USS Lassen. Navy photo.
The U.S. Navy appears to be quietly modifying some of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with a new sonar system possibly optimized for detecting increasingly quiet Chinese submarines.
Photos (before and after) of the destroyer USS Lassen show a recent addition to the 9,000-ton vessel’s fantail — her back-end — that could be the interface for a towed sonar array.
Quietly?
http://navaltoday.com/2011/03/28/lockheed-martin-to-build-multi-function-towed-array-sonar-systems-for-us-navy/
Perfectly common knowledge…
It’s existence is common knowledge, but which ships will get the array has not been widely discussed.