can do. It can seriously ruin ANYONE's day. Tell me something - why do you think the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II happened AFTER and not before the Japanese lost their carriers in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway? Why do you think that the main objective of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was to sink the US carriers - and not finding those carriers sealed their fate?
Carrier groups have ASW capabilities, it's what they do when they're not flying air to mud missions. Oh, and carrier groups also usually have friendly subs around them looking for enemy subs. A "group" of enemy submarines would have to be very lucky indeed to get close enough to score a hit on a carrier.
Owning carriers is not for "show". If you have a carrier group, you own the ocean, and you own the air above whatever shoreline you want, for the simple reason that you know where you are, and the enemy doesn't. You can strike at any time, from any direction on the compass. This gives you the initiative.
Oh and who else has carriers? Not many countries, and most of them have just the one.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Source
Also read about the low amount of use China's submarine fleet gets, and the inexperience they have: Source
This basically amounts to China having never actually used their submarines as a nuclear deterrent, and since they have no ICBMs that can reach the US they have no nuclear deterrent against the US and a comparatively very limited navy. (Report)
The media loves to hype up China's military spending, but if you think China's grounded 1980's built subs, or the speculated five new Jin-class (Type 094) subs, are going to make the US Navy "ineffective", or if you think aircraft carriers (the most expensive ships of all) are just for intimidating small nations, then you're a few warheads short of a nuclear power.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"Rats...that damn stupid tarp's gonna get me court martialed... ...I had to run to take a leak. Two minutes...thas' all! Who knew the satellite was overhead?"
--signed, Boatswain's Mate I. M. Waterhead
Forgive my naivety but why would your god bless instruments of or an organization dedicated to perfecting death? Aren't "love your enemy" and "turn the other cheek" core teachings of jesus and of most Judeo-Christian religions?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
(Obligatory disclaimer but without the obligatory tortured acronym: Yes, I am a former submariner (and have been to the Delta Pier many times), and am a student of naval history and related security issues.)
The props haven't been as jealously gaurded recently as in times past - in fact, I saw pictures openly published of them as early as the late 1990's. Though the less knowledgeable may drool over seeing them at all - the pictures on Virtual Earth are not particularly high res, nor particularly useful. The fact that the US uses scythe blade propellers has been openly acknowledged since the early 90's.
Or, to put it even more simply, these pictures show nothing not already publically known and acknowledged.
Ditto for the weapons magazines - there is nothing classified about the exteriors, existence, or location.
This article is however a interesting point on the problem of getting your news from blogs; sometimes the author knows what he's talking about. Usually, when it comes to specialized topics, he doesn't.
Yeah - It's like the propellor on the front of the Bell XP-59A Airacomet. Everyone knows that after we captured the Red October, we got the goods on the caterpillar drive technology and don't need props anymore...
Research into making more efficient and quieter propellers was conducted from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, because of the greater fuel efficiency of propellor-driven aircraft in light of the Arab oil embargo. This research led to the development of the 'propfan', a turboprop engine with wider, swept-back propeller blades. The Advanced Turboprop Project at NASA's Lewis Research Center's developed engine and propeller designs that would spark a resurgence of the turboprop era, but socio-economic factors -- primarily driven by a reduction in fuel costs, reducing the perception of any need for immediate and radical fuel conservation -- kept the new designs from making more than a peripheral entry to the aviation market. Many modern turboprop aircraft use propellers incorporating advances developed by the ATP, and the research contributed to the development of the high-bypass turbofan jet engines used in most modern airliners, but there was no significant return to the use of turboprop aircraft in commercial aviation. Research has continued, with some engine designs becoming more exotic, as in this image or this one, but commercial applications of the research continue to use ducted fan designs, such as the newest UHB (ultra-high bypass) turbofan designs. The designs produced by this research, however, bear sufficient similarities to the screw design in the satellite photo that it is clear that the same overall design considerations apply, subject to the differences in density, viscosity, and compressibility of the driving medium in each design case.
