Originally Posted by
jungle drums
2. Is there equipment out there which is capable of scanning the sea bed for relatively small metallic objects (magnetic anomolies such as an aircraft's airframe or engines)? Or does it have to be Titanic size?
And if so, at what sort of range?
Perhaps these sort of questions can't be answered directly for military reasons. A pity that SOSUS has already been negated..
I don't believe Sosus would have helped in this instance.
Magnetic anomoly detection is essentially short range. I don't know but would guess that best system might be a towed MAD sensor which could operate near the sea bed. If the range was greater than 5000 feet I would be surprised. Sidescan sonar offers a much better chance of painting something but how soon it might be recognised is entirely different.