Is there any worry over transmitters being smuggled on to ships that could be activated in wartime to reveal a ships exact position or even be used by missiles for targeting ?
I mean an aircraft carrier must have a million places you could hide such a device and thousands of people have access to it including i guess civilian maintenance workers of all kinds ? And even the public during certain port shows etc.
While I suppose it is theoretically to smuggle a transmitter aboard a warship during peacetime for later wartime activation for tracking purposes, I do not see this as a particularly practical or viable tactic.
To begin with, a transceiver is required for the transponder, so that a potentially hostile nation can activate the transponder when needed and do so at standoff ranges. The other alternative is for the transponder to self-activate at a given time, of if is has a GPS or other navaid tied into it, once it reaches a particular location or waypoint.
Next, warships are essentially large metal constructs. As such, if some transponder was placed internally, it would have a very difficult, if not impossible time broadcasting with signal being able to 'exit' the vessel so that aircraft, other warships, milsats, ground stations etc can receive the signal. What this suggests is that any transponder would need to be located externally, and also most likely in a position where portions of superstructure would not block the signal. The best place for this would most likely be near where the vessels radars and comms antennae are located, since they are typically placed for maximum signal coverage/minimal interference. With that in mind, I do not expect ship tours to allow civilians access to a ships's antennae farm. In addition, that is an area which gets maintained by the crew while the ship is deployed on operations, which means that an antennae 'added' by a civilian yard contractor during yard maintenance would most likely get discovered rather quickly, unless the addition was part of a planned system installation and upgrade.
While there might be additional ways or carrying something like this out, there are also some additional complicating factors which I have not chosen to get into at this point. From a practical standpoint, I would expect those groups/nations which might have the systems in place (tech designs, agents in place, intel sources, etc) to actually attach a possibly useful transponder onto a warship, would likely already have systems which could all vessel tracking already.
-Cheers