I wonder if Microsoft Visual Earth has been getting their data from Setec Astronomy??
This missile can be launched from undersea position 290 km away from the target:
(Additional link 1 and link 2.)
I would not call 200 miles a close range. A WWII torpedo was a close range weapon; a Shkval torpedo is a close range weapon. I have no idea what is the protected area around the group, but it can't be that large, and even one such missile can give a heart attack to the carrier group commander, if it misses or is shot down. If it doesn't miss then forget the heart attack, there wouldn't be enough time left for that.
Of course, the attack does not have to occur in the air - a common 30 yr old 65-76 torpedo (designed in 1976) has range of about 62 miles - if a CG can protect even that circle it is doing better than good. Officially China and Russia have those.
f you have a carrier group, you own the ocean [...] for the simple reason that you know where you are, and the enemy doesn't.
This is applicable to submarines which may be a part of CG, but the whole group is hard to fail to notice in, say, Persian Gulf. You may not even need binoculars. The attackers found USS Cole with their eyes tightly shut. And that's one of the reasons why Iran seemingly has the following:
(quoted from the linked Wikipedia article.)
And of course we should not forget about the older hardware, Iraq has some, and Iran probably also has:
The 95 km range is more than enough to cover the whole area of interest. So the carriers are vulnerable if the incoming missiles are arriving faster, closer to the sea, or in larger quantities than the Aegis can protect against. Wikipedia lists its tracking capacity of 100+ targets (with no mentioning on how many targets can be fired upon, which may be classified, or just dependent on how many ships are available, or both.) So if an opponent initiates a land-based attack they can launch 200 missiles, or 300, all at once - and a few of them will make it through.
Okay - so I'll comment as a ten year Navy veteran (with Sub time) and as an MS Virtual Earth employee.
On the actual propeller, some of the comments above are accurate with respect to design, power, speed and cavitation issues. If it's covered by Wikipedia, then it must be true! There has always been a policy to cover the propeller whenever the boat was pulled out of the water - it's part of the secret sauce behind our submarine stealth. Not showing it in public only makes sense, but this picture from the air could have been taken by anyone flying a private plane. Shame on the Navy for not covering it, but then again, there's more to the engineering behind it than a picture could ever show.
Talk of satellite imagery and Government intervention is an interesting topic of the day, however. For one thing, the image was not taken by satellite, but rather by airplane using a unique capability for oblique imagery. In Virtual Earth, you can view the same area at 2 zoom levels and 4 compass points. The imagery comes from Pictometry, and MS uses the term "Bird's Eye" to depict areas in which it is available. It's pretty incredible imagery, truly raising the quality bar over systems using only satellite imagery.
Note that Microsoft does not manage satellite or aerial providers - we only take the imagery in, enhance it, tile it and then provide it to our customers in the form of an API. The organizations that provide the imagery have been in business for years capturing images of the earth and selling them to commercial and government organizations. If anyone should be on point to discuss the appropriate image capture time and location, these would be the organizations to do so. Since I do not work for one of these organizations, I will abstain from commenting on their data capture policies. Perhaps they have a Slashdot reader who would like to comment!
So what is Microsoft's position on this issue? A quick search (http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=justin+osme r+submarine+propeller) yields the following statement on Navy Times from Justin Osmer of the MS Virtual Earth product team:
At the end of the day, several commenters here and elsewhere have used the term "get used to it", referring to the fact that we're losing our privacy and anonymity every day via cameras in the sky and search engines on earth... Perhaps this is true, but then again, maybe it's exactly what we need at this point in our civilization.
"Ducted propulsion" on a navy demonstrator vehicle...
...is this a secret?
