The historical requirement for many searching hulls is connected to a modern distributed-sensor concept. Multiple quiet unmanned surface vessels towing sonar arrays could spread around a convoy and stream their bearings to a command ship. That ship would fuse weak detections from several sensors into a triangulated contact rather than asking each small craft to fight alone. A helicopter could then investigate with dipping sonar and deliver a torpedo, making concealment progressively harder.
Notable Point · 35:00-36:43
Distributed sonar as a modern parallel
Unmanned sonar carriers around a convoy could combine bearings, triangulate a submarine, and cue a helicopter-delivered torpedo.