Category:Hydrophones

Hydrophones were the first acoustic antisubmarine sensor system. In essence, they were instruments to permit an operator to hear, as clearly as possible, sounds of engines and machinery being transmitted through the water.

They existed first in static land-based installations near harbours or to coordinate the use of electrically-triggered mine defences. As their value in antisubmarine warfare became clear, efforts to create versions that could be used from a moving ship platform and which afforded the user a sense of in which direction the undersea quarry was to be found commenced. Progress in this field was modest during the war.

Research note: there is a section in Annual Report of the Torpedo School for 1924 on 295 on hydrophones in submarines.

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