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Hate to break it to you but the Swedish sub, Gottland has managed to "sink" the USS Reagan before in a war game simulation. The US Navy's defense against diesel electric sub is not that perfect.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
That implies Godlike intelligence and ominicience instead of intelligence agencies where those who could easily get jobs in private enterprise have left in disgust since the political appointees are the only ones that will get to the top. People might pretend they intended to make a mistake after the fact to cover the mistake but that's as far as it goes. If we are heading towards a dark future it won't be 1984 (AKA 1920's USSR) - it will be more like Terry Gilliams movie "Brazil" - a totalitarian state that keeps getting the details wrong.
...I think the Russians figured out more or less the same propeller design about the same time the Americans did. People forget the Russians during the Soviet era had excellent scientists, and TsAGI (the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute) did a lot of pioneering work in aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, including work on ship and submarine propeller design.
By the way, that picture confirms what I saw several times on the History Channel, where they showed a Los Angeles class submarine underwater running with a multibladed propeller (you can see the propeller blades clearly in the video).
The movie Das Boot starts with the statistic that of the 40,000 German sailors who served on U-Boats in WWII, 30,000 of them died.
meh
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Of course, then you find out that "gayness" isn't something you can "drive out", it's just something you are. Then you become a jackass self-hating prick with a special chip on your shoulder about fags. Man, I tell ya' the USMC is rife with them.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I'll put in my two cents here, so they don't get lost in the copious amounts of typical /. noise.
The issue here isn't that "Google or Live didn't blur it out". It's that the base people didn't care much for the eyes in the skies. I'm sure the Chinese (or Martians) have seen the secrets.
Pay attention to the missiles, not the propeller. Each missile has the ability to burn to death millions of people within minutes. This is more important that any propeller. Don't lose focus on what's really important.
I realize that I put myself at a risk for saying this, but here it is. These submarines exist for one reason: They exist to kill every human being on earth. That's what they do, that's all they do.
Allow me to create a word. omnicide: the act of the murder of every human being and all civilization.
This is omnicide technology. It's the legacy of the so-called cold war and the mentality of preventing the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale by creating the military framework that ensures the destruction of any country who would use nuclear weapons in a first-strike sneak attack.
I'm not here to say that this is good or bad. Omnicide technology transcends its own evil. Having been created, it exists outside the concepts and arguments of ordinary legality and morality. But it's here, and it isn't going away.
In the long run of time, omnicide technology eclipses the governments, religions, and corporations that created it. For that reason, the people who control and oversee omnicide technology have a higher responsibility than to the governments, religions, and corporations who may believe that having funded the creation of this technology, they then can decide to use it.
They can not. Because this technology can never be used. To do so would kill everyone or nearly everyone on earth and destroy civilization. It is important that the people who oversee this technology understand this. Since it is possible that you will someday be an overseer of omnicide technology, it's important that you understand this.
In light of this reality, who gives a fuck about a picture of a propeller?
As an ex submariner, I can speak from experience when I say that there are MANY war game examples of submarines slipping into a carrier battle group and "sinking" the carrier. In one excersize I'm familiar with, the sub almost started a fire on the carrier when its signal flare (indicating "I Got You!") actually landed on the carrier's flight deck!
... you're BUSTED! This technique couldn't have been used in WWII, though, since those boats couldn't dive deep enough to take advantage of this phenomena.
In the summer, and late spring it's the easiest (for the sub).
What happens it this: The sun heats the water (usually to depth of 60 or 80 feet - sometimes even to over a hundred) and this warm layer sits on top of the much cooler iso-thermal water beneath it. If a submarine moves to a depth right in or even JUST below this layer, the active sonar pings bounce off the layer, and effectively hide the submarine. The modern ASW ships do carry a submersible sonar "sled" that can dive to below the layer and sometimes detect the sub in that case, but even then, if there is a strong thermal layer and the boat is right in it, it's just about impossible.
in the winter, however, when virtually the whole ocean is iso-thermal, the sub would have a much harder time. In cases like this, you can have the option of running deep.
