Bio-luminescent oceanic organisms as a means of anti-submarine warfare [ASW]. Who would have thought it!
"How the Navy Tried to Turn Bio-luminescence Against the Soviets"
Cold-War research that never came to fruition!
"For decades, during the Cold War, both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had a military interest in bio-luminescent organisms, which use a chemical reaction to produce a brief glow when they’re stimulated. The light of tiny ocean creatures
style="font-size: large;">had revealed on occasion the locations of submarines in World War I, and both militaries imagined that they might be able to use this natural phenomenon more systematically in anti-submarine warfare."
. . . .
"By the end of the Cold War, neither side had succeeded in turning bio-luminescence into a strategic advantage, though . . . The light-sensing technology wasn’t quite good enough to be of use; distinguishing bio-luminescence sparked by whales or schools of fish from bio-luminescence from submarine movement proved difficult."
Technology of the period not able to discriminate between a large animal [a whale] or a large group of animals [a school of fish] passing through a mass of "bio-luminescent oceanic organisms".
Such a method to detect submarines today might be possible given modern and advanced optical instruments? Who knows if this research continues?
coolbert.
. . . .
"By the end of the Cold War, neither side had succeeded in turning bio-luminescence into a strategic advantage, though . . . The light-sensing technology wasn’t quite good enough to be of use; distinguishing bio-luminescence sparked by whales or schools of fish from bio-luminescence from submarine movement proved difficult."
Technology of the period not able to discriminate between a large animal [a whale] or a large group of animals [a school of fish] passing through a mass of "bio-luminescent oceanic organisms".
Such a method to detect submarines today might be possible given modern and advanced optical instruments? Who knows if this research continues?
coolbert.
