I think there might be some confusion here. My sources tell me that the translation from Russian to English for this technology is not precise, and that a more appropriate word for this "antenna" would be the english word "array".

This is a Russian passive acoustical system, pure and simple. Its been around for years and is a well-know capability that the old Soviets installed a long time ago. No biggie.

The latest story I heard was that a fishing net got stuck on the antennae so the mini sub was sent to try and free the antennae, but they also got stuck in the fishing net. It sounds believeable, and would explain why the story went flip flopped from an atennae to a fishing net.

I cant get those links to work, but the story I read about the criminal investigation made it sound like they are looking into who sent the sub in the first place as it broke procedure by sending a lone sub, and not 2 together.

Which it could be ... whoever U2U'ed me on this I believe did not interpret the correction properly. I was pointing out that it COULD be an antenna array, not that it could not. It actually could be a very low frequency array.

But, recent news reports to me suggest that if it is NOT an antenna array, it is perhaps more of a fishnet ... literally to grab subs by touch or contact and then sending off an alarm signal, which is why earlier reports thought it was in fact a fishnet.

Originally posted by warpboost

Originally posted by ludo182
let's go back to basic physics.... : electromagnetic waves are stopped by a few millimeters of water, the width of this "barrier" depends on the frequency of the electromagnetic wave. Thus, all of your antenna story is crap

So could you survive an initial nuclear blast if you were underwater??

If you were underwater near the blast the shockwave would kill you unless you were in some sort of insanely armoured bunker. The radioactive contaminents could filter through the water.

However, the E&M blockage spectrum does not include very high energy waves. Sufficiently bove the ionization frequency of the material (sufficient energy to extract electrons from the molecule, in this case H2O plus ions) there is a transparency ... in other words gamma rays will pass right though all of us.

It is the very high energy radiation that is most damaging to the human body as far as mutations go. The high energy radiation will burn but this is only temporary. Higher energies kill cells and screw up the DNA and other sensitive cells, it's quite devastating. These effects can take months to appear. This is why avoiding the use of these weapons is very important.

Originally posted by warpboost
The latest story I heard was that a fishing net got stuck on the antennae so the mini sub was sent to try and free the antennae, but they also got stuck in the fishing net. It sounds believeable, and would explain why the story went flip flopped from an atennae to a fishing net.

Could be or else the device looks like a fishing net. The passive acoustic system is plausible, could be used to pick up unusual "noises" (like listening to whale songs). A submarine would have it's own noise signature. Clanking on metal with hammer for example would carry very well.