History of Russian Underwater Acoustics

Abstract

History of Russian Underwater Acoustics HRUA is an English translation of a Russian book with a similar title published in St. Petersburg in 1999. With 90 articles by 100 authors, the original Russian version was published to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy in 1998. The current English version provides easy access by Western readers to a wealth of underwater acoustic science and technology that has been classified for security reasons or otherwise unavailable before now, owing to the Cold War between global superpowers that dominated the last half of the 20th century. The editors believe that the book will provide fascinating reading to engineers and scientists who were and are now engaged in similar work in the West, to Soviet and Cold War historians, to members of the world’s navies serving and retired , and to present-day researchers. Relative to the Russian version, HRUA has been broadened in coverage by the inclusion of a new chapter, The Physics of Underwater Sound, comprising three extensive review articles on Russian contributions to the science, contributed by Russian experts. There is also an extra article on dolphin acoustics. On the other hand, some 10% of the original Russian book was not included in the translation. Preparation of HRUA was supported in part by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, to complement an ONR-sponsored series of monographs on state-of-the-art underwater acoustics as practiced in the United States. However, the book reviewed here and the first two volumes of the monograph series are quite different in style: Where HRUA is mostly essays, reviews, and personal memoirs, the ONR monographs present substantial experimental data and technical mathematics. Following the Prefaces to the English and Russian Editions, the chapters of HRUA are given as follows.