Like Mr. Coats, I chased the subs around. The Russian subs in the 80's and early 90's made more noise than bad brakes. The US subs were impossible unless they were "augmenting". They live in the water and know it better than anyone.
A few Quick Sea Stories:
Barking Sands ASW exercise against a Boomer. The conduct of the exercise brief goes well. I decide to game (cheat) the initial portion of the exercise by laying a series of DIFAR sonobuoy's (which are passive devices) in front of the sub transit lane in the exercise area, which is on the map. Inside the tactical area: I have standards.
It is early evening, the moon is up and I can see the Boomer on the surface transiting.
Muahahaha.
I am at maybe 2000ft when the Boomer goes sinker, right into the "chevrons" of DIFARs I have spit. I watch it.
Best AW in the world is in my crew, I am in digital data link with my ship, three other ASW operators are using the sonobouy data in conjunction with us.
Zippy.
The Boomer disappears without a trace...eerie. When they "augmented" with sound, we found them.
Next.
AUTEC (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Undersea_Test_and_Evaluation_Center) in the late '80's: Big ASW confab to test the "new" stuff to find the subs. AUTEC is a remarkable range that can recreate entire exercises.
The CO of the LA Class sub we will be chasing is a really good guy. At the pre-brief we yuck it up and he invites me to spend a day on his boat during the exercise period, which was a three day event.
I learned more inside baseball in 24 hours than I could have imagined. They are spectacular at what they do.
I also hit my head on sub parts more than Hagler and Hearns hit each other...my dome looked like the craters of the moon.