When you're really deep, what happens is as follows: The deeper water (since it is compressed more by more water pressure - duh) conducts sound faster than the water above it, This tends to bend the sonar waves back up towards the surface. Thus there is a critical depth (depending on water salinity and temperature) below which you cannot hear a submarine from a surface (or near surface) sonar array.
The problem with using this approach, is that the submarine is effectively blind to the task group since the task group's sound waves get bent back up to the surface as well, and if you ascend in the wrong place
I think they could defeat the peasants. They could probably defeat all non-microbial life in the area, if they were told to.
Their orders are a bit messier though. "Go there and shoot only the guilty - they look just like the innocent. Make everyone love us!"
I'd hate to be in the army now. It's an essential service, but it's being pissed away on a mission that it can't win by people who don't respect the use of the institution or the sacrifice made by those who serve.
The only time the "hearts and minds" of Iraq were available might have been directly following Gulf War 1, if we (the world) had removed Saddam. Everyone who would have helped in GW2 had been executed after GW1.
Very true. Sub props probably have an odd number of blades on them for similar reasons that wind turbines have an odd number of blades on them: having an even number increases the vibration and stresses on the device as a whole. It has to do with one blade being at the top and another being at the bottom at the same time, which puts an uneven load on the prop. Vibration in subs is exactly what you are trying to avoid.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Well, what did you expect ? They're vikings, for pete's sake ! Half ninjas, half pirates, half polar bears ! They rape, pillage and plunder, and then they flip out and get really mad ! Even Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia knew better than to fuck with them !
Just be thankful they used a wussy submarine and not a Viking longboat with a dragon on the bow - then it'd really have been a massacre.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Still, quite a demanding exercise to be able to convince the opposing leadership that they will be specifically targeted, and that they will be successfully eliminated within the first few hours of any conflict. When it comes to autocrats the reality is that if they believe they will definitely be killed, they will comply, as long as they believe they will continue to survive with their power over their own populace largely intact.
Democracies are a little bit trickier because the power is more widely distributed, and a lot of the players involved have no qualms about stabbing each other in the back ie. quite content for the majority of the leadership to get eliminated as long as they survive and can gain power. So technically autocrats require more weapons than democracies, as the autocrats need to target the population as a whole, whilst democracies only need to target the autocrats (the autocrats will target their own internal back stabbers with a vengeance).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Propellers are obsolete for submarines, pump-jet propulsors are used now. The US Navy first used them on the Seawolf class, the next class of missile sub is certain to get them. The sub in the picture is an Ohio class, the first of which was commissioned in 1981 - hardly cutting edge technology these days.
The worst that photo will do is give potential enemies a better idea of an old sub's capabilities, not allow them to build a sub that's as quiet as the latest US subs.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
And ORP Orzel (modified Kilo class diesel submarine, extent of modifications is largery unknown, except new German batteries) "sunk" two US submarines during one war game...
One that hath name thou can not otter
During my time in the norwegian military, there was also the rumour that a Norwgian sub "sunk" the Enterprise. The US navy supposedly demanded a coverup, but norwegian officers were too proud to keep quiet.
The way they did it was that they turned the engine off and waited (in a strategic place) for a big boat to come close enough.
Everybody uses broad generalizations.
Google says you're not the first, but what the hell...
That's almost precisely backwards. These submarines exist to ensure that never happens. They're part of the Mutually Assured Destruction balance. Neither side is going to launch a first strike unless it knows with absolute certainty that it's going to come out sufficiently ahead in the ensuing trade-off to survive as a viable state. Nuclear subs completely screw with any certainty you might think you've got in launching that attack, because it's damn near impossible to know that you'll be able to kill enough of the opposition's subs before they can launch. Stealthy propellers are a big part of that, helping to ensure that the enemy can't get and keep a lock on your position. These submarines aren't designed as first-strike weapons, but as an assured second-strike. To say that this technology cannot be used completely misses the point. In just existing, they are being used - as an insurance policy. If they were ever to launch, humanity would already be dead.
Reality is the ultimate Rorschach.