LAUSR

In the German Navy, as in the UK and America, the development of underwater acoustical detection was shaped by institutional, political, and technical constraints and in response to tactical events. German hydrophone development in WWI was less advanced than that of the Allies, who focussed on combating an all-out U-boat war. The German Navy did not develop the variety of hydrophones developed by the Allies in particular the towed hydrophone array of the American Navy, which nevertheless inspired their passive sonar arrays known as “Gruppenhorchgerat” (GHG), German for “group listening device” in the interwar years, developed for the long-range protection of their capital ships, until 1935 with the signing of the Anglo German Naval Agreement when they commenced their submarine building program. For strategic reasons, Germany continued to concentrate on pro-submarine research so that at the start of WWII the German Navy had developed sophisticated GHG systems available which they improved further into the ...