[Egypt] Operation Nautilus

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OPERATION NAUTILUS Classified Information ​

Operation Background

In order to enhance the egyptian armed forces capacity to detect hostile operations against the national sovereignty as far away from the coast as possible, the Egyptian Navy has decided to deploy a set of underwater monitoring station on the Mediterranean seabed, within international waters. The locations would be carefully studied and decided, after reviewing several bathymetric and current maps. The installations would be carried out by specialists on bord of the egyptian submarine rescue ships, and off the traditional maritime trade routes. They would always operate on international waters. No foreign territorial waters or EEZ would be breached. SOSUS (sound surveillance system) systems consisted of bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays connected by underwater cables to facilities ashore. The individual arrays were installed primarily on continental slopes and seamounts at locations optimized for undistorted long range acoustic propagation. The combination of location within the ocean and the sensitivity of arrays allowed the system to detect acoustic power of less than a single watt at ranges of several hundred kilometres. The underwater cables would go always within international and egyptian waters and would end in a new reception station in Sidi Barrani, Egypt.

Deployed Forces

ENS Rescue (A002) Belos-Class Submarine Rescue vessel 40x Navy Personnel 15x Mission specialists and technicians 3x SOSUS systems plus installation equipments. Underwater wire-installator and supplies. ENS Abu Hummus (C001) Molniya-Class Corvette x50 Navy Personnel x2 P-15 Termit 1x SA-N-5 MANPAD 1× 76 mm AK-176 dual purpose main gun 2x AK-630 30 mm gun or 1 × CADS-N-1 Kashtan CIWS All systems and radars operational.

Logistical Details
The monitoring stations would be deployed within international waters, on the seabed. On the eastern margin of sector KM. Points of deployment of the stations: 35°22'03.7"N 20°32'32.7"E 34°56'56.5"N 19°17'20.5"E 34°28'39.1"N 22°37'46.5"E The ships would depart fully supplied and crewed.

 

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The ENS Rescue would load all the necessary instruments, equipment and supplies to carry out their secret mission. The standard crew would mission specialists and technical staff would also board the Egyptian Navy's submarine rescue ship, converted in this occasion to a underwater/wire tender operations vessel.

This would all be done at the military sector of the Port of Alexandria, off limits to civilians. Few hundred meters away, in another dock, the ENS Abu Hummus would also get prepared for this escort mission. They would load all supplies and the indicated ammunition.

No trouble was expected for this mission, but should any foreign vessel appear, they would use a standard training operation as excuse.

Obviously, the objective of the mission would be secret for non-participating units.

They would depart early in the morning, with the high tide, and head northwest, directly to their first coordinates using only egyptian and international waters.

 

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The ENS Rescue and ENS Abu Hummus would arrive at the 34°28'39.1"N 22°37'46.5"E coordinates after some hours of navigation. The technical ship would position himself and maintain a steady heading and safe stance. On board, the technicians would begin preparing the equipment (including the hydrophone arrays) to be lowered and installed. The on board underwater rover would be also readied and prepared to conduct the installation.

The exact location would be defined by the specialists on board who would be carefully studied the bathymetric maps and geography of the seabed, as to find the most effective location (giving the array the best range possible) and the most convenient for the subsequent underwater cables to be tended.

In the meantime, the Abu Hummus would be positioned few hundred meters away, monitoring the area with its systems, looking out for potential maritime traffic.

 

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By now, the ENS Rescue's technical and specialists crew would have succesfully installed the first monitoring station on the previously indicated coordinates. Now, it would proceed to begin tending the wires that will connect this first station to the hub located in Egypt. For this purpose, the ENS Rescue would follow an previously studied route, slowly lowering the reinforced underwater communications cable to the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, and head towards the coast of Egypt doing this.

The ENS Abu Hummus would follow at a secure distance and provide coverage and area monitoring.

All this would be done in secret.

 

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The ENS Rescue would have by now arrived to the coast in front of the new Sidi Barrani reception station in Egypt and have laid the first leg of underwater cables. The last portion, connecting the cable over shallow water to the station, would be hidden under sand and gravel.

After the pertinent connections have been made, the technical egyptian navy ship would prepare everything and set sail back to the position of listening post #1 (34°28'39.1"N 22°37'46.5"E), where it would prepare everything to connect the extension of the underwater cable from there up to listening post #2, located on 34°56'56.5"N 19°17'20.5"E.

The ENS Abu Hummus would continue to provide coverage.

 

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Both ships would have arrived to the site of the second hydrophone. The ENS Rescue would have succesfully tended the underwater cable from the first station to the present location and connected it to this new monitoring station.

Once done and tested, the technical ship would prepare to set sail towards the third and last monitoring station (35°22'03.7"N 20°32'32.7"E), and lay the corresponding cable on its way.

The ENS Abu Hummus would continue to provide coverage and navigate few hundred meters from the ENS Rescue.

The operation would be going as planned until this point, with the installation of the cables and monitoring stations being complete on schedule.

 

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Arrived at 35°22'03.7"N 20°32'32.7"E, the mission specialists would proceed to lower and install the last of the hydrophones and connect it to the cable network that links them to the receiving station back in Egypt.

Once done, they would begin making test runs and look for errors, before moving on to fine tuning and calibrating the sensors and microphones.

This would be the last step and once done, the network would be fully installed and operational. Signals would begin been received back at the main station in Egypt and the secret monitoring of the eastern Mediterranean underwater and surface traffic would be online. This would allow the egyptian navy to detect submarines and surface vessels from several hundred km away from each hydrophone. The hydrophones owuld all the located at advatangeous angles and pointing towards the west and northwest, the most probable aproach route for hostile units.

Both ships would then return to their homeports and resume their routine operations on the fastest route possible.

Mission complete.