GOV/MIL US Navy Revives Ancient Navigation as Cyber Threats Grow

[Housecarl]

I can also see more money being put into on board INS systems that are independent of GPS....


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/technolog...ant-cyber-threats/122853/?oref=d-channelriver


US Navy Revives Ancient Navigation as Cyber Threats Grow

October 15, 2015 By Steve Mollman Quartz

Satellites and GPS are vulnerable to cyber attack. The tools of yesteryear are not.
Navy
/ Cyber
/ Technology

Sometimes old school is best. In today’s U.S. Navy, navigating a warship by the stars instead of GPS is making a comeback.

The Naval Academy stopped teaching celestial navigation in the late 1990s, deeming the hard-to-learn skill irrelevant in an era when satellites can relay a ship’s location with remarkable ease and precision.

But satellites and GPS are vulnerable to cyber attack (paywall). The tools of yesteryear—sextants, nautical almanacs, volumes of tables—are not. With that in mind, the academy is reinstating celestial navigation into its curriculum. Wooden boxes with decades-old instruments will be dusted off and opened, and students will once again learn to chart a course by measuring the angles of stars.

Old school navigation pales in comparison to today’s high-tech systems. It’s both painfully difficult and far less precise. But it can get you where you need to go within about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers). That could be a matter of life and death in a scenario where modern technology has been compromised.

As it rebuilds the program, the Navy is getting help from the US Merchant Marine Academy, which never stopped teaching celestial navigation. According to instructor Timothy Tisch, “Knowledge of celestial navigation in the GPS era provides a solid back-up form of navigation in the event GPS becomes unreliable for whatever reason. It is also good professional practice to use one navigational system to verify the accuracy of another.”

The Naval Academy’s starry-eyed class of 2017 will be the first to graduate with the reinstated instruction.

 

[Kook]

I would never have guessed that the Navy would be so stupid as to stop in the first place.:sb:

 

[Hfcomms]

Good on them! The old becomes the new. We deal with this on the communications end as well. HF radio is now getting popular again with DOD. They've always had the capability of course but over time old lessons are forgotten and most of the coin goes into Satcom and other venues. There is now a resurgent interest in HF radio capability because of it's survivability and because it also functions as an 'air gap' that is unhackable networking wise. It will work when networks and infrastructure collapse and the military auxiliaries are again training the active duty component to teach them how to use their equipment and how to deploy it. Army Signal for example has a lot of high tech equipment of all types but the average Army radio operator has little conception of operations under 30Mhz and HF propagation. This is changing but it's a forgotten skill.

 

[Bullwinkle]

I listen to a lot of podcasts while working and driving.
One program had a retired Navy chief who spent many tours in a submarine.

GPS is only a back up.

Standard navigation is done the old fashion way.
Plot course correctly.
Sometimes subs can not get a GPS conformation for weeks.
When they do, they may be off by a few hundred feet.
Pretty damn good in my opinion.
A later program
had a naval missile expert.
He agreed with the Navy Chief.
GPS is only a back up to standard navigation techniques.

You are being mislead by the article.

 

[RCSAR]

I remember when the navy announced they were dropping the "putdated tools" like the sextants.

I had just finished another amergency management class and we were having an afterclass rehydration exercise (beer tasting). The topic came up about the next war (this was in the 90s) and we all came to the conclusion the smartest target would be communications. Well, there was actually an arguement the national grid first and then the comms. We decided both at the same time really.

Then the thought progresssed to, if your going to take out comm sats then you might as well take out all sats. The ex-navy then told us the navy academy was talking about going all electronic and not even teaching sky navigation. That seemed like it was too crazz to be true. It was a stupid as taking the map and compass from an infantry guy and giving him a GPS device.

After many rounds of liquid inteligence we played out an ending and came up with..... World War III will not be announced to the public and be over in less than 3 hours. At least the shooting part.

If no one noticed we are into WWIII now and have been for over a year. At least the financial part.

Other countries have seen it coming for a few years and have been arming and gearing up for it. Remember the stories of China having nuke attack drills and restocking shelters? There has been ports taken out and ammo dumps blown up, and thats just what we know about.

Anyway, Learn the "old school" ways of reading a map and compass and teach the younger people. This country will need to be rebuilt with the tools and skills we give the younger generations.

Add pocket Constitutions and the writings of the founders to your preps.

 

[GreenGecko]

What about the Air Force, does anyone know? The last time I road in a C-130 cockpit,(at least 25 year ago), they had the navigation dome installed, and I saw the sextant in a case at the navigators 'desk'.

[EDIT to add: I should mention that the Air Force has Combat System Officers now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_systems_officer]
Here is an example I found on the internet (left one which looks Navy) :

 

[Hurricanehic]

Wonder if they will reactivate the Loran system? East Coast system just down the road here. Four giant towers that were never taken down nor was the property ever vacated.

 

[mecoastie]

I listen to a lot of podcasts while working and driving.
One program had a retired Navy chief who spent many tours in a submarine.

GPS is only a back up.

Standard navigation is done the old fashion way.
Plot course correctly.
Sometimes subs can not get a GPS conformation for weeks.
When they do, they may be off by a few hundred feet.
Pretty damn good in my opinion.
A later program
had a naval missile expert.
He agreed with the Navy Chief.
GPS is only a back up to standard navigation techniques.

You are being mislead by the article.

In the modern surface navy and the merchant marine GPS is the primary form of navigation now and has been for a while. That is why the navy st Subs are a different animal and rely more on dead reckoning but even then they rely on GPS heavily.

I am glad the navy is going back to cel nav. As an engineer I never had to learn it but my deck friends all did and when done right pretty accurate. It is foolproof and has worked for thousands of years.

 

[Publius]

Many only know the word "Compass" but may have only seen photos of one and never used one held one.
Using a Sextant does require some learning and without reliable charts a Sextant and Compass are almost useless, unless you have someone that knows the coastal waters well, then a compass and maybe a watch is all you need.

 

[Jonas Parker]

Wonder if they will reactivate the Loran system? East Coast system just down the road here. Four giant towers that were never taken down nor was the property ever vacated.

Loran is being reactivated in the UK now. Probably here too, though quietly...

 

[Sacajawea]

SIGH. When will these educators learn? (ironic, eh?)

Learning the old, manual methods of ANYTHING teaches more about the why's & wherefores of any skill that are simply forgotten in the "push this button, and trust the computer" method of screwing things up.

 

[Bullwinkle]

In the modern surface navy and the merchant marine GPS is the primary form of navigation now and has been for a while. That is why the navy st Subs are a different animal and rely more on dead reckoning but even then they rely on GPS heavily.

I am glad the navy is going back to cel nav. As an engineer I never had to learn it but my deck friends all did and when done right pretty accurate. It is foolproof and has worked for thousands of years.

My source says GPS is back up.
I will stick with it until I have better evidence.
Subs can be under for days and weeks without even going to periscope depth.
Their internal navigation systems know their exact position to withing a few hundred feet with out a GPS fix.